Hello all.
I am in the market for a new computer. This will be my daily driver but the main goal is to be able to edit and render videos quicker. Currently I am waiting about an hour to render a 4 minute clip for YouTube. Typically I import 30-60GB of 1080 footage into Kdenlive for each project. EVERY clip gets audio correction, color correction, transitions, most get some type of pan/zoom, and there is typically a background music track overlayed. For a good example of the video's I try to produce check out my latest few videos on my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/jayscustomcreations

Current system:
UbuntuStudio 64 bit
Dell Inspiron 531
-GeForce 8600GT
-2.6ghz AMD processor
-4gb DDR2 ram

Looking at getting this combo kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1189048
This kit does not come with a graphics card. Do I need a better processor or a better graphics card or both for increased Kdenlive performance? I may be wrong but you want a better processor for rendering and a better graphics card for in program video editing/playback, right? So would this bundle actually be of much benefit or would I be better off focusing on other computer specs? My budget is $700 USD max. Any and all help is greately appreciated.

What is the best tower you can build for Kdenlive for $700? I do not need a monitor, keyboard, speakers, or mouse.
Thanks for any and all help!

Hi Jay

I haven't built a system in a while but that price seem a bit high for a general purpose system. The CPU doesn't support hyper-threading and it only has four cores. To my knowledge KDEnlive doesn't support any kind of GPU co-processing. Therefore, I'd recommend a CPU with six cores instead of four and the highest MHz frequency. The more cores and the higher MHz are what we need for faster encoding. I don't know how many cores your current system has but didn't you enable all of them in KDEnlive's settings?

Everyone has a different opinion about building a news system. The best advice I recommend targeting a GAMER system build because its native architecture aligns very well with video editing. Tom's Hardware regularly post excellent well thought out system builder guides. If I were building today this $650.00 Gamer Build Guide would be my starting point. KDEnlive's Recommended hardware page is a little dated but the underlining logic is very good.

BTW: I was checking out your latest video on YouTube and I highly recommend lavalier mic or a Zoom H1 for your on-camera audio. No H8. Just looking out for another YouTuber.

Good Luck
Glenn Jerome.

Hi Jay

I haven't built a system in a while but that price seem a bit high for a general purpose system. The CPU doesn't support hyper-threading and it only has four cores. To my knowledge KDEnlive doesn't support any kind of GPU co-processing. Therefore, I'd recommend a CPU with six cores instead of four and the highest MHz frequency. The more cores and the higher MHz are what we need for faster encoding. I don't know how many cores your current system has but didn't you enable all of them in KDEnlive's settings?

Everyone has a different opinion about building a news system. The best advice I recommend targeting a GAMER system build because its native architecture aligns very well with video editing. Tom's Hardware regularly post excellent well thought out system builder guides. If I were building today this $650.00 Gamer Build Guide would be my starting point. KDEnlive's Recommended hardware page is a little dated but the underlining logic is very good.

BTW: I was checking out your latest video on YouTube and I highly recommend lavalier mic or a Zoom H1 for your on-camera audio. No H8. Just looking out for another YouTuber.

Good Luck
Glenn Jerome.

Glenn,

First, thanks for taking the time to reply. My shop has a horrible audio echo so I have been real hesitant to purchas a lav mic. I'm not quite sure if it will solve the issue.

I have been looking all over the net and it seems like you are in line with the majority of advice I have found. For that reason I have been looking more at this kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... bo.1430416
It has a 4.0ghz 8 core and from what I read is a great value for the money.

One thing that I am unsure about is the graphics card. This bundle has a Radeon HD 7870 2gb card. If the CPU is the main factor when editing than do I need such a big graphics card? Or does the graphics card help during the in program editing? Also, is 8gb of ram enough? I have 4gb right now and it maxes it out.

My current system is a dual core and yes I have both cores enabled in Kdenlive settings.

Thanks again for your input!

jbates wrote:First, thanks for taking the time to reply. My shop has a horrible audio echo so I have been real hesitant to purchas a lav mic. I'm not quite sure if it will solve the issue.

A lav mic generally picks up the sound from the throat, and can cancel some, or perhaps a lot of echo, depending on the situation. That being said, going cheap in that department will confirm your hesitation, as the low end lav mics generally enhance echo, IME.

jbates wrote:I have been looking all over the net and it seems like you are in line with the majority of advice I have found. For that reason I have been looking more at this kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... bo.1430416
It has a 4.0ghz 8 core and from what I read is a great value for the money.

One thing that I am unsure about is the graphics card. This bundle has a Radeon HD 7870 2gb card. If the CPU is the main factor when editing than do I need such a big graphics card? Or does the graphics card help during the in program editing? Also, is 8gb of ram enough? I have 4gb right now and it maxes it out.

I personally dislike bundles because they always include something I do not need or want. Here's my take on that bundle, however:

The video card is way too much. Not that it would hurt, but it's just taking up $ in the bundle. The FX-8350 is going to be significantly faster than what you have now, (think real-time or near real-time rendering), but clock speed and cores are not everything. Intel is more expensive, and with good reason. See here. A slower Intel processor with fewer cores gets significantly better performance than AMD offerings, but will be more expensive. Your budget will deteremine which is better for you. Nearly all Intel offerings now have graphics on chip, so with a compatible motherboard you wouldn't even need a graphics card. AMD's APU offerings are the same. The FX series does NOT have graphics on chip, and so would require a separate video card.

