Graphics card for video editing

[GrahamS]

Evening Guys,
I'm not really clued up on PC specs but I've been doing some video editing with Vegas 13 recently, it's really jumpy and can't even display a smooth low quality preview. The main video is generally OK although sometimes it's a bit laggy. This is causing a particular problem because my go pro has been recording video and audio out of sync so I have to render each time I want to see if my offset is correct.

Wondering if I need a graphics card or to change some specs on the PC. It's a fresh install PC which is used for nothing other than Visual Studio and video editing. I use my laptop for everything else.

PC is the following spec and is as I was given it.
Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
4gb RAM
Intel Core 2 4400@2GHZ

As far as I know it doesn't have a graphics card as it's a PC usually for office work so no fancy visuals needed.

Not looking to spend much at all but happy to hear your thoughts on what could improve the editing experience for me.

TIA
Graham

 

[Darren S]

When you say a Core 2 CPU, are you referring to a Core 2 Duo? That won't be up to much at all and 4GB of memory is a bit short for Windows 10.

A dedicated graphics card would be good - if you're budgeting around the £200 mark, I'd suggest the AMD RX 470 cards - ideally the one with 8GB onboard.

Any idea of the make & model of the PC itself?

 

[SharkyUK]

Sadly you're always going to be struggling editing video with the spec you list there mate. You would see considerable benefits by increasing the RAM (16GB would be nice for editing movies), using a fast hard drive (i.e. an SSD) and a discrete GPU (to offload some of the work and number-crunching to the graphics card). The CPU you mention is also a little on the weak side (no disrespect intended!) hence a stronger CPU would serve you well. I'm not sure how you would see appreciable performance benefits without shelling out a few hundred pounds at least unfortunately.

 

[GrahamS]

When you say a Core 2 CPU, are you referring to a Core 2 Duo? That won't be up to much at all and 4GB of memory is a bit short for Windows 10.

A dedicated graphics card would be good - if you're budgeting around the £200 mark, I'd suggest the AMD RX 470 cards - ideally the one with 8GB onboard.

Any idea of the make & model of the PC itself?

Sadly you're always going to be struggling editing video with the spec you list there mate. You would see considerable benefits by increasing the RAM (16GB would be nice for editing movies), using a fast hard drive (i.e. an SSD) and a discrete GPU (to offload some of the work and number-crunching to the graphics card). The CPU you mention is also a little on the weak side (no disrespect intended!) hence a stronger CPU would serve you well. I'm not sure how you would see appreciable performance benefits without shelling out a few hundred pounds at least unfortunately.

Thanks for the advice chaps The PC was free so it's a shame but by no means am I gutted! Have no idea of the model number, I just copied the spec directly from the system info page. It's HP, that's all I know!
Think I might be best buying one of those pre-built things from ebay with a decent spec, they seem to be a good package of things minus the SSD.

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

You shouldn't have to spend much to get a big upgrade from what you've listed so far. A GPU is not your problem there either, you want a modern CPU. 6600K or 6700K if you have the money (6600K is better value for money, but the 6700K is better) and more RAM.

SSD and a half decent GPU will also be good to have, but the CPU and memory are top of your list.