Video Rendering PC

[Elvis Starburst]

I've gotten into making gameplay videos and posting them on my channel. I render them normally, but I throw my CPU up to 90-100% by doing this, and I slow everything else down. I kinda worry about doing anything else with it without risking blowing it up somehow. I'm considering getting a dedicated computer on the cheap to handle the process (with Sony Vegas 12). There's one for $370 with specs as such:

Intel Pentium J2900 2.4 GHz
Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail)
4GB RAM (I can upgrade it easily)

I don't need it to render at lightning speed. If it has to take an hour or so to render a 10 minute video at 30FPS 1080p, I don't mind.

Alternatively, there's a $500 option that has this much:

Intel i3 4150 3.5GHz
Intel HD Graphics (Haswell)
8GB RAM

While I don't have a specific budget, keeping it at this level would be great. If both of these suck, is there a custom build I can make for $350-500 that'll do better than this? (Preferably on the lower price spectrum, I already have a custom desktop). I would have to add Windows 7 to the cost, so, these systems already have it in place as a massive bonus.

What do you think, Escapists? I'd really appreciate your feedback!

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Where are you looking for these components or is this an full computer we are talking about?

The processors are weak, but will work for rendering. Its the graphics card I'm worried about. I can't seem to find anything about them having on board memory and honestly, while it does support things like Directx11, my BFG Nvidia Geforce 250 GTS has more power than that. Its a 180 dollar card...

Keep in mind it depends on what kind of editing your doing. I can tell you a 10 minute video at 1080p could take 30 minutes or it could take 12 hours. It depends on what your doing. If you plan on editing with multiple layers, maybe throwing some animation into the picture, you'll need at least 4gb of RAM. Though on personal experience its still restrictive. You also need a card with on board memory as it needs to load the frames for render.

Ideally I would go

with Nvidia GeForce card that has 1GB of memory and is at least a 250. Also 2 DVI ports (dual screen is an editors best friend)


6GB of RAM. Nothing less than DDR3 also consider how many slots you have. Throw in three 2GB sticks etc.

Your processor is ok, but keep in mind you may find it cheaper elsewhere. Intels website recommends selling them for $138.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Where are you looking for these components or is this an full computer we are talking about?

The processors are weak, but will work for rendering. Its the graphics card I'm worried about. I can't seem to find anything about them having on board memory and honestly, while it does support things like Directx11, my BFG Nvidia Geforce 250 GTS has more power than that. Its a 180 dollar card...

Keep in mind it depends on what kind of editing your doing. I can tell you a 10 minute video at 1080p could take 30 minutes or it could take 12 hours. It depends on what your doing. If you plan on editing with multiple layers, maybe throwing some animation into the picture, you'll need at least 4gb of RAM. Though on personal experience its still restrictive. You also need a card with on board memory as it needs to load the frames for render.

Ideally I would go

with Nvidia GeForce card that has 1GB of memory and is at least a 250. Also 2 DVI ports (dual screen is an editors best friend)


6GB of RAM. Nothing less than DDR3 also consider how many slots you have. Throw in three 2GB sticks etc.

Your processor is ok, but keep in mind you may find it cheaper elsewhere. Intels website recommends selling them for $138.

These are pre-built PCs. And the level of editing I'm doing is simply fading the audio in and out. Nothing fancy. Here's some benchmarks for the HD Graphics: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-Bay-Trail.103037.0.html

 

[Laughing Man]

If you're stuck with just those two then the second option is the better choice.

The I3 not only runs faster than the Pentium it is also a better chip, the system also has more memory. Those two factors are the bigger issue in video rendering. Since you're not using the system for gaming it doesn't really matter what graphics card you're running.

Throw in three 2GB sticks etc.

He would be better with 2 x 4gig sticks, then the memory will run in Dual Channel mode, since the CPUs are fairly low spec none of them are capable of triple channel mode so he would actually be slowing his system down slightly by installing 3 x 2 gig of Ram.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

If your just audio editing I'd say stick with your first option and go spend an extra 40 bucks on a good sound card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102062

 

[SnowyGamester]

You could always just try setting the application process to a lower priority or set the affinity to only the secondary cores on your current computer. Will probably take longer to render but will leave resources available for other applications and probably still be faster than using a dedicated but relatively junky computer assuming your current rig is decent.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

You could always just try setting the application process to a lower priority or set the affinity to only the secondary cores on your current computer. Will probably take longer to render but will leave resources available for other applications and probably still be faster than using a dedicated but relatively junky computer assuming your current rig is decent.

I've read not to adjust the cores being used too much, but, it might be worth a shot... I'll try it out~ (Also, yes, it's very decent)

 

[Twinrehz]

Looking at the specifications of the pentium processor, it would be your best bet in this case. It runs 4 physical cores, while the i3 only runs 2 physical with 4 logical (HyperThreading). What this means is that while the i3 could be considered a 4 core processor, the actual clock frequency is divided between 2 jobs, meaning that 4 physical cores will be faster.

This is of course provided the program you use supports more cores. Hearing how it slows down the entire system, that might be the case, but it's not guaranteed.

What's most important is having enough RAM, which reduces the load on read/write to the hard drive, which also is slower. The pentium processor doesn't support more than 8GB, according to ARK.

If you want a cheap rendering rig, I'd actually advise you to look into AMD processors. They're cheaper, though they get significantly hotter, so they require better cooling options.

Also, you might not be working with heavy stuff now, but do you think it'll be heavier in the future?