RAM or CPU upgrade

IAmAndre · February 24, 2018

Hi,

I've started learning video editing and I'm using an aging desktop, which I will replace next Christmas with a gaming laptop. I currently have a core i3 4130, 8GB of Ram and a GTX 750. I'm using Premiere Pro and After Effects, and of course the experience isn't the smoothest ever. Rendering time isn't a huge deal for me since I can do something else while the videos are rendering, but what's really frustrating is the fact that I can't preview more than 5 seconds of video when I add complex effects in After Effects. Now I'd like to know if buying an extra 8GB of DDR3 RAM would help solve the previewing issue. Is this more CPU-dependent or RAM-dependent?

Thanks

3 Lions · February 24, 2018

Because this is a Haswell based system I'd recommend you upgrade your CPU to an i7 4770 or 4790 and get 16GB of RAM.

IAmAndre · February 24, 2018

14 minutes ago, LinusTechTipsFanFromDarlo said:

Because this is a Haswell based system I'd recommend you upgrade your CPU to an i7 4770 or 4790 and get 16GB of RAM.

Actually I'm saving money to get a new laptop at the end of the year so I'd rather spend as little as possible. I did consider getting a new cpu but at the price of a 4770/4790, I'd better off spending a little more and buy a Ryzen-based system. That said, I decided to get a laptop instead to be able to travel with it.

Zodiark1593 · February 24, 2018

12 minutes ago, IAmAndre said:

Actually I'm saving money to get a new laptop at the end of the year so I'd rather spend as little as possible. I did consider getting a new cpu but at the price of a 4770/4790, I'd better off spending a little more and buy a Ryzen-based system. That said, I decided to get a laptop instead to be able to travel with it.

The likely nail-in-the-coffin bit to a RAM upgrade would be the fact that you cannot carry over DDR3 to a new build, and would be completely wasted upon a platform upgrade. While not as pricey as DDR4 is now, it isn't exactly cheap either.

IAmAndre · February 24, 2018

59 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

The likely nail-in-the-coffin bit to a RAM upgrade would be the fact that you cannot carry over DDR3 to a new build, and would be completely wasted upon a platform upgrade. While not as pricey as DDR4 is now, it isn't exactly cheap either.

But as I said, there is no new build planned. I'm getting a laptop. Actually, the question was whether buying some extra ram would fix the previewing issue.