One of the most frequent questions I get, next to what camera to buy (I’ll tackle that in a different post). As always I don’t recommend dropping a bundle until AFTER you’ve been doing it long enough to know what specs you actually need and which features are just going to cost you more but get you little to nothing. Here is a quick summary of the minimum spec you should be aiming for when it comes to a machine for editing as of this writing (Fall 2025)
CPU: 12-16 core and a modern architecture (eg Apple M Series, Intel Core Ultra etc)
GPU: RTX 40 and newer (or integrated on Apple Silicon). RTX-50 better.
RAM: Start at 32 GB. Always buy more if you can afford it
Storage: The faster the better. 1 TB is a good baseline
Display: As much of the DCI-P3 as you can get. 100% is increasingly the norm
Ports: Thunderbolt / USB-C 4.0, HDMI 2.1 (4K60+)
Thermal Performance: Look for a machine that will not start throttling you over lengthy sessions
For more info I recommend RedShark, here is a link to an article on the topic. RedShark Article