Computer for PP editing

[steverup50]

Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this - just hoping to get advice.

I have been editing with Premiere for 6 years, and I love this software. What I don't love is the computer I am using to edit. It is now 6 years old - a Dell XPS 9100, I7 CPU 930, 2.80 Ghz, 4 cores.

Whenever I work on any type of type of sequence in PP especially drone footage, and 4K, it constantly lags, gets held up in the timeline and quite frankly takes forever to render clips and export sequences. I can hear the computer get real loud as it tries to scrub a shot or during export. Also, whenever I add effects to a clips and then try to play the clip, it always gets stuck. I have to assume the processor is just too old. Then again, its an i7 so I am not sure.

in 2 months, I plan on buying a new computer and monitor. I surely could use some suggestions on what to buy.

First off I am a PC guy, so no MAC. I need a system that is under $1500 and will be a major improvement from what I have. Any suggestions on computer models would be so appreciated.

[Moderator note: moved to best forum.]

[Peru Bob]

steverup50  wrote

I need a system that is under $1500 and will be a major improvement from what I have.

Unless you are building it yourself, you will not likely find one in that price range.

[RjL190365]

Not right now, even if the thread starter is building it himself. You see, memory and GPU prices are astronomically expensive right now due to both memory production shortages and the cryptocurrency mining craze. At current prices, 32GB of DDR4 RAM and a GTX 1060 6GB GPU (the recommended minimum RAM and GPU to handle 4K comfortably) alone without any other components cost more than $1000. That leaves less than $500 total for the rest of the build (CPU, motherboard, case, SSD(s), PSU).

Or, he could get an i7-7820K CPU plus an X299 motherboard for around $1000 together - but then, 32GB of RAM would have eaten up almost the remainder of that total budget, leaving him with almost no room whatsoever for even a cheapo case. Or, he would have had to settle for only 8GB of total system RAM and only a GeForce GT 710 GPU - a terrible choice for a discrete GPU these days (as the LGA 2066 platform requires a discrete GPU just to even function at all).

And even an i7-8700 plus a Z370 motherboard would not have left him with sufficient remaining room for a sufficient amount of RAM and a decent GPU, after accounting for the costs of an all-SSD storage system, a decent case and a high-quality PSU. At best, he would have had to settle for only 16GB of RAM and only the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 as the system's sole GPU.

Worst-case scenario: If he does manage to fit everything but the CPU and motherboard into that $1500 budget, he'd have to step down to a GTX 1050 Ti just to even make enough room for a dual-core Pentium G4560 CPU and a cheapo H270 motherboard.

To recap: For $1500 he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place, since he would end up with either a system that's severely lopsided towards woefully insufficient RAM and a woefully inadequate GPU relative to the CPU or a system that's just plain weak all around.