CPU or GPU upgrade?

[Brad109]

As an architect, my work computer is primarily used for architectural software (Revit, Sketchup, etc.). However, I also do all of our in-house photography, videography, etc. when our buildings are completed. So I use Premiere Pro to edit walk through videos I put together for our projects. My computer has been doing ok with 1080p footage but since I recently switched to shooting in 4k, it just can't keep up (even with proxies). I only get choppy playback in the timeline. I need to know if I can simply upgrade the graphics card to fix the issue or is my CPU so old that it won't really matter and it needs to be upgraded as well? My computer is around 5 years old. Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

Specs:

Dell Precision T5810

Intel Xeon CPU E5-1607 v3 @ 3.10GHz

16GB RAM

NVIDIA Quadro K2200  4GB GDDR5

[RobShultz]

My opinion is with the age of your computer it might be time for an upgrade to a new machine. 

[RjL190365]

Everything in that system needs upgrading, in this case. That Xeon, despite using the higher-end of its era LGA 2011 v3 socket, is only a 4-core/4-thread CPU that's actually weaker than a 4th-gen i5 CPU to begin with. And that Quadro K2200, being of the first-gen Maxwell architecture, is depreciated in the newest Quadro drivers that are also compatible with the newest Quadro chips.

To top it off, that system might not have an SSD at all - but might have only a single slow-performing HDD. And no single HDD can achieve an average transfer speed of even 150 MB/s, let alone the interface's theoretical maximum of 600 MB/s.

[Brad109]

That's what I needed to know. The computer does fine with the programs it was intended for originally. But I guess architectural software isn't as demanding as video editing. I appreciate the advice. 

[Andy 1968]

You can test to see if the CPU or GPU gets pegged at 100%. That being said you would not want to use an eight core CPU with a GTX 1050 nor would you want to use a quad core CPU with an RTX 2080 Ti. You need a matched setup. An i9 9900K and RTX 2070 is a decent setup in 2020 but the RTX 3080 will kick some serious booty. Keep in mind if you are going to get a new computer the Intel CPUs have Quick Sync as seen in the video below.

https://youtu.be/pE6t1ryanO4