Current PC: How to improve video editing performance?

[maverickluke]

I have a PC that is a few years old. My current build is running Windows 7 Home Premium. It has the Intel i7 4770-K processor with the ASUS H87M‑E motherboard with 16GB RAM and does not have an added graphics card. I do not game on my computer but I do quite a bit of video editing/encoding primarily using Handbrake/Vidcoder and would like to reduce the encoding time. I am trying to see if there is a way to modify my system that balances cost and performance increase. I have read online about how to safely overclock the i7 4770-K to 4.5-4.6GHz from the current 3.9GHz. I would have to swap out my motherboard to overclock because the H87M‑E motherboard does not support overclocking. The reason why I didn't add a high end graphics card and am using the integrated one on the CPU is because my understanding is graphics cards are more important to gaming and have less to do with video editing applications. I would appreciate advice on this and if it is worth it, what is to gain and what the cost associated with any potential gains would be. Thanks in advance for your help.

[jagabo]

With your current system as it is you can use the Intel Quick Sync encoder in Handbrake to get faster encoding. The quality isn't as good as x264 but it can be much faster depending on what x264 settings you have been using.

[mikel]

You might give this a try... Prio - Process Priority Saver. This compact program allows you to SAVE the priority you specify for any process..

https://www.prnwatch.com/prio/

Hope this helps

[jagabo]

Process priority lets you specify which programs get more or less CPU time when multiple processes are competing for it. If there is no other program requesting CPU time then the Handbrake will get as much as it asks for.

In any case, Handbrake already lets you specify the process priority and remembers the setting so there's no need for a third party program.

[SameSelf]

Is this a homebrew? That is a powerful cpu that should last you many years. OC'ing is a bad idea for software based encoding unless you are able to run super cool. Encoding is like running prime95 for hours on end. Heat is the enemy to computing, and you are asking for premature failure. So would I upgrade the mobo in my video editing suite just to oc? No way. Jagabo mentions hardware encoding as a way to speed up things. It is a trade off between time and quality, thus a personal choice.

You also mention that you do a lot of video editing, not just encoding. Are you a content creator? What NLE do you use? This is the one area where investing in a powerful gaming gpu can make perfect sense given the right NLE. Modern NLEs offload their effects from the cpu to the gpu, and some NLEs don't even function properly without a proper gpu with sufficient vram. If you are getting smooth playback during editing don't worry. But if you are experiencing stuttering, especially after applying effects, then you should consider a gpu. And now is a good time to buy one. With AMD's release of Vega coming up, nVidia has dropped the prices of their 10xx cards. Or, you can take advantage of everyone selling their older cards.

[maverickluke]

Maybe I misrepresented. I am taking many MKV files and converting them to MP4 using vidcoder. Many times I add several files to the que which are all 1080P with ac3 audio. Quality is important to me and the settings I choose reflect that and I prefer to use the H264 codec. Some files I am using 2-pass encoding. This means with a que full of several video files, my computer will run between 1-2 days to encode these files. After further research, I know that even an expensive extreme build with the fastest and best components would not show more than a 30% increase in time if that. I guess there is a tradeoff between quality and speed. My computer is a custom build that I ordered online a few years ago. The computer cost me under $1,200 which did not include a monitor, speakers and optical drives. I know heat is the enemy so I hope running my computer this long at times encoding won't shorten its life considerably. I think my cooling is good because I have a Zalman heatsink cpu fan that seems to be keeping things at a good temperature although I'm not sure what a really good temperature is.

The specs of my system are:
* Intel Core i7-4770 Haswell 3.4GHz (3.9GHz turbo) Quad-Core 8000K
* Zalman heatsink cpu fan
* ASUS H87M-E, Onboard Video, HD Audio, GB LAN, USB3.0, HDMI & DVI
* 16GB PC12800 DDR3 1600 Dual Channel
* HD Onboard 3D graphics Dual head, HDMI (only if listed with board)
* 120.0 GB SSD Samsung 840 EVO Series Solid State Drive, SATA3 6.0Gb/s, 530MBs
* 1TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM SATA3 6GB/s 64m Cache
* LG Blu-ray 12X Recorder,16x DVD Recorder SATA combo drive
* Realtek HD digital audio (onboard)* Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit DVD w/SP1

[themaster1]

Have you tried gpu encoding (nvidia, quicksync) as suggested above ? That's the fastest you can hope for on a single computer and the quality is alright to my eyes (with a decent bitrate ~ 9000kbps and up). and i suppose newest cards with h265 support are even better (i haven't tried yet) instead of 15fps you get 150 fps to give you an idea

[maverickluke]

Haven't tried yet.

[videobruger]

I am taking many MKV files and converting them to MP4 using vidcoder

But that's not editing. Unless file size (or video codec) is an issue maybe you could just re-mux them.

[jagabo]

Just use MKV2MP4.

[jagabo]

Just use MKVtoMP4 and you'll be done in minutes instead of hours.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/MkvToMp4

[manono]

I am taking many MKV files and converting them to MP4 using vidcoder. ...Quality is important to me and...

Right, which is why you use already reencoded and downloaded videos as sources.

Some files I am using 2-pass encoding.

Why, when you can cut the encoding time almost in half by doing 1-pass CRF encodes? Or, as already mentioned, just 'repackage' your MKVs as MP4s.

I know heat is the enemy so I hope running my computer this long at times encoding won't shorten its life considerably.

Temps of over 80C are fine for those CPUs. I have one myself, running at 4.3 GHz at the moment. Using a CPU to the max might shorten its life by a little bit but you'll long be using a better one by then. Besides, you have a good aftermarket heatsink, although one might wonder why get a Zalmon if you weren't planning to OC. The Intel-supplied one would have been fine.