Alienware 17 for Video Editing help.

Hello!

I've spent hours trying to figure out this on the web but i don't have a complete answer.

I'm just about to buy the Alienware 17 and i've come to two different configurations to choose. I work on video editing (premiere pro, after effects) but i don't know truly wich one works best for me.

These are the configurations

1.
4th Gen i7 4710 processor
Nvidia GTX 880m 8GB
16GB DDR3L RAM
500GB (8GB hybrid) HDD
USD$2599

2.
4th Gen i7 4710 processor
Radeon R9 M290x 4GB
32GB DDR3L RAM
1TB 5400, 256GB SSD
USD$2399

The first one has an overly superior GPU, but the second one has more RAM and a better HDD. I don't know wich one is best for editing.

An extra question is, can i upgrade the 1TB 5400 HDD to 7200 without voiding warranty?

Thanks!

 

Both gpu can handle your video editing software. What you must consider is getting more ram because video editing software runs better with more system ram.

And yes you can upgrade the hard drive without voiding your warranty. Thats what i like about Alienware...
Upgradability - makes your system future proof.

Get a ssd and a memory atlease 16GB and youll be good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

what is your workflow in Premier and AE?, how heavily and is this for playing in video editing or learning and producing product with it?. if you run AE heavily you will only find the Gforce GPU's accelerate ray trace 3D rendering working well. the rest of the system has moved to OPenCL/GL in which we find the kepler/Maxwell cards very heavily neutered. in Premier you are good if you use the hacks for enabling non supported CUDA cards BUT stability issues can arise on long or intensive rendering with the older MRE.

GPU (CUDA, OpenGL) features in After Effects CS6 and After Effects CC | After Effects region of interest
Enable CUDA in Premier Pro CS6 (and CC) without a Quadro - Points in Focus Photography


many of the fancy plugins for Premier are also non CUDA, as it is a dying standard in many professional applications from Adobe, AVID, Autodesk and others.

if this is a production machine I will have to honestly say please look at a good k series quadro which is not gimped in CL/GL/FP64. and contrary to the belief more vram is not always better for editing, the software uses frame buffers a lot differently than gaming.

 

Thanks for you answers!

Answering to KCETech1, i don't work heavy projects. I'm a wedding cinematographer and i use AE for some effects, color correction, chroma, and stuff like that. Premiere is for simple editing. The fact is i'm currently a Mac user. The one i work on is 8GB RAM and 512 Intel graphics.

I use laptops because of the Same Day Edits, so i wan't faster render times, and the ability to actually use my laptop while rendering (with the MBP i can't do anything else while exporting a video...). And of course, i like gaming but i'm not a hardcore gamer. I'm used to consoles.

Thanks again!

 

if your into color correction certainly check your screen gamuts, I do broadcast video and some feature film work so need a fairly wide gamut ( full aRGB ) but even nowadays you should be looking at close to NTSC range for same day edits honestly. If you have any questions please send me a line.

to be fully honest with you if you are looking at the 17" range for a top end site editor a Precision m6700 with Premiercolor screen and Quadro or Elitebook 8760W/8770w/ Zbook 17 with the Dreamcolor 2 screen and quadro are a MUCH better option since they are specifically made for this kind of work, plus tend to kick around my Mac Pro's in gamut, color, whitepoint and speed.