Do invest in an aftermarket cooler no matter what. The cooler that came with my 100w APU is downright dinky. Water cooling is not necessary, but it produces good results. In lieu of it, however, a beefy cooler like the Cooler Master 212, or something bigger, is a good start. My APU generally doesn't rise above 50 C with this cooler.

More RAM is always better. Personally, I try to do more at once, so I have 3 or more different browsers open concurrently, and a slew of other programs which has even driven my choice of window manager. I run 16GB and find myself having to shut down Chrome frequently. I don't notice too awfully much RAM usage from Kdenlive, but then I'm not doing a ton of effects just yet. Having the maximum number of MATCHED sticks that your motherboard can handle will boost performance, regardless of how many gigabytes that gives you (though given today's memory options, (smallest single stick in a matched set is 4GB that I've found) that would give you a minimum of 16GB)

You could do much better price-wise piecing together a system on your own.

Ranko Kohime wrote:

jbates wrote:First, thanks for taking the time to reply. My shop has a horrible audio echo so I have been real hesitant to purchas a lav mic. I'm not quite sure if it will solve the issue.

A lav mic generally picks up the sound from the throat, and can cancel some, or perhaps a lot of echo, depending on the situation. That being said, going cheap in that department will confirm your hesitation, as the low end lav mics generally enhance echo, IME.

jbates wrote:I have been looking all over the net and it seems like you are in line with the majority of advice I have found. For that reason I have been looking more at this kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... bo.1430416
It has a 4.0ghz 8 core and from what I read is a great value for the money.

One thing that I am unsure about is the graphics card. This bundle has a Radeon HD 7870 2gb card. If the CPU is the main factor when editing than do I need such a big graphics card? Or does the graphics card help during the in program editing? Also, is 8gb of ram enough? I have 4gb right now and it maxes it out.

I personally dislike bundles because they always include something I do not need or want. Here's my take on that bundle, however:

The video card is way too much. Not that it would hurt, but it's just taking up $ in the bundle. The FX-8350 is going to be significantly faster than what you have now, (think real-time or near real-time rendering), but clock speed and cores are not everything. Intel is more expensive, and with good reason. See here. A slower Intel processor with fewer cores gets significantly better performance than AMD offerings, but will be more expensive. Your budget will deteremine which is better for you. Nearly all Intel offerings now have graphics on chip, so with a compatible motherboard you wouldn't even need a graphics card. AMD's APU offerings are the same. The FX series does NOT have graphics on chip, and so would require a separate video card.

Do invest in an aftermarket cooler no matter what. The cooler that came with my 100w APU is downright dinky. Water cooling is not necessary, but it produces good results. In lieu of it, however, a beefy cooler like the Cooler Master 212, or something bigger, is a good start. My APU generally doesn't rise above 50 C with this cooler.

More RAM is always better. Personally, I try to do more at once, so I have 3 or more different browsers open concurrently, and a slew of other programs which has even driven my choice of window manager. I run 16GB and find myself having to shut down Chrome frequently. I don't notice too awfully much RAM usage from Kdenlive, but then I'm not doing a ton of effects just yet. Having the maximum number of MATCHED sticks that your motherboard can handle will boost performance, regardless of how many gigabytes that gives you (though given today's memory options, (smallest single stick in a matched set is 4GB that I've found) that would give you a minimum of 16GB)

You could do much better price-wise piecing together a system on your own.

Thanks for the reply. Could you suggest a better build for me? $700 budget.

jbates wrote:
Glenn,

First, thanks for taking the time to reply. My shop has a horrible audio echo so I have been real hesitant to purchas a lav mic. I'm not quite sure if it will solve the issue.

I have been looking all over the net and it seems like you are in line with the majority of advice I have found. For that reason I have been looking more at this kit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... bo.1430416
It has a 4.0ghz 8 core and from what I read is a great value for the money.

One thing that I am unsure about is the graphics card. This bundle has a Radeon HD 7870 2gb card. If the CPU is the main factor when editing than do I need such a big graphics card? Or does the graphics card help during the in program editing? Also, is 8gb of ram enough? I have 4gb right now and it maxes it out.

My current system is a dual core and yes I have both cores enabled in Kdenlive settings.

Thanks again for your input!

Jay,

I like that AMD 8 core chip and I think the price is in line with the system budget you've set. I'd pass on that bundle though. If I were in your situation, I'd stick with the with the AMD 8 core chip and pair it with an ASUS MOBO that supports USB 3 and 32 GB of RAM. An NVIDIA graphic card that supports VDPAU. A DVD, decent case and 8 or 16 GB of RAM. Move your old hard drive into your new system and boot (you may have to re-configure your /etc/fstab settings)! I'd hold off investing in more HD space until you decide if you want to build a RAID or not and how you're going to archive video you have already shot.

