Little known fact, you don't actually need a 4K monitor to edit 4K video., assuming you'll play it back on a TV elsewhere. Get a good gaming laptop.

 

You should be good with what you have, tuned for optimum performance that baby should do amazing things...maybe 2G of video memory would provide a bit more speed. Do you overclock your hardware?

 

max out your ram and cpu. They do most of the processing while editing. The video cards don't contribute during editing only during display. Your CPU is the main video processor so if there is a better chip for your MB you could upgrade that but it looks like you are fine.

 

The video cards don't contribute during editing only during display. Your CPU is the main video processor so if there is a better chip for your MB you could upgrade that but it looks like you are fine.

This is absolutely incorrect.

 

It depends on what you mean by edit and if you’re editing raw footage or if you’re using proxies (ie the editing software takes the 4k footage, creates a 120fps copy but in 480-720p so that u can edit without lag and then when you export the final product it applies all the changes you made to the proxy onto the original 4k footage).

If you use proxies, you should be okay with your setup now on small files. With that said, I have 64gb RAM, i10 (10900k) processor, 2080ti RTX (spent about $10k on the build with peripherals in 2020), it’s fully overclocked (maxed out performance; ie processor runs at 5.2 ghz) and it still lags when I edit raw 2hour+ 1080p/60fps footage without proxies, especially once you start applying effects.

 

A good gaming system will do it, or a workstation (laptop designed for CAD, etc.). 4k files are HUGE! so all the RAM you can get and lots of CPU horsepower and a really good graphics card.

It also depends on the software you use. My (older) workstation chokes on 720p editing with DaVinci Resolve, but has no problem doing it with Lightworks. Lightworks also renders on the fly, so when you're done, you're done. No need to wait for the whole video to render after you are done editing. You can also save in different formats with any of them. So if you want to save in 1080p 30fps instead of the original 4k, you can with most software.

 

Stupid question here…. Wouldn’t the software used mostly determine what hardware you can get away with?
What would be good software to do this? I’m asking because I’d like to do the same thing over the next year or so. .

 

Stupid question here…. Wouldn’t the software used mostly determine what hardware you can get away with?
What would be good software to do this? I’m asking because I’d like to do the same thing over the next year or so. .

Not a stupid question. The answer is "depends". Lightworks has a low overhead for horsepower, others a bit more so. I have tried DaVinci Resolve and it wouldn't work right on my old workstation, Lightworks, no problem. Some folks like Adobe Premire(?). DaVinci is probably the defacto favourite right now because it is feature packed and free. Adobe is a subscription based software that you pay monthly for. The Lightworks I use is the free version and has fewer bells and whistles and doo dads, but I don't need 1000 special effects and such anyways (hint, most people don't). No matter what you choose there is a pretty steep learning curve. It's not just plopping a bunch of clips together and calling it done.