I have an HP Pavilion desktop in my home office collecting dust.  I'm thinking of converting it to a dedicated PH3 video editing and media storaged device.  

Two questions:
1) How much horse-power does this thing need to be upgraded to in order to take full advantage of the 4K capabilities of my PH3 Pro?  
2) For those who have built or upgraded motherboards, processors and such, which are the best websites for buying computer components online?

Thanks!

It takes a lot of computing power. I'm using a late 2011 MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz i7 quad core, with a 512 GB solid state disk, and it can barely keep up with the 4k video. Not only does the computer need to have a fast processor, it needs to have a fast hard drive.

Depending on how new your desktop PC is, I would suggest replacing it rather than upgrading it. If it's new enough, like within the last 6 months to a year, a simple RAM upgrade and SSD hard drive may be enough..

I'm got a video editing supremo by any stretch but from my research I came up with the following for reasonable editing of Gopro and Phantom video ( higher bitrate 4k would obviously need higher specs ). Oh, and before anyone says its under specced ot over specced, this is my opinion and things I have come to the conclusion about myself, there is a load of different options available. This is just one.

Offline Editing ( editing a proxy of the original source footage )

Processor: Intel Core i7 2.3GHz four-core at a minimum in my optinion.
Most video editing software these days use GPU power as oppised to CPU so you might get away with a slower CPU if the GPU is a beastie. But generally they complement eachother.
GPU ( Graphics ): NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M or similar. Do a quick search for the card you choose and the software you will use to make sure there are no issues with them.
RAM: 8GB RAM minimum but since its cheap these days, the more the merrier.
Motherboard: get one that supports the other hardware and you will be OK.
Audio: Most boards have it built in and is adequate.
Storage: Dedicated 7200rpm hard drive or if you can SSD
Monitor: 4k one would be an advantage but not a requirement.


Online Editing ( editing the original footage 'live' )


Processor: Dual Intel Xeon 2GHz six-core.
Most video editing software these days use GPU power as oppised to CPU so you might get away with a slower CPU if the GPU is a beastie. But generally they complement eachother.
GPU ( Graphics ): Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M. Do a quick search for the card you choose and the software you will use to make sure there are no issues with them.
RAM: 32GB RAM minimum but since its cheap these days, the more the merrier.
Motherboard: get one that supports the other hardware and you will be OK.

Audio: Most boards have it built in and is adequate.
Storage: Dedicated 7200rpm hard drive or if you can SSD with striped RAID
Monitor: 4k one would be an advantage but not a requirement.

You can now buy the official DJI Hardshell Backpack for the Phantom 3

Remember to buy extra propellers and one or two spare batteries to keep you flying

www.Phantom-Guide.co.uk - The Ultimate Phantom 3 Resource

silverstoned83 Posted at 2015-6-14 15:21
It takes a lot of computing power. I'm using a late 2011 MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz i7 quad core, with a 51 ...

I agree with all silverstoned83 wrote. Also, many people have gobs of processes running in the background, whether it's a PC, MAC, iPhone, Android, etc. When you're processing heavy-duty stuff (and processing 4K fits that classification) you might prefer that *nothing* unnecessary is running in the background. Do all your file manipulation, find what you need on the web, then stop all the services and processes you really don't need (find a local guru to show you what's extraneous and how to stop them) and disconnect from your network, if you're using one.

That said, if you use an editor that you need to learn first, you may have to be connected to the web to get the help pages and/or tutorial guide. Once you get reasonably comfortable with whatever you're using, get rid of the dead weight to do your work.

I'm pretty sure that since its been gathering dust its a few years old now. You will be much better off getting a new system rather than just upgrading.

I'm running an i7 4770k Oc'd with 16gb RAM, GTX 780ti and multiple SSD's, it handles 4k pretty well - Adam

Processing power is important, but not the most important. Any i7 should be fine.
RAM is a good, cheap thing to stock up on with 16gb being the minimum you will want.
Hard drive space needs to be big because the files get large but having a separate SSD as a dedicated scratch disk helps too.
Video Card is probably the most important as this will cut down on render times severely. Also to output the 4k video you need something powerful with AT LEAST 2gb DDR5 RAM, but I would suggest getting up to the 4gb range.

If you end up getting a new system, looking for a system designed for gaming is your best bet as they tend to have a lot more horsepower in the graphics department.

