Guy at work is a GP Moto racer and he has a helmet mounted 4k resolution cam he wants the best out of with his Video Editing. Obviously his 7 year old Dell is not cutting the mustard. He wants me to build him a custom PC. OK... No problem, except I'm used to building in the PC gaming segment of things which he has no interest in. He wants a build that is fast for his Ultra High Def 4k camera and to do some intermediate video Editing. His budget is only about $950 and I'm thinking with video editing that new generation i7 and a mid-rage MOBO would be best. I'm trying to stay below budget to make some money on this build. Is hyperthreading of the i7 the only way to go if he's doing Video editing? Or is there another alternative to save in that area on a CPU for his needs so I can get him an SSD? I just really hate to build these days without a good SSD and Fast Ram. Ideas for this video junkie whom is not a heavy gamer?
What software does he use? It is very important to know if the package supports CUDA/OpenCL/Software-only at which levels of the process. I'm only familiar with Premiere, and that it supports both platforms in the newer versions (Nvidia/AMD) for both prerendering, playback, as well as final rendering. I'm not too sure on the actual speed differences between NV/AMD (CUDA vs OpenCL), but either should do. I'm not too sure on the speed of Maxwell vs Kepler in Premiere, but from what I have seen quickly browsing around, a 670 seems to almost match a 290 in Premiere CC 2014. Multiple cards help more, but the rate of return is much lower than that first card vs software. You still must have ample RAM, CPU power, and disk speed too as any rendering/editing program taxes almost everything when its running the final render. If second hand parts are out of the question, ~950 is a bit tight. You won't be able to pack in a X99 system even if you have access to a Microcenter. This is assuming that budget is for the tower only as well. You must get a quality PSU since this machine will probably be on maximum load for prolonged periods of time. Here's a quick build to start you off but you need to cut down in some areas. Also try to color match the RAM to the motherboard (the current ones set are blue and red...), even though it may be never seen, I personally prefer it . A quick cut would be getting an i5 instead. You can probably find some cheaper motherboards too, but then you'll be trading quality for it. The cooler and case are really just placeholders. Get your friend to pick a style he likes for the case, and as long as you fit a good cooler, it doesn't matter (remember, this is going to be under heavy load for a long period of time). http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Fc3fjX The EVGA PSU is a Seasonic built one and a really good unit too. It seems like it is on sale so you could maybe snatch it up while you decide on the rest of the parts. http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=380 The main thing with tight budget builds is that sometimes those last 100-200$ causes a HUGE change in performance. I personally recommend you try to convince him to spend tiny bit more to get something that is all at least mid-range and will last him a bit longer than to compromise that graphics card/cooler/CPU.
