Photo/video editing setup (Intel HD Graphics 4600 or dedicated)

ronturon · September 6, 2014

Hello!

My old 6600 finally broke down and I am now looking on buying a new rig. I know very very little re hardware. All I know is the higher the number, the better.

I'll be using it mainly for Lightroom with thousands of photos and for some basic video stitching/color/editing. I got a free Vegas Pro and I want to learn it and "upgrade" from their Home studio. Not a gamer. Used to play DOTA and Ragnarok and that was it. I get dizzy on first person games, even on Minecraft. Maxing at 30 tabs on Chrome, with news and some videos from Youtube and Vimeo.

I went to a local computer shop around my city (I'm from the Philippines) and asked a quote for an i5 Haswell rig (because it's the latest[?]) with 8GB of RAM and video card with 1GB memory. Here's what they gave me:

Intel Core I5 4460 3.2GHz LGA1150 Haswell
Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2 1150, DDR3, D-SUB, 7CH, GLAN
4 GB DDR3 PC10600/1333
Palit GT730 1GB DDR3 128BIT
along with the hard disk, case, and other peripherals

So after googling each component, I found out that the video card is fairly new and is somewhat slow(?). Then I found out about the integrated 4600 on i5, Quick Sync and based from the tests I read, it is kind of amazing that it bests other dedicated cards considering that it is integrated.

I thought of downgrading and getting a GT210 instead but it seems that it's slower than the integrated GPU.

So, for my questions:

1. Do I really need the GT730 graphics card knowing that I won't be doing any hardcore gaming on it? I was told that it was a really good card, that even though it has 1GB (which I think is big enough) that it runs on 128bit anyway. I really know nothing about this. Having 2GB on the rig, definitely a luxury which is a no go.

2. Should I just ditch the GT730 and go with the integrated alone? Would the Intel HD 4600 suffice for my photo editing and basic movie clip editing?

3. If the card stays, could/would it work side-by-side on doing tasks? Or something like if the integrated is loaded then the dedicated would kick in like on laptops?

4. Would it be a waste not to use the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600 or it's just only me?

I don't need it blazing fast. I was OK of waiting for about 20 minutes for a 6 minute video to render on my old computer which I hope it's not that long with this new setup.

As for other suggestions on specific hardware, options are somewhat limited, which was why I asked for a quote of what they already have in-store BUT I would gladly accept suggestions if you think it would be better for the rig. I'll be checking them to their site, Enigma Phil, though it may be listed but it's not necessarily in stock. The whole package costs about 25000 PHP (570+ USD) which is somewhat pricy to me but seems like it's upgrade proof so it's a go.

Thoughts? Thank you in advanced.

PS. That's ungodly long, sorry.

MaDoHo · September 6, 2014

Stick with the integrated if you aren't gonna game.

qwertywarrior · September 6, 2014

stick with the CPU only

also the integrated GPU has pretty good OpenCL performance so it will be a plus

Timmyfox · September 6, 2014

For stuff like Lightroom and Photoshop, the integrated HD Graphics 4600 should do you fine. For bit more intensive stuff like video editing however, my experience is that a dedicated graphics card can indeed do you well. In this case though, a 730 wouldn't make much difference however. Rather I'd probably stick in something like a GTX 750 for CUDA (alternatively a R7 260/260X for OpenCL) which might make Vegas or any other video editing software run a little snappier.

Quicksync is fine for general use, but the way it works is that it actually trades a little bit of video quality for much more speed, so the resulting file you render out might not look as good and detailed as it should compared with the methods such as CPU-processing (AKA no acceleration, slowest) or CUDA / OpenCL (slower than Quicksync but quality shouldn't be affected, also a dedicated graphics card).

It all comes down to how much video you're planning to edit generally and also if you play any games at all. Aforementioned dedicated cards will be miles better than the intergrated HD Graphics 4600 for pretty much any game.

ronturon · September 7, 2014

Thank you for your replies. I'll just go with the CPU for now and see if everything is spiffy.

I'm reading more on OpenCL which the integrated has. Sealed the deal with "In this case though, a 730 wouldn't make much difference however." I'll just save for something substantially better than the 4600.

Thank you very much.

ronturon · September 7, 2014

I did read about the diminished quality of rendered video with Quick Sync, and that's not good so I'd just play with the render settings and find the best that looks good.