Sorry to lean on you guys, but my computers are 5 years old and slow, and l'm looking for a replacement.
l tried to take the suggestions from this thread and look for something that fits my budget.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this computer? (there's no monitor, l'll buy that separately when l can afford it).
Thanks for anyone who gives their input

Overview
Enjoy lag-free gameplay and amazing graphics with this CYBERPOWERPC Gamer Supreme SLC7200. It features a super-fast liquid cooled Intel Core i7-5820K CPU with 16GB of RAM, a powerful 2GB AMD R9 270 graphics card, a huge 2TB data drive and an ultra-fast 120GB SSD to load all your favourite applications.
More Information
3.3GHz liquid cooled Intel Core i7-5820K processor with 16GB of RAM for lag-free multi-tasking
Ultra-fast 120GB SSD provides lightning-quick load times for your most used applications and the 2TB data drive allows you to store all your media
AMD R9 270 graphics card and 2GB dedicated video memory
Versatile connectivity with five USB 2.0 ports, seven USB 3.0 ports, DVI output, HDMI output, DisplayPort and Ethernet

iMac 27" 5K Retina i7 4GHz, 32G Ram, FCPX, should do the job.

My desk top computer is a Couple of years old, I'd have to look at the box to read off the specs.HP ENVY Phoenix
Third generation Intel Core i7-3770K Processor
64Bit 16GB DDR3 system memory  
2TB hard drive
128GB Solid state drive
Integrated Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Lan
802.11a/b/g/n featuring Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 2x2 MIMO technology
SuperMulti Blu-Ray Player, Beats Audio
AMD Radeon HD 7770 Ghz Edition graphics card with 2GB GDDR5 dedicated graphics, VGA (via dongle), DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort capabilities support for Blue-Ray, Microsoft DirectX 11, and up to three monitors with AMD Eyefinity Technology
Came bundled with Windows 8, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Premiere Elements
Bought it on sale, with RealFlight 6.5, and every body I showed it to , said it was way more than what was necessary to run that program.
Mostly haven't used it for much else, so the memory is clean and ready to process the large files the 4K video will give us.

I may need to upgrade...?? Monitor for sure... ;-)

RedHotPoker

BobbyB Posted at 2015-6-14 22:34
iMac 27" 5K Retina i7 4GHz, 32G Ram, FCPX, should do the job.

This is what I just purchased - except I went cheap with 16G of RAM.
It does the job very well.

At the same time, I'm not going to output 4K video at this point. It's useless for anything, IMHO - since 99.9% of people watching the video don't have that much resolution or bandwidth or CPU capabilities

Great feedback guys.  Yes, I know that in general the world isn't quite ready for 4K just yet.  But you can see how quickly the technology is changing.  UltraHD monitors are already available, and coming down in price rapidly.  So I figure if I'm going to invest, might as well at least think it through.

Agreed on the gaming PC thought.  I was actually thinking of buying from Craigslist some borderline evil genius's used gaming PC, but worried about inheriting someone's experimental Frankenstein.

I'll print these specs and use them as a guide.  Thanks!!

droneflyers.com Posted at 2015-6-14 23:36
This is what I just purchased - except I went cheap with 16G of RAM.
It does the job very well.

Good choice, brilliant minds think alike.  More widespread use of 4K is coming, might as well be ready now.  
BTW, get another 16G Ram from Crucial for $100 and install it yourself.  Takes all of 2 minutes.

While a year old, there is some good information on this one: http://www.videomaker.com/articl ... system-requirements

CapitAn Posted at 2015-6-14 21:59
Sorry to lean on you guys, but my computers are 5 years old and slow, and l'm looking for a replacem ...

Hey there, specs are fine, the only thing I would change is the Video card. If you're planning on gaming, depending on the games you play that 2GB R9 270 graphics card will be useless. Not to mention that AMD's drives are horrible and they haven't released a none beta version in 6 months. Also to note if you plan on adding a 2nd graphics card later down the road the 5820k will really limit what you'll be able to do because of the limited PCIe lanes. If you're planning on rendering, more cores the better and depending on what software you're using you can offload some of the work to your GPU.

My current setup:
5930K @4.7 Ghz liquid cooled
32GB Ram
2x GTX 980's @ 1500 Mhz Liquid Cooled
Intel 750 PCIe SSD 400 GB
2x 840 evo Raid 0 1.5TB *backed up to a 24TB NAS*
2x 850 evo Raid 0 1TB *backed up to a 24TB NAS*
Corsair 1000w Power Supply
Asus PB287Q 4k montor
3x Asus 1080P Monitors

Rendering Software:
Sony Vegas Pro 13

usmarine0622@ya Posted at 2015-6-15 12:31
Hey there, specs are fine, the only thing I would change is the Video card. If you're planning on g ...

That is very helpful, thank you! l didn't pull the plug so your timing is perfect.
And thanks for providing your specs, that gives me more to look for.