Processor power for editing.

[Imlurker2]

I may need to upgrade. Editing is intensive. I have a p4 3 Ghz.
I can stay with what I have. But processors are now dual and quad.

Would it be advantageous – time wise – to get a dual 3 Ghz or a quad 2.4 Ghz?

Would a 2.4 quad actually be slower than the p4 3Ghz (for the task)?

Would a dual 3 Ghz be equivalent to the p4 3 Ghz (for the task)?

I doubt the software was written with the anticipation that more than one task would be running at one time.

Thanks

[Sharktooth]

What software?

[Dark Shikari]

A Core 2 will never be slower than a Pentium 4 regardless of threads unless the Core 2 is like 1.6Ghz and the Pentium 4 is like 3.6Ghz. Core 2s are vastly superior to the Pentium 4 in terms of architecture.

The quad, unless your program supports 4 threads, will likely be much better for encoding and multithreaded AviSynth scripts and plugins, but worse for plain editing.

[Imlurker2]

Hi Sharktooth nice to hear from you. You've helped me in the past.

Thanks to both of you.

Sharktooth: DVD-RB
which does use AviSynth.

O.K. either would be better. Since I don't have a clue as to how 'threads' work, is one superior to the other.
Dual is 3 and quad is 2.4

For the video card, I'm using an nVidia (fx 3500 if it matters).
I've added that in case it uses one of those 'threads'.

My tech is back with Dos when 640k was king :)

TIA

[Blue_MiSfit]

It all depends on your editing software, and what material you are editing.

I edit a lot of DV, and also lossless 480p stuff on Premiere CS3. When I switched to a 3800+ dual core, I got a big boost. 2GB of RAM helped even more.

Don't go with anything short of the 3 GHz Core 2 Duo, and 2 GB of RAM.

I would honestly suggest the Quad, as it will improve render times and encoding significantly. I also find that I rarely "just" edit. I usually have multiple apps open like Photoshop and / or Lightroom along with Premiere. In cases like these, RAM goes bye-bye very quickly, and having extra cores helps offset this.

4+GB of RAM is good to go with x64, not sure if the latest CS3 apps are x64 compatible...

~Misfit

[Sharktooth]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(computer_science)

DVD-RB isnt multithreaded but, there's a multithreaded version of avisynth. Unless you do ultra-heavy avisynth filtering, i would suggest the 3ghz dualcore for your needs and the best speed (avisynth in one thread and rebuilder in another one...).

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I would definitely go with a Quad Core these days, especially because Core 2 Quads are affordable now. Even if your encoding software can only use two cores at the moment, I'd still buy a Quad. It's simply great to be able to do other things (watch movies, play games, whatever) without the slightest loss in performance, while two cores are encoding at 100% load. Also the future is multi-threaded, so if you don't buy a Quad Core now, you might regret in ~1 year. And if you decide to switch to H.264 video tomorrow, you will be happy for every single core you can get. x264 can use 4 cores (and even more) at 100% right now :)

[Imlurker2]

I really appreciate all the feedback.
Thanks much.

[Sharktooth]

it all depends on what you want to do.
as L_M said, quads are quite affordable (expecially the q6600 at 2.4ghz) and allow you to do other tasks while encoding, but if you aim to a cheaper solution and want faster encoding with DVD-RB then the 3ghz dual core is the choice.

[bidmead]

AviSynth + AvSP + any entry level machine = perfect basic video editing kit, IMHO :-)

--
Chris

[noclip]

Wait for Yorkfield. It'll be the first true quad-core Core architecture processor and video editing will benefit hugely over the current "quad" cores.

[sportcenter]

just upgraded to a Q6600 and 4GB of ram....cs2/3, pinnacle, procoder 2, tmpgenc all support multi-threaded apps....it is insanely fast

[bidmead]

Guys, this is insane. Spend GBP350 on an entry-level Acer desktop, download Avisynth and AvSP and you're in business. :-)

--
Chris