I have been using Kdenlive for a while now and really like the software. I am building a new PC and wonder what's most important for a good video editing experience?

Right now, my biggest frustration is when I am previewing several video effects at once. The preview playback will be really choppy sometimes. I do know about proxy clips. I usually don't use them, especially on my really short videos. Can I cut back on this choppy playback with more RAM? More CPU power? More GPU power? More GPU RAM?

Does the number of CPU cores / threads have an affect on previewing the project?

I don't need blazing fast rendering times when I finish a project, though it is nice. When I finish a project, I'm usually happy to tell it to render in the background while I go do something else.

I'm leaning towards AMD CPU and GPU, because I think I will use the machine for cryptocurrency mining, and apparently, AMD is better suited for that for some reason.

Hey im no kdenlive expert but I think I might be able to help. It really depends on what your going to be doing. if you want to be able to render a video while browsing the web and doing other things then I really think you would really benefit from a ryzen system. I have one and its a BEAST render times are fast and scrolling on the timeline is smooth and can do whatever i want in the background as i please. Also you might want to render using kdenlive preview(tutorial is linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwC-ZPnxsVs). Also here is a tutorial on how to use proxy clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhtprdwLkA8. That should make the kdenlive experience alot better. Another tip to increase rendering performance is to enable kdenlive to render on multiple cores(tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGQL56QqSGE). If you would like to improve performance of kdenlive as well you can enable the experimental GPU acceleration feature so you can move some of the load on the GPU along with gpu based effects.

For the cpu i recommend the ryzen5 1600X as it has 6 cores 12 threads and allows you to render really fast in kdenlive while doing some stuff in the background. Plus it comes in a high enough speed that you dont have to overclock. If you DO like to overclock then get the ryzen5 1600 as it has the best bang for the buck and comes with a cooler(and you can even overclock a little on it too). I have a Ryzen 1700 and LOOOVE IT!!!..XD


As for the gpu I would always recommend AMD as having to mess with proprietary drivers and driver problems(on the NVIDIA side) in kdenlive are awful. AMD is just plug and play from my experience everything pretty much just works as it is open source. For gaming at standard resolution(1080p) I recommend any model RX470,480, RX 570, RX 580, or RX VEGA 56. DONT get the RX VEGA 64 its a terrible bargain(at least at the price that it is at right now).