Is it enough for 4K video editing?

[rmoliv]

On Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, or should I upgrade? Video editing is not my job and I've never done it before, it would be only a hobby/pastime.

I don't need all the top-notch specs. They just need to be good enough to make the video editing software run smoothly and reasonably fast.

Is my iMac Retina 4K 21.5'' 2017 (see specs below) enough or should I upgrade? What are the minimal system requirements that I need to look for? I'm not sure yet whether I get another iMac or switch to a MacBook Pro. I want to spend the least possible so an iMac Pro or 5K or 15'' MacBook Pro are definitely out of the equation.

Specs:
Processor: 3.0GHz quad‑core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz)
Memory: 8GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory
Graphics: Radeon Pro 555 with 2GB of VRAM

 

[ColdCase]

You can use just about anything to edit 4K in proxi mode. It may take some time to import and export, but the editing itself will be smooth. Proxi mode converts 4k into a lower resolution version for editing purposes, and then applies the edits to the higher resolution version during export. Even the most powerful Mac can bog down while editing 4K.

I'd say try it, then upgrade if its way too slow for you. 4k needs a lot of hard drive space and enough SSD memory on hand for your project will have more of an impact on editing smoothness than raw CPU and graphics power. When you get into more sophisticated effects is where you may notice jerky scrubbing.

The topic comes up a lot in the Digital Video forum, you may want to take a look there https://forums.macrumors.com/forums/digital-video.80/

 

[Samuelsan2001]

On Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro, or should I upgrade? Video editing is not my job and I've never done it before, it would be only a hobby/pastime.

I don't need all the top-notch specs. They just need to be good enough to make the video editing software run smoothly and reasonably fast.

Is my iMac Retina 4K 21.5'' 2017 (see specs below) enough or should I upgrade? What are the minimal system requirements that I need to look for? I'm not sure yet whether I get another iMac or switch to a MacBook Pro. I want to spend the least possible so an iMac Pro or 5K or 15'' MacBook Pro are definitely out of the equation.

Specs:
Processor: 3.0GHz quad‑core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz)
Memory: 8GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory
Graphics: Radeon Pro 555 with 2GB of VRAM

Should be fine for hobby level video editing, it will help if that is an ssd equipped model.