Laptop for HD video editing - £400 Budget

diffrent-gravy

Standard Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2009
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
3
Hello,

I have recently got a couple of HD camera, one being a GoPro and i am starting to get into video creation/editing as a hobby (not a pro).

My old Acer laptop crumbles when trying to do anything with HD video, its specs are:
-Acer 7720G
-Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 (2.0GHz,667 MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache), got no idea what any of that means apart from 2GHz speed.
-4 GB Ram DDR2
-upto 1535MB Nvidia GeForce 9300M B Turbocache

My computer has a fault with the graphics card which i have known about for some time. Nowadays i could be watching a video file of something on youtube/BBC iplayer and everything slows down, goes glitchy etc to the point that it is unwatchable and the laptop overheats. I am no expert but i guess this is due to the CPU overheating as it tries to do 2 jobs by compensating for the graphics card not working?

My first question is if i upgraded the graphics card in my current laptop, would my current spec be good enough for HD video editing without long lags? A small lag would be OK as i am not a pro and will not be editing every day.

My 2nd question is what exactly do i need for HD video editing? Ive researched for weeks on the internet and have generally found people recommending core i5 processor, min 4GB Ram, decent HD size. Recently i have found people recommending a dedicated graphics card aswell, can anyone tell me how important this is?

My budget is £400 and i am comfortable with a refurb/outlet machine for this price. I have found a Dell ex-display model which should be good as new. Its specs are;

-Intel core i5-2410m
-6GB Ram
-500GB HD (Would prefer bigger but i cant have everything for my budget)
-1 GB nVidia GeForce GT 525M
-I assume the Intel HD 3000 inbuilt graphics would come as standard aswell, so the computer would switch between the 2 for power saving purposes.

I can get this laptop within my £400 budget. Is it a good buy? Does anyone have any other recommendations?

Thank you so much for your help and apologies for the essay of a question.
Jamie
 
I would buy that for £400 if I wanted a laptop, you could do some gaming on it with the dedicated graphics. It does strike me as a very good deal. I guess a quad core CPU would be better for editing but I doubt you can get one for that price
 
Thanks for your help. Ive found:

Toshiba
i7-2670qm
2GB Nvidia GeForce 525m
750gb hdd
8gb ram

I think it will end up spiking a bit out of my price range however :(

If i went for an i7 cpu, how important is it to have dedicated graphics? Ive been told that having a 2gb graphics card would be ideal but obviously this adds cost. I guess what im asking is if i pay extra to upgrade to i7, do i still need to fork out for dedicated graphics or would a machine with Intel HD graphics, UMA or other shared graphics do the job?

This is another machine im looking at ASUS A53E-SX1339S . It will end up cheaper than the other one but had a smaller hdd and no dedicated graphics.

Thanks again
 
Last edited:
A good CPU is far more important for video editing than a dedicated video card as most editing software wont make any use of it and pass all processing to the CPU.
For HD you really do want to be using a quad core CPU as the programs will make use of multiple cores/threads.

I use a 2600K PC with just the onboard graphics on my Z68 motherboard for video editing and have no issues with this setup - I even run 2 monitors which is very handy for video editing where you can have lots of info onscreen. A few editing programs can pass some processing to a dedicated GPU, but this only really speeds up rendering rather than making the actual workflow smoother - do a search for the likes of CUDA.

Mark.
 
Thanks.

I managed to snap up the above machine for what i think is a steal of £520. It still has 10 months international warranty. From what i can tell the 2GB nVidia 525m that is in this laptop features the CUDA technology?

Would you agree this is a good deal and will more than suit my needs?

Jamie
 
Last edited:
Would you agree this is a good deal and will more than suit my needs?
Well try it and see how it handles it. But on paper it looks plenty good enough to me for your stated needs :smashin:

Mark.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom