You don't need to have a dedicated video card to edit and produce videos, but having the right one will make producing much faster if you're using H.264 (AVC) or H.265 (HEVC) encoding. It won't help at all if you're producing to WMV or MPEG-2 for DVDs.

If your new computer has an Intel CPU, PD can use its built-in QuickSync hardware encoder to produce to those standards, or you can get an nVidia or AMD GPU with the appropriate hardware for PD to utilize.

As seen in this nVidia table, the GTX1060 has the same supported formats as the RTX series with the exception of HEVC B-frame support. PD doesn't actually support that feature at this time so you won't miss out by having the older GTX card.

Quote I'm having a new computer build as my current one is on its deathbed.

It is good that you are having a computer built instead of putting one together yourself. A $300 RTX 2060 may sell for about $1200 now. Used GTX 1060’s can sell for 900 to 1k now. The cheap GT 1030 still sells for 50 to 100. Demand has created a shortage for the good video cards.

Quote ...The cheap GT 1030 still sells for 50 to 100.

That card doesn't have any NVENC silicon though, so PD can't use it. A GTX1050 would work, or at least a GTX750 / 950-960 to get HEVC encoding.

Quote You don't need to have a dedicated video card to edit and produce videos, but having the right one will make producing much faster if you're using H.264 (AVC) or H.265 (HEVC) encoding. It won't help at all if you're producing to WMV or MPEG-2 for DVDs.

If your new computer has an Intel CPU, PD can use its built-in QuickSync hardware encoder to produce to those standards, or you can get an nVidia or AMD GPU with the appropriate hardware for PD to utilize.

As seen in this nVidia table, the GTX1060 has the same supported formats as the RTX series with the exception of HEVC B-frame support. PD doesn't actually support that feature at this time so you won't miss out by having the older GTX card.

Thanks, and to all others who posted. It seems impossible to get hold of a decent video card in the UK at the moment, and they're going for silly prices on Ebay. My current one has an AMD Radeo HD 6450 which seems to be doing the job, so I'll just transfer that to the new computer for now until I can find an updated one. He's going to look for the relevant Intel CPU anyway.

Quote You don't need to have a dedicated video card to edit and produce videos, but having the right one will make producing much faster if you're using H.264 (AVC) or H.265 (HEVC) encoding. It won't help at all if you're producing to WMV or MPEG-2 for DVDs.

A good GPU can help significantly, even for MPEG2, there is always the decoding side so it depends heavily what the source video is that the user wants to create a MPEG2 format for DVD from. Factors of 1.5X overall encode improvement can be achieved which is pretty substantial.

Quote As seen in this nVidia table, the GTX1060 has the same supported formats as the RTX series with the exception of HEVC B-frame support. PD doesn't actually support that feature at this time so you won't miss out by having the older GTX card.

A little misleading statement, the table only refers to formats, not necessarily format specifics. For instance, the GTX can support H.264/60i formats in PD while the RTX can not. Important for those users that need that capability.

Quote Thanks, and to all others who posted. It seems impossible to get hold of a decent video card in the UK at the moment, and they're going for silly prices on Ebay. My current one has an AMD Radeo HD 6450 which seems to be doing the job, so I'll just transfer that to the new computer for now until I can find an updated one. He's going to look for the relevant Intel CPU anyway.

You might look at EVGA. For current models in production, they let you get on a wait list and you have 8 hrs to accept once your turn in the queue. I've had several users that have been successful with that approach. Price in USA is not inflated with approach.

Jeff