It would help to know more about your system. CPU speed is important but the architecture (i3, i5, i7) and generation (3,4,5) for Intel CPUs are more so. Newer processors do more work when running at the same speed as older ones.

I haven't seen your other posts, but if you could please attach the DxDiag results I'm sure you'd get some solid recommendations if you're looking to upgrade or buy a new system.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Okay sounds good; here you go

Wow, that was quick

Your RAM looks good, but you'd definitely see an improvement if you could upgrade your CPU to an i7, and a much bigger increase if you plugged in a stand-alone video card like an nVidia GTX960.

Here's a comparison of your CPU and the one in my *system*

You can see that the i7 has a 33% higher clock speed (33% "more hertz") but it's almost twice as powerful. A new video card would cost around $200 US and you'd really see the difference when editing and producing - you'd see waits of only a second or so and usually much, much less.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Well then, I'll have to look for that stuff! Thanks an insanely lot!

Davoo, Not sure about your workflow - I see you use a HDD as your C drive and it is also getting full.
You might have that drive for some time already - so make sure you check it for errors and defragment it if needed.

You might also want to look into replacing boot drive (C (that runs your OS and Apps) with an SSD.

Regarding the graphics card.
I have read conflicting statements on the benefits.

optodata,
- I understand that it will give you a boost when producing a video (depending on what format you produce)
- It will render fx from the timeline quick
- what else?
-How much benefit would you get in editing using a gtx 960 vs my old HD 5450 (like mine) vs an integrated one I think Davoo is using ? Win8.1 Pro x64 / Dual x5670 / 24GB / GTX960 4GB / 240GB SSD + 640GB HDD / PD13 Ultimate

EKSVid, good call on the SSD! OP was focused on CPU speed and I missed the big gains that would come from an SSD C:\drive.

For the video card and CPU ratings, the favorite site on the forum is Passmark.com. It's easy to use and can show you comparisons of any number of different cards or chips. For example, *this* is how your current card compares with OP's integrated HD4600 and the GTX960 I suggested. Not pretty, is it? On the other hand, you can easily imagine at how much faster PD will run if you got a new card!

There's a great big caveat with these benchmarks, though. The cards are rated by how fast they can render video games, not actual video. While those two roles have a lot in common, the game-only benchmarks can be off significantly when it comes to video rendering performance. This is especially true for the integrated Intel HD GPUs. They don't look like much on the game benchmarks but they're very good at rendering video, which was what they were designed for.

If you look at these two *cards* you'd think that the GTX780Ti was 50% faster than the GTX960. For games that's true, but for video rendering they're essentially identical because the 960 has a hardware H.265 encoder and decoder built-in. Basically, it can match the 780Ti's video performance with better hardware and for 1/2 the price, and the only thing you're "giving up" is game performance.

As for where you'd expect to see the improvements in PD, basically everywhere! Previewing, editing, opening/closing windows to adjust clips or effects will all use the extra horsepower and will work much faster. The same goes for producing, although some people prefer the smooth (but slower) results of using just the CPU to the brute-force (but much faster) results from using the video card HW. It's really a matter of personal preference, and in many videos there's no noticeable difference, so having a powerful video card will speed up your editing experience and gives you the option and ability to get your videos finished much quicker!

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Thanks optodata

I use Passmark.com as my first stop for all new hardware and yes, for graphic cards it is all about gaming performance first.

This guy has a great tutorial of what hardware components have the biggest impact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haP2aT_kpJo

You have to get all the way to the end of the video to see the impact of the video card - he uses a GTX980 (he is testing Adobe - but PD would be similar).
What I gathered from that is that it would not be a big difference for me.
I have 12 "actual" core (dual processor), so my cpu is not an issue I have no issue with produce time. The only reason I would buy one is to get a lot better experience during editing (and to play some good games )
Win8.1 Pro x64 / Dual x5670 / 24GB / GTX960 4GB / 240GB SSD + 640GB HDD / PD13 Ultimate

Eidor stated that the gtx 960 made his video editing experience very good. Another member stated that his nVidia performance card makes no difference on his 4Ghz Overclocked PC. I still thing the cpu speed is the most important.