All of use who KDEnlive should realize that it is based on MLT , an open source multimedia framework. The command-line program melt is the actual program that does all the video processing. Therefore, I don't pay a lot of attention to non-Linux, or Intel vs AMD benchmarks because they are usually based on Windows systems. In Linux we can always recompile our kernels or the programs we like to our specific system. For instance, VDPAU is disabled by default in MLT.

That said I think you can drop your budget to $500 and plan on making upgrades at a later point. Once you've built a PC you have more options for expansion and upgrades. The quad core system I built for $500 almost five years ago included a 24" monitor.

There are lots of videos on YouTube like these Tip: Cheap Audio Sweetening.

Good Luck
Glenn

What about this...
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1HrtG
A LOT of people have told me that this cpu is a hidden gem and will run cooler than the FX. Whatcha think?

I like the CPU and the SSD drive. XEONs are server grade processors. It's more efficient than the AMD 8 cores.

I don't like a case with only 2 3.5 internal drive bays. I prefer a case that holds as many HDDs as possible.

Again the video card is overkill and it is not NVIDIA based.

Despite my preferences, it's a great system. It's a tested design. I think it will dramatically improve your rendering process.

GlennJerome wrote:I like the CPU and the SSD drive. XEONs are server grade processors. It's more efficient than the AMD 8 cores.

I don't like a case with only 2 3.5 internal drive bays. I prefer a case that holds as many HDDs as possible.

Again the video card is overkill and it is not NVIDIA based.

Despite my preferences, it's a great system. It's a tested design. I think it will dramatically improve your rendering process.

Thanks again for your knowledge here. This was a recommended setup by someone else, within my actual budget though. I do occasionally go through stages of playing games so the overkill video card doesn't bother me too much. Also, I forgot to mention but I use Google Sketchup through Wine every single day. Would that make a difference in the video card choice? If you could recommend a specific card to save some money and then use it to add wireless connectivity to the motherboard that would be great. The low HDD bay amount doesn't bother me. I just plan on having a SSD for OS, internal HDD for scratch, and one of my externals for storage. I don't see myself ever needing more. I am a complete noob on computer hardware so I apologize for all the questions.

And one really dumb question...If I were to purchase all of these parts would I need to buy any extra cables? Do they come with the appropriate cables? Sorry again for the dumb questions.

Thanks again for your knowledge here. This was a recommended setup by someone else, within my actual budget though. I do occasionally go through stages of playing games so the overkill video card doesn't bother me too much. Also, I forgot to mention but I use Google Sketchup through Wine every single day. Would that make a difference in the video card choice? If you could recommend a specific card to save some money and then use it to add wireless connectivity to the motherboard that would be great.

You're welcome. I'll try to find a video card recommendation for you. What are the titles of some of the games you play. What kind of WIFI network do you have?

And one really dumb question...If I were to purchase all of these parts would I need to buy any extra cables? Do they come with the appropriate cables? Sorry again for the dumb questions.

Nah that's not a dumb question. Most if not all of the internal cables you need are included with the motherboard. BTW what kind of video monitor do you have? Is it1080 HD? How does it connect to your tower?

GlennJerome wrote:

Thanks again for your knowledge here. This was a recommended setup by someone else, within my actual budget though. I do occasionally go through stages of playing games so the overkill video card doesn't bother me too much. Also, I forgot to mention but I use Google Sketchup through Wine every single day. Would that make a difference in the video card choice? If you could recommend a specific card to save some money and then use it to add wireless connectivity to the motherboard that would be great.

You're welcome. I'll try to find a video card recommendation for you. What are the titles of some of the games you play. What kind of WIFI network do you have?

And one really dumb question...If I were to purchase all of these parts would I need to buy any extra cables? Do they come with the appropriate cables? Sorry again for the dumb questions.

Nah that's not a dumb question. Most if not all of the internal cables you need are included with the motherboard. BTW what kind of video monitor do you have? Is it1080 HD? How does it connect to your tower?

Man you're awesome!

-I think I may just stick with the graphics card to prevent an upgrade down the road if I decide to start playing games more. My budget is really flexible so its not a deal breaker by any means.
-I get free WIFI from the apartment complex where I live. I don't know what type of network it is honestly. All I know is that I connect wirelessly and have proxy settings to use. Would a cheap wifi PCI-express card work or should I get a MB with it integrated? This has good reviews and is cheap...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... TL-WN881ND

Thanks again for all of your help. I should be ordering this tomorrow.

I'd go with that PCIe TP-Link card. It's compatible with Linux out of the box. I've heard nothing but good things about that brand.

Again, you're welcome. It's been a two way street. You really done your homework. I've learned a lot about what's available when I upgrade my system.

Please keep us updated as you build out your system. I would make a great YouTube video for your channel too. Hey, why not?

GlennJerome wrote:I'd go with that PCIe TP-Link card. It's compatible with Linux out of the box. I've heard nothing but good things about that brand.

Again, you're welcome. It's been a two way street. You really done your homework. I've learned a lot about what's available when I upgrade my system.

Please keep us updated as you build out your system. I would make a great YouTube video for your channel too. Hey, why not?

Will do! I think I will record the build as well. Thanks again!