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Computers, video cards and other hardware for 4K. What do you use?

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Finding now that my PC can't handle the 4K video that I'm capable of doing. It's an older AMD board with a NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT card. It can't keep up and video is jerky. What do you others have for hardware and cards that handle 4K without issues? I need to be able to view and edit without lags, crashes or other irritations. Going to get a new PC or build one. Need ideas and directions to go in. Wondering if a high level gaming PC would be up to the task. Thanks.
 
Just upgraded with a Dell XPS with a i7-7700 chipset, 16GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 video card. I will likely bump the RAM to 32GB, once I start doing 4K editing. Also by making the upgrade I did since Win10 was installed, I have been able to start using DaVinci Resolve for editing... since it wouldn't run on my Win7 setup. Paired with a Samsung 40" 4k as a monitor.
 
Your issue is that by upping your Ram to 32GB of DDR4 im assuming it really doesnt effect your graphics editting ability. I own an Alienware 15 R2 with an i7-6820 & GTX M980 that has 8GB GDDR5 Graphics memory & I also upgraded my DDR4 ram to 32GB but I dont Know why the DDR4 ram works in a different way than what DDR3 does & the difference I see between 32GB of DDR4 & 8GB of DDR4 is not near the difference I ever saw when doing the same upgrade with DDR3, So Im just saying that when you get whatever video card make sure you get one with the most GDDR5 graphics memory as possible because it is not upgradable like the Processor Ram in a PC can be! My Alienware is very capable of editting 4k Video Plus all Alienware laptop have a port that your able to possibly attach a 2nd Video card too just incase you really need graphics processing power which hasnt been of any issue for me! Thanks Tom
 
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Intel i7 6700K, GTX1080, 16Gb DDR4, Gigabyte Z170 Gaming K3, win10 64x.

For me its ok, mainly I edit at 1080p but edited my cgo3 4k videos without any problems.

Your config is too old for 4K. Gpu doesnt support video codecs, imo. For flawless 4k edit you should get better Gpu and Cpu. Gtx1060 should do the job.
 
My current laptop can't handle native 4K. I can, though, edit 4K using Filmora and I can view 4K, although very jumpy and stuttery, using the VLC viewer. But to see any video files without a stutter and without resorting to my video editor or VLC it has to be in 1080. So for any 4K stuff I have to render it down to 1080. A bit of messing around since if a client wants his stuff in 4K I have to do two renders...one in 1080 for me to evaluate and if that looks O.K. then a second render in 4K for the client.

It would be easier for me, then, to upgrade my computer. Currently I'm running with an i5 processor with 8gig memory and a Geforce GT420M CUDA with 1GB graphics card. Not enough. So to be able to work with 4K without the messing about I think I would need an i7 with at least 16gig (ideally 32gig) memory and a much better graphics card as an absolute minimum.

Indeed, on my way back from a doctor's appointment this morning I thought about calling into my local Computer store to have a nosy around on what was available. As it turned out, though, my stomach won me over and I went to Mc Donald's instead. So I'm gonna look on the store's web site later and if I see something that'll be up to the job and not too expensive, I'll pull the trigger.

I have an upcoming job to do for a group of Nordic Walkers on Crompton Moor (I received their request this morning). They want the video in 4K. It'd be nice if I can have a computer that is up for 4K for that.
 
Many thanks for these replies. Was looking at the Alienware stuff too. Dell scares me because of all that I hear/read about Dell just being invasive in your PC. Popups galore, random restarts and other interference that is built in by Dell and it doesn't seem like you can yank it out easily. Also looking into having one built so the comments on GDDR5 and cards is helpful.
 
Intel i7 6700K, GTX1080, 16Gb DDR4, Gigabyte Z170 Gaming K3, win10 64x.

Today i've exported 44min 4K video (different res of files from 4K to FHD). My PC handle it at 1h10min. GTX1080 did greate job. Exported with Vegas Pro.
 
