Amateur Editor Looking for Upgrade

[Junpaku]

I am an amateur at video editing and have only used Vegas Pro. I'm planning to learn After Effects and the other Adobe softwares to edit videos. I'm planning to use a lot of effects on my videos. My current specs are as follows:

i3-3220

GA-B75M-D3H

2 x 4GB RAM

Intel 530 180GB SSD + 3.5TB HD

XFX 7870 DD

Win 7 Ultimate

 

I'm thinking that upgrading my CPU to an i7 and RAM to a minimum of 16GB. Do you guys have suggestions on which CPU/RAM I should get? Am I on the right track with the upgrading priorities? Do I also need to upgrade my GPU?

 

Please let me know if you need me to provide more info.

 

Any reply is appreciated.

 

 

[flibberdipper]

I would say get a 3770 and then leave everything else alone. But if you want to overclock, then you're gonna need a better motherboard.

[Laederem]

Your GPU isn't amazing, but it should be "ok" enough.

I'm not too sure about animation, but in your situation it will most likely benefit much more from jumping to an i7 vs some other processor and some other graphics card, which would probably be expensive and might not even yield the same performance.

Get the i7, unlocked with a Z97 board preferably but if not that's ok I guess, and match your current RAM set. They don't have to be the same exact sticks, but with the same voltage and frequency and timing, or at least close enough that it can be manually set to the highest voltage and lowest settings between the sets.

[Junpaku]

I would say get a 3770 and then leave everything else alone. But if you want to overclock, then you're gonna need a better motherboard.

I will consider this.

 

Your GPU isn't amazing, but it should be "ok" enough.

I'm not too sure about animation, but in your situation it will most likely benefit much more from jumping to an i7 vs some other processor and some other graphics card, which would probably be expensive and might not even yield the same performance.

Get the i7, unlocked with a Z97 board preferably but if not that's ok I guess, and match your current RAM set. They don't have to be the same exact sticks, but with the same voltage and frequency and timing, or at least close enough that it can be manually set to the highest voltage and lowest settings between the sets.

How would upgrading my GPU make a difference? I'll consider your suggestions on the MOBO, CPU and RAM. Is there a specific i7 that's best in terms of price:performance?

[Laederem]

I will consider this.

 

How would upgrading my GPU make a difference? I'll consider your suggestions on the MOBO, CPU and RAM. Is there a specific i7 that's best in terms of price:performance?

I don't know, I don't use any animation programs and don't know of any, but I assume they use some form of GPU acceleration. So a GPU upgrade would help for sure, but not as much as a better processor. 

 

Specifically... not really. If you can't afford a Z97 board and an unlocked i7, a locked i7 is fine too. But the extra boost (and pride) from the OC is nice to have. 

[Junpaku]

I don't know, I don't use any animation programs and don't know of any, but I assume they use some form of GPU acceleration. So a GPU upgrade would help for sure, but not as much as a better processor. 

 

Specifically... not really. If you can't afford a Z97 board and an unlocked i7, a locked i7 is fine too. But the extra boost (and pride) from the OC is nice to have. 

Alright thanks.

[SeanAngelo]

I am an amateur at video editing and have only used Vegas Pro. I'm planning to learn After Effects and the other Adobe softwares to edit videos. I'm planning to use a lot of effects on my videos. My current specs are as follows:

i3-3220

GA-B75M-D3H

2 x 4GB RAM

Intel 530 180GB SSD + 3.5TB HD

XFX 7870 DD

Win 7 Ultimate

 

I'm thinking that upgrading my CPU to an i7 and RAM to a minimum of 16GB. Do you guys have suggestions on which CPU/RAM I should get? Am I on the right track with the upgrading priorities? Do I also need to upgrade my GPU?

 

Please let me know if you need me to provide more info.

 

Any reply is appreciated.

i7 3770k

Z87/Z97

GTX 780/970

16GB RAM

[Naty722]

You definitely need as much RAM as possible, especially if you want to use After Effects. I have 32GB and still max it out. A good rule of thumb is at least 4GB per virtual core you have. Your processor cores aren't much use if they can't use RAM, so I would suggest at least 16GB of RAM before going crazy with the processor.

 

That said, you want as many cores as possible for video editing. If your budget allows, get an i7. Graphics card will help for using effects with premiere. As long as it's on this list (depending on of the version you have), it will automatically use it. Graphics card is actually not much use at all for After Effects unless you plan on using the Ray Tracer. I think you're probably set already.

 

I would consider getting another SSD though, for a scratch disk. But that would be the last upgrade I would do.

[Junpaku]

You definitely need as much RAM as possible, especially if you want to use After Effects. I have 32GB and still max it out. A good rule of thumb is at least 4GB per virtual core you have. Your processor cores aren't much use if they can't use RAM, so I would suggest at least 16GB of RAM before going crazy with the processor.

 

That said, you want as many cores as possible for video editing. If your budget allows, get an i7. Graphics card will help for using effects with premiere. As long as it's on this list (depending on of the version you have), it will automatically use it. Graphics card is actually not much use at all for After Effects unless you plan on using the Ray Tracer. I think you're probably set already.

 

I would consider getting another SSD though, for a scratch disk. But that would be the last upgrade I would do.

Thank you for your in-depth contribution. Why could I just not use my existing SSD as a scratch disk? (Well I guess because my OS is on it). Yea once I can afford it, I'm going to try for i7 ancd 32GB. And I guess its ok for me to just leave my 7870 then?

[Naty722]

Thank you for your in-depth contribution. Why could I just not use my existing SSD as a scratch disk? (Well I guess because my OS is on it). Yea once I can afford it, I'm going to try for i7 ancd 32GB. And I guess its ok for me to just leave my 7870 then?

 

Ideally you want your scratch disk to be a separate drive from where your project files are. That way it can read and write to the different drives at the same time.

 

And yes, your 7870 is probably perfectly fine for your purposes.