A method for motion estimation for screen and non-natural content coding is disclosed. In one aspect, the method may include selecting a candidate block of a first frame of the video data for matching with a current block of a second frame of the video data, calculating a first partial matching cost for matching a first subset of samples of the candidate block to the current block, and determining whether the candidate block has a lowest matching cost with the current block based at least in part on the first partial matching cost.