What PC should I buy for Shotcut

Hi guys! Please help, I don’t have much for new PC, can you please tell me what are the cheapest nvidia videocards that is possible to use as exporting acceleration in Shotcut? (I’m not asking about fast and comfort, but cheap and visible for shortcut). For example, Shotcut doesn’t recognize my current Radeon in old laptop. I need descrete video card for my future PC build, for 2K editing mainly, 4k sometimes - but very small part of overall workflow. Thank you guys in advance and have a great day!

What’s your budget(I generally suggest used vs new and that helps us make recomendations)
What kind of footage are you editing and what do you want to do with it(simple cuts of 720p footage are a huge difference over 4k with multiple filters)
How comfortable are you with pc internals(installing a gpu is one thing, a cpu and heatsink is a completely different level)

Also, what level of visual quality are you wanting for the exports? If you’re wanting high quality but don’t have the budget for RTX, then hardware encoding may not be the best option for you.

Any NVIDIA card of series 600 or above supports NVENC. I’ve had good luck with my GTX650 in the past, as well as a GT640.

As for readily/easily available in brick&mortar retailers, at least here stateside, you can still find the GT730 for sale in places like Best Buy.

Hi, thank you for your reply! I need comfort timeline work with 2k videos. I will do some 4k sometimes though, but it is not a problem if 4k goes not very smoothly as it will be very small part of editing. I need basic filters for ex. cropping, color. I want to understand what are the cheapest models of videocards for that. Not much comfort of work is needed for me.

Thank you for your reply, I’m noob, so could you tell me please what you mean by high quality? Resolution? My workflow mainly 2k, 4k sometimes, basic filters, cut, text, simple videos.

The 600 series only supports H.264 (AVCHD) YUV 4:2:0 and nothing above that for encode, you really want a 10 series card for HVEC support and scaling all the way to H.265 (HEVC) 8k or maybe a 9 series card if your budget really is that tight(although you’re limited to H.265 (HEVC) 4K YUV 4:2:0 which still isn’t ideal. The full matrix for NVNEC and NVDEC is available here https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix#Encoder

The cheapest gpu that supports everything you want is going to be a GTX1050/1050Ti (https://amzn.to/3fb6gke) however I normally recomend a quadro P2000 if you’re doing a lot of video they support 10 bit color and have validated drivers as well as an “unlimited” number of simultanious nvenc sessions (https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=quadro+p2000&_sacat=0&_sop=15&rt=nc&LH_BIN=1)

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See here regarding the gpu specifically What PC should I buy for Shotcut

Do you already have a desktop to put it in?

Thank you for your reply GIGABYTE GeForce GT 730 [N730D5-2GI] and Видеокарта GigaByte GeForce GT 730 LP [GV-N730D5-2GL] and Видеокарта ASUS GeForce GT 730 [GT730-2GD5-BRK] are available in local shop here. Which one do you mean? I’m noob, so I do not know difference.

A few other things to consider:

  • If you have no video card at this present time, make sure your current power supply can handle the additional power requirements of the video card you get. Every card’s power usage is rated in watts.

  • If you have a PC case (not a laptop) make sure you have all fans working, even add additional fans on the case if there is spots for them.

  • CPU cooler either Air or AIO water cooled.

  • Have at least one SSD drive or NVME drive to edit from.

  • Upgrade current memory to the fastest speed, and 16gb/32gb or the highest amount your motherboard/CPU can handle. Faster speed with memory is a plus. For this you will have to consult your CPU and motherboard documentation to find out this combination.

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I want to buy i5-8400 or i5-8600. I thought Shotcut can work even with integrated graphics card, no? I only thought to buy a cheap discrete card for faster exporting. Faster encoding and exporting is the main goal. I don’t mind if any freeze exist on timeline, I don’t need very fast and comfort timeline work as I don’t do much editing of my videos much, just basics. So, let’s say I5-8600 and gt 730 will not work with 2k videos at all? Freezing, crushing or what is going to be? Could you please explain of this combination of processor and the cheap discrete card. I thought that integrated video card could work well with descrete.

No, but I have TV

Those are all functionally the same card(they’re all GT730’s just from different OEM’s) however if you looked at the encoder matrix I sent you’ll notice none of them support anything beyond H.264 (AVCHD) YUV 4:2:0 and won’t help you at all in 4k, you really want a 1050.

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Ok, thank you a lot. What do you think about i5-8400 and i5-8600? The second one is 30% more expensive in my City, does it worth it? Those ghz are important or it is just 6 cores anyways with almost same performance in Shotcut? I can buy i7, but I will not have money for any GPU then. So, I feel like 8600 + 1050 would be better than i7 with integrated

Thanks for the detailed information regarding NVENC capabilities per chipset.

The 8600 is about 14% faster in general but likely isn’t worth 30% more(although the absolute cost may dictate otherwise) https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/15450672?baseline=15456098

as for i7 vs i5+gpu you’re probably best off getting the i7 NOW and then a gpu later, you might be able to afford a bigger gpu in 6 months(say a 1650 or the quadro) spreading things out and cpu encoding with the i7 should be plenty fast in general…

Thank you, I see. I’m sorry I confused 8600 and 9600. I mean 9600 is 30% more expensive. But does it worth it to pay for additional ghz? Will be there a big difference of intel CPU 2,8 and 3,6 ghz in Shotcut? 9600 looks very good though

Neither of those numbers (2.8 and 3.6) is the real speed shotcut will run at, both cpu’s will leverage turbo boost, the 9600 will likely be ~10-20 % faster but that may not be worth a 30% increase in cost unless you’re exporting projects on a daily(or more than) basis.

Thanks! I read a lot that intel is much faster due QuickSync, but does this technology increase Shortcut performance? And if yes, then should I do something to enable it or it is just a part of processor working automatically inside?

Shotcut can use quicksync for exports just like nvenc but it will typically make a bigger and potentially more artifact ridden file, quicksync wasn’t built for quality first(although it has gotten better)

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