[Technology] Laptop graphics card question

gripper stebson

Well-known member

Jul 27, 2004

6,657

• Jun 22, 2018

• #1

Hello. Advice required.

Need to beef up my standard laptop to make it more powerful for video editing. It's a basic HP £400 job.

Do I need a new graphics card or a new laptop?

Any sensible advice appreciated!

 

Marshy

Well-known member

Jul 6, 2003

19,718

FRUIT OF THE BLOOM

• Jun 22, 2018

• #2

Get a new laptop, probably welded into the motherboard.

 

beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius

Jul 21, 2003

35,292

• Jun 22, 2018

• #3

forget about upgrading graphics on a laptop, unless you have a high end one where it may be detachable.

good news however, video editing probably does not require more graphics card, rather more memory. bad news is you may not be able to upgrade that either... lookup your model documentation on HP site and on Crucial website see if there are modules available and if you can buy larger capacity than already fitted.

just realised poster... you might want to get a proper workstation for film production work, with gobs of memory and hard disk.

 

Rock Lobster

Active member

Dec 2, 2010

185

Hastings

• Jun 22, 2018

• #4

Another vote for new laptop, or if you have the room for it a desktop should you need to upgrade again in the future.

 

P

PeterOut

Well-known member

Aug 16, 2016

1,238

• Jun 22, 2018

• #5

In what way do you need to 'beef it up'?
Is it the specific requirements of a particular video editing software? Does your current (and preferred) editing software work, but more slowly than you would want?
If you can give an idea of the software you currently or intend to use, you might get more specific suggestions. Equally, what kind of video editing are you intending to do? Editing a 30-second clip that you took on your phone and are posting to YouTube has different requirements to producing 15-minute glossy corporate vids in HD / 4K.
Do you actually need to use a laptop for editing, or can you continue to use your current laptop for most tasks, but would consider a desktop for editing? This would generally give you more power for your £....

 

Triggaaar

Well-known member

Oct 24, 2005

50,162

Goldstone

• Jun 22, 2018

• #6

gripper stebson said:

Do I need a new graphics card or a new laptop?

Click to expand...

What are the specs for the software you're using, and what are the specs of your laptop?

I'd guess that video editing wants processing power and memory, more than a decent graphics card, but the software itself should tell you.

 

BNthree

Plastic JCL

Sep 14, 2016

10,877

WeHo

• Jun 22, 2018

• #7

Marshy said:

Get a new laptop, probably welded into the motherboard.

Click to expand...

This. Usually on laptops the graphics is integrated onto the motherboard and not a separate card. Which means upgrading is pretty much impossible. Video editing generally requires a lot of CPU power and a motherboard that gets data in and out of the CPU quickly. You can pick up a desktop with i7 processor quite cheaply these days which should be more than adequate.