<p>The hard drive is usually the biggest factor when working with big footage files.
Upgrade his workstation with a reasonably sized SSD, I recommend atleast 500GB to ensure you can work on multiple projects without moving files around.
The SSD speed of course is the important factor that would speed up the workflow, so be sure to not buy a cheap but big SSD but one that has fast read and write speeds. Read speed being  more important than write speed.</p>

<p>When working with Adobe Products, a mid-range GPU can help a lot aswell when doing a lot of color correction and other "effects" work. Many effects and plugins nowadays are GPU accelerated and will be even more in the future.
I recommend buying a mid-range consumer or "gamer" GPU instead of a so called workstation GPU. They are incredibly overpriced with nearly no additional stability and usually worse performance. You only benefit from them if you have very special needs (like 10bit displays or frame locking) and need certain warranties or support from the Manufacturer.</p>

<p>Also as AJ Henderson mentioned, you should have around 16GB RAM or 12GB on 3 channel CPUs. 8GB or less will perform horribly with modern Adobe Products, they use a lot more RAM to increase performance since they switched to 64bit.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-19T16:27:14.710Z
I'd add that you want a minimal amount of memory of about 12 to 16GB of RAM too.  There isn't a lot of advantage in adding a ton of RAM relative to other possible upgrades, but too little RAM will potentially cause issues, particularly for AE where RAM Preview will be greatly limited.
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-19T18:01:25.247Z
Oh right, I assumed that to be standard today but yes, thats very important
timonsku
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-11-19T14:50:05.283Z
2014-11-19T18:03:07.927Z
2014-11-19T18:03:07.927Z
timonsku
<p>I'm working in a compagny that starts working on 4k video footages. The person responsible for the video editing is complaining that working on those footage is really a pain.
So I'm wondering which part of its hardware configuration should be changed to make his life easier.
He's mainly working on Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effect.</p>

<p>Thanks for any shared experiences</p>

<hardware>
Which part of a computer is critic to work on 4k footage
MaxouMask
# Which part of a computer is critic to work on 4k footage

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-11-19)

I'm working in a compagny that starts working on 4k video footages. The person responsible for the video editing is complaining that working on those footage is really a pain.
So I'm wondering which part of its hardware configuration should be changed to make his life easier.
He's mainly working on Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effect.

Thanks for any shared experiences

**Tags:** hardware


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-11-19. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

The hard drive is usually the biggest factor when working with big footage files.
Upgrade his workstation with a reasonably sized SSD, I recommend atleast 500GB to ensure you can work on multiple projects without moving files around.
The SSD speed of course is the important factor that would speed up the workflow, so be sure to not buy a cheap but big SSD but one that has fast read and write speeds. Read speed being more important than write speed.

When working with Adobe Products, a mid-range GPU can help a lot aswell when doing a lot of color correction and other "effects" work. Many effects and plugins nowadays are GPU accelerated and will be even more in the future.
I recommend buying a mid-range consumer or "gamer" GPU instead of a so called workstation GPU. They are incredibly overpriced with nearly no additional stability and usually worse performance. You only benefit from them if you have very special needs (like 10bit displays or frame locking) and need certain warranties or support from the Manufacturer.

Also as username_2 mentioned, you should have around 16GB RAM or 12GB on 3 channel CPUs. 8GB or less will perform horribly with modern Adobe Products, they use a lot more RAM to increase performance since they switched to 64bit.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: I'd add that you want a minimal amount of memory of about 12 to 16GB of RAM too.  There isn't a lot of advantage in adding a ton of RAM relative to other possible upgrades, but too little RAM will potentially cause issues, particularly for AE where RAM Preview will be greatly limited.  
> **username_1**: Oh right, I assumed that to be standard today but yes, thats very important  

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