The same excuse I gave my wife yesterday when I splashed out on a Dell XPS 15 9570 laptop. For video editing it ticked all the boxes when it came to hardware specs, and seemed to be a favourite amongst pro video editors. I’m just hoping it has Solitaire loaded on it 
Nidge.
Oh YES, very nice.
But out of my budget at the moment 
Truth be told it’s out of my budget and some sacrifices are going to be made to justify it. However I have around ten or more drones that shoot in 4K and my current computer struggles with 720p footage so one justification is now I will actually be able to edit what I shoot and possibly create something that others wouldn’t be adverse to taking a peak at once in a while.
Nidge.
After 3 attempts to repair the Gigabyte Brix, I’ve had it confirmed that the motherboard can no longer recognize any attached CPU fan… the result is that it just switches off after about 20 mins without warning… Shame, as otherwise, the little box of tricks is pretty decent!
Tonight I picked up a second hand gaming pc for £300 from Facebook marketplace. I’ve attached the specs and will be running some trials with various video editing software but I reckon it’s going to be perfectly adequate for processing drone footage (although need to test against H.264 and H.265 footage).
It’s a big box with at least 4 fans that I can see but so far, very quiet and super fast. I need to figure out how to add in the cluster of SSD’s I’ve accumulated over the years (may as well try and use the hardware!). Thought I would share in case others are in need of an upgrade but have similar wallet constraints.
Also, founds this link quite useful - gives you a decent indication of which graphics cards are needed to run 4k footage.
It wont support H.265 hardware encoding.
It should be able to play H.265 using software acceleration but editing will be too much.
I have one of these as a media center / Kodi - ace bit of kit - Stupidly expensive when I got it though!
Hi Callum
Editing H.265 is proving jumpy - but it will write from H.265 footage to H.264 MP4 quickly (about 6 mins for a 2 min video). Plays the raw footage ok - slightly jumpy.
What would I need to improving editing playback? More RAM or a faster/more uptodate
Graphics Card?
For hardware encoding you’d need at least an Intel 6th gen cpu as that’s when HEVC was supported.
You might get away with encoding H.265 using only software acceleration but not with 10bit.
If H.264 is fine I’d just stick with that, it’s what most people use.
Why is everyone recommending an intel when AMD is by far better for the same price or lower. Editing video more cores are better, combine this with a decent gpu and you’ll have no problems editing H.265.
Tbh, I didn’t know the difference between AMD & Intel. Good advice though. Any articles or references you can share to help others?
I build and upgrade computers for friends and family and have done for the past 25 years. I do know that if you are building or buying a computer now AMD is the way to go, they have not only caught Intel they are leaving them behind especially when you look at the cost of the hardware. I am far from an expert but am quite happy to answer any questions that are directed my way.
What would you suggest as an AMD alternative for an i7 and video card capable of 4K video, H265 
Thanks Steve 
It all depends on how much you want to spend. The Ryzen 5 3600 about £150 or the Ryzen 7 3700x about £270 are both very good or even the Ryzen 2600 is only £110 that’s what I currently use and I have no problems with h265 video editing and gaming although I do have a gtx 1080ti about £300 to £350. It a much better buy than the new gtx 2060, 2070, 2080 unless you really want ray tracing although not many games support it at this time.
