Solved Inexpensie laptop for video editing?

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Brandon Byrnes

PCHF Member
Jan 3, 2017
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Wisconsin
My current setup is a HP ProBook 450 G3, with a Core i7 6500U, 16GB of DDR4 2400 RAM running in dualchannel mode, a 256GB M.2 SSD for my OS and programs, and a 1TB SSD for storage. My "grapics card" is the onboard Intel HD 520. So long story short when i go to export the edited video it is basically killing my CPU at a continuous 100% usage. And it also takes almost a hour to export a 15min video in 1080P. So I am looking to upgrade. I saw that it's possible to buy a external graphics card, but was wondering if that would make any difference. I see some going for about $300 on Amazon.
But really I was thinking of just getting a different laptop. I was hoping for something in the $700-$800 range. Everywhere I looked it seemed like anything decent was around $1300. I'm looking for something with a better CPU and a better graphics card. I'm not worried about RAM or storage because I can just cannibalize my current laptop for those (if the RAM is the same) Any suggestions would be appreciated. I saw alot of laptops with i5's I know that could be better then what I currently have since really mine is only a dual core i7. Oh and I'm using VideoPad Pro for editing. I tried looking at financing but my credit suck, lol.
 
Here's my spin on your situation.
If money is tight, the first thing I would try is a fresh install of Windows in the hope that you'd get the PC back to what it was speed wise.
You have everything to gain and just time taken to lose.
Failing that, your options are limited and expensive.

As you have discovered, to get a decent rig, you have to shell out decent money.
There just isn't any other way to skin that cat.
And since performance is the very reason driving you down this path, why even consider skimping to only find you have shelled out for a newer version of the same problem.

I agreed with your statement to look at something with a better CPU and graphics card.
Your external card option, I think, is flawed as surely the setup will only be as fast as the slowest link, and that would be how this external card plugs into the laptop - USB3?, Thunderbolt? Does your current laptop have these?
The PCIx16 bus would have to be faster than the external box connection. So a laptop with a good card would be my suggestion, but happy to be proved wrong.

This is sadly one of those problems that the more money you throw at it, the better the outcome.
And there-in lies your predicament...
 
Sorry for the late reply. I do have a couple USB3.1 ports, but no thunderbolt. Also I did a fresh install about two weeks ago, and basically downsized the programs I have on my laptop. I was actually thinking of maybe just building a rig, I would think it would be less expensive then buying a laptop for video editing especially down the road since I can upgrade parts on a desktop when needed. I'm definitely not a expert when it comes to video editing so I'm not exactly sure what I would need hardware wise for a decent video editing rig. But really anything has to better then my crappy 2 core i7 and onboard intel 520 graphics card.
Do you have any suggestions for if I just built a rig, since I definately know how, but tbh I'm not 100% updated on the latest and greatest video cards, motherboards and cpus. Or do you know of a good website that discusses this where I could get some more info?
 
Okay well i just found a pretty awesome site that has just what i was looking for. It has different builds for different budgets. Right now for a budget video editing rig it looks like i'll spend about but most likely a little over since it doesn't include cables and what not, just hardware and Windows 10, about $900. This is expensive to me, but it's manageable since i can buy it a couple parts at a time, and I can upgrade a little bit later on. Anyway here is the website https://www.logicalincrements.com/articles/videoediting I'm really excited to do this. I haven't built a rig in years, it's so fun.
 
I dicided not to go with a laptop. I got all the parts for a pretty inexpensive tower.
MSI B450M Pro -M2 MOBO
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000
AMD Ryzen 5 2600X
ASUS Geforce GTX 1060-3G (refurbished)
Rosewill 550W 80 Plus Gold PSU
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB NVMe m.2 SSD
Sandisk 1TB SSD
For everything it came out to about $800, and I am extremely happy with my choice. Last night I editied a 20 min video in 1440P and it took 20mins for it to process. On my laptop it was taking an hour for a 15 min 1080p video. The only negative to this build was buying a DVD burner and then receiving the mid-tower case and realizing it had no optical drive bays. You guys helped alot with this build because of the other posts I made with questions regarding parts, so thanks.
 
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