Hi EKSVid,
SoNic67 has made some good suggestions.
The reason the X5670 is good is 1) its a Xeon which gives u more and differently organized CPU cache, 2) it has sooo... many stinkin' cores, 3) the price to performance ratio is rediculous. That being said, if you wish to purchase new, get one of the Gen4 i7s. They have some new capabilites in their instruction set that more and more video editing S/W is tying speed increases to.
The clock speed of your CPU is important, moreso as the number of cores decreases, but still important. It will have a very direct affect on your editing and rendering. Also, please do not purchase an AMD for video. It's been demonstrated over and over that modern Intel CPU fare far better at processing video (not trying to start a war here).
I have 8GB of RAM in my system and find it to be entirely adequate for medium weight video editing. I have 3 different editing programs including PowerDirector and none of the grabs more about 6GB. There are different speed grades of RAM, but going from the average grade several steps up will buy you, perhaps, 1-2% improvement -- and cost you a whole lotta bux.
The disk vs. SSD conversation has been addressed above. However, if you are buying a mobile platform, SSD is more rugged. If your laptop gets dropped and you loose even 8 hours of work, you'll be very very unhappy. In addition when purchasing disks don't buy the consumer versions with a 1 year warranty. Though you are backing up your work (you are - aren't you!), to have a disk die in the middle of a project is a major set-back and you may still loose some work.
Now to the video card. If you're just starting out, and not doing 4K the new Gen4 i7s built-in video will work. I do not believe the onboard video (any onboard video) can do 2 monitors though. When your are ready, you can then add a good high-end card like SoNic67 suggested. Though I have an AMD card, at this time it appears PowerDirector performs better with an nVidia beastie.
OK, this one is often overlooked: Power Supply. Make sure you have a good, solid power supply that is rated to hand the load and then some. Look at the MTBF and also the reviews posted (some are lemons, even from a reputable highly-rated supplier). O, and get a UPS (backup power). If the power spikes or "goes brown", it can cause extensive and sometimes hard to pinpoint damage to your beloved video editing system (including the backup device if it is attached).
If buying used, the thing i'd be most leary about is the hard drives (how its been treated - dropped etc). Also, highly recommended: completely reformat the hard driver (or SSD) and do a full install of your OS. You will save yourself a world of trouble.
All IMHO -- of course!
Icue
This message was edited 8 times. Last update was at Mar 19. 2015 18:14
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