Hardware upgrade suggestion

[desymm]

Hey there. I currently use After Effects to edit videos. Most of the clips are 4k but I downscale them to 1080p but stilll without any effects just the clip imported to a 1080p composition and resolution set to 1/4 i get very laggy previews. I have to encode those to prores and then i can preview smoothly at 1/4 resolution but 1-2 effects make it laggy again. Im currently using a igpu. I want to know will a external gpu be enough to solve this problem or I need a entire new system for fixing this.

My specs:

CPU: Intel Core i3 10100

MOBO: MSi B560M Pro-E

GPU: Intel UHD630

RAM: Corsair 2x8GB

SSD: Crucial P3 Plus 1tb

[Peru Bob]

I've moved this from the AE forum to the Video Hardware forum.

@RjL190365 

[RjL190365]

You need an entirely new system, in this case.

You see, that i3-10100 is not suitable for video editing these days even with the most powerful GPU added because the GPU will become heavily bottlenecked by both the CPU which has only four cores (eight threads due to hyperthreading) and the PCI-e 3.0-throughput-limited bus. Worse, that CPU is now more than five years old, and is already in legacy support at Intel itself. And since Intel had discontinued all CPU production for Socket LGA 1200, you're stuck buying a used CPU.

As a result, there is no economically feasible upgrade path for your PC.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi, thanks for the question. Yes, your setup will let you run After Effects for basic comp scaling from 4K to 1080p, but expect slow previews and render times, especially if the downloaded media is low quality or uses odd codecs. The i3-10100 CPU and UHD630 graphics meet the minimum specs, but they're just enough for simple edits; RAM at 16GB is also the minimum, and your SSD will help with responsiveness. If you start layering effects or working with longer/slower footage, performance will drop. For basic resizing and exports with questionable media, you'll manage—but don't expect it to be fast or buttery smooth. If you plan to do more, consider a CPU/GPU or RAM upgrade down the line. Thx, ^KM