Don't worry about being the best of the best. Down size and set to film on 1080p. it's still mainstream and perfectly great. Even on 60", it looks amazing.
Ask if your investment on new kit warrants the reward...
Sincerely..
 
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Don't worry about being the best of the best. Down size and set to film on 1080p. it's still mainstream and perfectly great. Even on 60", it looks amazing.
Ask if your investment on new kit warrants the reward...
Sincerely..
I need to buy a whole new PC anyway so I might as well start out with something decent. I can't edit even 1080 on the one I have now. I need to be able to cut, splice, color correct, edit and set to music and have each action work smoothly and have a great response time. I don't want to set the PC to a task and then go make lunch while it does it. Investment? There is that but, if I bite the bullet now, I won't be needing some other upgrade in a year. One less irritation. :)
 
If you're buying one anyway and you're editing video, go large on ram. But you'll probably have to go away while it renders. I use Sony Vegas and with 128G of ram is still takes a while. Good luck on the purchase.
 
If you're buying one anyway and you're editing video, go large on ram. But you'll probably have to go away while it renders. I use Sony Vegas and with 128G of ram is still takes a while. Good luck on the purchase.

Powerful GPU will helps too.
 
Finding now that my PC can't handle the 4K video that I'm capable of doing. It's an older AMD board with a NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT card. It can't keep up and video is jerky. What do you others have for hardware and cards that handle 4K without issues? I need to be able to view and edit without lags, crashes or other irritations. Going to get a new PC or build one. Need ideas and directions to go in. Wondering if a high level gaming PC would be up to the task. Thanks.
Another option that help when editing 4k is to create Proxies with your video clips. It speeds up and smooths the editing in premier.
 
Finding now that my PC can't handle the 4K video that I'm capable of doing. It's an older AMD board with a NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT card. It can't keep up and video is jerky. What do you others have for hardware and cards that handle 4K without issues? I need to be able to view and edit without lags, crashes or other irritations. Going to get a new PC or build one. Need ideas and directions to go in. Wondering if a high level gaming PC would be up to the task. Thanks.
If you are using Adobe Premier, you can use a "proxy". This means you edit a 1k file in the program. When it renders, it uses the 4k file.

Don't buy another computer or upgrade: this is a much cheaper route (free if you already use premier).

Apparently, it works (FREE!!!) on DaVinci Resolve (I have not tried it myself).
Faster Editing in DaVinci Resolve 12.5 Using Optimized Media
 
No Adobe Premier but DaVinci is very tempting. I have to upgrade from Win 7 Pro as DaVinci does not work with it. Upgrade to Win 10 might also cost me my monitor .. soooo will have to buy a new one of those as well. :) Gets better every min.
 
In my experience the bottlenecks are primarily on processor and HDD speed followed by media card and then memory.
If you stream h.264 encoded then the CPU plays an important role at the initial stage and final stage of the project (and during live previews at 4k) h.265 is even more cpu intensive and i usually stay away from it.
Harddisk read write latency is key and I would suggest an m.2 drive if possible. I throw OS on a SSD and have 2 1TB m.2 ($450 each) for my scratch drive (davinci optimized media location and source file location). I also have a standard HDD for other files that i need outside of video. Also assume all storage on PC is bound to be lost and make backups regularly. Which brings me to...
For long term video file storage I use a synology NAS. The original media, lightroom libraries, davinci project files and a copy of optimized files for active projects are backed up here.
For video card nVidia GTX 1080Ti has been phenomenol (I also game). Nonlooking back. I also have a GTX 970 for rendering the UI while 1080 is dedicated for rendering effects/video
Memory has never been an issue as long as you stay above 16GB. 32GB is good enough. There has not been a perciveable difference in DDR3 vs DDR4 for me.
CPU - AMD Ryzen
HDD - Samsung SSD/M.2 drives/traditional 3 or 4TB HDD
RAM - 16/32GB

If you are doing video editing full time or even 4hr per day consider better cooling components (liquid cooled) to keep performance consistent.

Factor in color calibration tools (colormunki etc) in your build.
 

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