CPU question

[tigerstyle]

What do you think the minimum CPU power should be for encoding. I have a 1.53 gighz AMD Athlon 1800+ in my computer and it laggs hard core when I encode and it does not go very fast. I am looking into a 3.2 one but I would like to know your guys opion if I should go higher or keep it at 3.2 gighz. Thanks ohh and the reason why I have not noticed a lagg till now is I have 1 gig of ram in it.

[Sharktooth]

Whatever CPU you choose it will "lag" during encodings coz the codecs will use 100% of CPU cycles.

[theReal]

Change the priority of the encoding process to "idle" and you won't notice lagging anymore. Many encoders have a setting for this - if they don't you can use tools like Iarsn Taskinfo 2000 to set the process priority.

If the encoding is too slow then get the fastest CPU you can afford! Also the fastest motherboard chipset and RAM. Your pc can never be fast enough for video encoding!! :D ;)

[tigerstyle]

That is true about the fastest part and I do have all of my stuff set to idle but the problems I am experiencing our with my other programs not running right when the encoding programs our running but thanks I plan on it but what is the fastest processer speed out there to the private consumer to buy. Is it still 3.2 or is it higher?? Thanks for your opions.

[Sharktooth]

Athlon64 4000+. But it's not really 4.0Ghz... it's 2.4Ghz performing like a 4Ghz CPU.
If you plan to spend a gazzillion of $$$ you can look at the Athlon FX 55 that is faster than 4000+ and offers unlocked multipliers for the overclockers...