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How much RAM are you going to need for Video Editing?

Updated: May 8

RAM has the power to make or break your video editing speed.

RAM has the power to make or break your video editing speed. When you have more than adequate RAM, you may not feel any kind of performance increase, but you will know immediately if your RAM gets too tiny for your type of Video Editing project.


The amount of RAM required for video editing is determined by your footage, project bit-depth, and project resolution.


• 8GB of RAM: Enough only if you’re editing projects with resolutions lower than 1080p and don’t mind closing down other apps that are consuming a lot of RAM in the background.

• 16GB of RAM: Sufficient for editing 1080p – 4K 8bit projects with little use of background programs.

• 32GB of RAM: Ideal for any form of work that requires a lot of background processing power, such as editing huge photographs in Photoshop.

• 64GB or more: This quantity is advised if you are editing 4K-8K video at 8-10bit or higher and rely on having numerous RAM-hogging programs open at the same time, such as After Effects or Cinema 4D.


Which RAM is ideal for video editing?


For video editing, any RAM brand would suffice. Get multi-channel RAM with high clock speeds and low latency for optimal performance. RAM Modules with lower latency and faster clock rates improve performance. RAM Modules with lower latency and faster clock rates improve performance.


Rendering Speed in Video Editing:


RAM does not affect the rendering performance of your projects unless you don’t have enough and the OS needs to shift to disc. Your CPU and GPU are in charge of calculating effects, color changes, layer blends, and video output compression, as well as Video-Editing-Speed, Program-responsiveness, and Rendering-Speeds.


Single Channel vs. Dual Channel


RAM running in single, dual, or quad-channel configurations is occasionally suggested as a way to improve overall speed, however, the performance changes are generally small, ranging from 3 to 5 percent. Although the Memory Bandwidth technically doubles with each step (single, dual, quad), the Software (for example, Premiere Pro) will not use it since there is no requirement for additional bandwidth. The RAM has a transfer speed of more than 5GB/s. This Bandwidth is not saturable with typical 25FPS – 60FPS projects. The bottleneck, in this case, would be the copying of the Footage to RAM or the decompression of the Footage by the CPU during previewing. But nearly never in real-time playback of RAM footage.


This means that for a 25FPS project, you have “5GB per second potential RAM speed / 25 Frames” = 200MB for each Frame. When a single frame is less than 200MByte in size, your RAM can playback footage at 25 frames per second. Not at all. Doubling your bandwidth will do nothing except provide you with greater bandwidth headroom. Your Source Framerate is the maximum number of frames per second you will ever require to playback your Timeline in Realtime. FPS ranges from 25 to 60. However, bear in mind that you may be able to update your components in the future:


Future-Proof:


What if you just want to acquire enough RAM for your present projects, but you know you’ll need more in the future? Check to see if your motherboard can handle the quantity of RAM you intend to install. Although expanding your RAM used to be as simple as adding extra modules to the ones you already have, this is no longer the case: Even if RAM Kits are of the same sort, manufacturer, and speed/timings, combining them may cause stability concerns.

Holoware Workstation comes with a Powerful RAM. For more details, please visit here.

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