should I choose Athlon mp or P4 3.0ghz

[dfgh11]

I've been thinking about building a new computer for a while, to cope with my huge encoding demand of late.I've read around and researched quite a bit, but I still can't make up my mind between dual athlon (2.ghz), or p4 3.0ghz.Which one would be best for an Encoding machine my budget being in the region of $1500.

[MetaPhaze]

I used to like AMD till I bought my Laptop with a P4 2.53Ghz, Since then I've built a new desktop with a P4 3.06. I think Intel is much better despite what everyone says. Look at the mere benchmarks! Intel wins hands down.

[thayne]

Intel for sure.

[jtommyj]

If you are using an encoder that utilizes 2 cpu's, the AMD will be faster. I have 3 systems, P4 3.06 with HT, Nvidia Nforce2 with xp2400 (2GHz) oc'd to 2.3 Ghz, and a Tyan MP with 2 xp1900's (1.6 Ghz). All things being equal, the dual system does encoding in about 75% of the time it takes the P4 and 60 % of the time it takes the xp2400.

If I had that budget and were to do it again, I would look into dual Xeon MB for 339 USD at Newegg, and 2 Xeon 2.8 Ghz (or 3.06) for 345 or 479, respectfully. Intel board for 339 has IDE raid and Video on board, and still leaves you 500 bucks for HD and Memory.

[dfgh11]

oh thought I'd mention also, that'd I'd be using adobe premiere on this system alot too. I forgot to mention that earlier, sorry..

[jtommyj]

Premiere says it supports 2 cpu's, but it is really slow compared to the others.

[rvl123]

If you have the extra money, then go with the Intel.

If you wanna save some cash and get a bigger bang for your buck, then go with the Athlon.

Let me say this: Intel is faster, Athlon is the better value.

[dfgh11]

you mean your premiere is slower on your dual athlon machine than it is on your pentium machine?

[jtommyj]

No- I mean Premiere encoding is very slow compared to Tmpgenc, Main Concept, and CCE for Mpeg-2. I would frame serve from Premiere to another encoder if you absolutely need to use Premiere to encode Mpeg-2. Not sure about AVi. What format will you be encoding to ?

[dfgh11]

In premiere I usually export using low compression like huffy or somethin'
then encode with tmpeg to mpeg-2.

So AVI from premiere, I never use premiere mpeg 2 export, don't really like it.

[jtommyj]

If you could frameserve, you'd get better quality (one less step of compression), and save time. I used to do it the same way you are and my quality increased once I started frameserving. There is a frameserver for Premiere, I'm pretty sure. If you use Tmpgenc, 2 processors would be the way to go. I can frameserve a 2 hour, 20 minute movie(VCD to DVD) using 4 filters in VirtualDub (de-interlace,noise reduction, etc.) , encode it in Tmpgenc with high quality, 2 pass VBR, in about 11 hours or so.

[dfgh11]

you know of any tutorials on framserving? 'cause I've never really looked into it.

[jtommyj]

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/87270.php

[jtommyj]

This one is good for exporting from Premiere into Tmpgenc.

http://www.videotools.net/guides/guide_premiere_tmpgenc.php

[jtommyj]

And one more :

http://dvd-hq.info/Frameserver.html

[mrtristan]

I don't mean to confuse you more, if you haven't decided yet, but I wanted to point out an advantage to a p4 3Ghz-ish system. It will beat the dual cpu machine in most single cpu applications. I own a dual MP 1.67Ghz machine and it wasn't as fast as I expected it to be. I already didn't expect blazing fast encodes, based on my research, but it was still a lot slower than I had anticipated.

If you're only going to use the computer to encode video, then the dual setup might be advantageous. An added advantage that wasn't mentioned in this post, is the dual cpus multitasking ability. From my experience, encoding two different projects at the same time doesn't increase the individual encoding time by much. Three at once takes slightly longer, but doesn't really make a difference, if you're going to set it and forget it overnight.

[Coopervid]

If you can afford it and you want to avoid ANY trouble involved with ANY incompatibilities you should get an INTEL processor with a Mobo using an INTEL chipset. Highly recommended if you intend to do ANY video related things with your PC. I learned my lesson the hard way with an Athlon / VIA based KT133 computer.
Spend the extra money if you can and avoid the trouble. If you only do MS Office related software an AMD is the better deal and I would recommend that. But only in that case.

Vid

[LanEvo7]

I really depends on how much you want to spend and what you want to do. If its just video work, the dual processor would be faster. If you want to do something else, the Intel Processor would be faster. Just make sure you get quality parts also. I've seen so many people have great CPU for the computer and the rest of the parts are crappy. This happens a lot with computer shops, it makes the price extremely appealing to the buyer.

If you can afford it and you want to avoid ANY trouble involved with ANY incompatibilities you should get an INTEL processor with a Mobo using an INTEL chipset. Highly recommended if you intend to do ANY video related things with your PC. I learned my lesson the hard way with an Athlon / VIA based KT133 computer.
Spend the extra money if you can and avoid the trouble. If you only do MS Office related software an AMD is the better deal and I would recommend that. But only in that case.

That wasn't AMD's problem, it was VIA's problem. The early KT133 chipset had issues with stability. The newer VIA chipsets and Nforce2 chipsets has little issues(the ones that all computers have, whether it'd be AMD or Intel). You've got to do some more research before blurting out "facts".

[Coopervid]

LanEvo7,

that's not correct, however, it comes down to the chipset. That's correct. Still today there are issues with VIA or nforce chipsets. Do a search for DMA related problems with those and you will see that many DVD burners can't work correctly because Windows falls back to PIO mode and so prevents successful burns at speeds higher than 1x.
It might work but if you will avoid any risk go witha mobo that has an Intel chipset. And of course this is then a mobo with an Intel processor.

Yes, my old system is based on a VIA KT133 chipset and it finally works stable after 4 years of upgrading drivers but is obsolete now (1GHz Athlon). Still USB doesn't work correctly e.g. with my DSL modem. Never had any software - hardware related problems with my 233 MHz Dell (Intel chipset) and my newer one based on an Intel MV850 mobo.
Any idea why Dell uses them? Most likely not because they are the cheapest. And if you read reviews about mobos the Intel chipset based turn out to be the most stable ones.

[LanEvo7]

LanEvo7,

that's not correct, however, it comes down to the chipset. That's correct. Still today there are issues with VIA or nforce chipsets. Do a search for DMA related problems with those and you will see that many DVD burners can't work correctly because Windows falls back to PIO mode and so prevents successful burns at speeds higher than 1x.
It might work but if you will avoid any risk go witha mobo that has an Intel chipset. And of course this is then a mobo with an Intel processor.

Go over to a computer forum and you can see how many people have sucessful computers with both Intel and AMD. You act like the DMA problem happens on with AMD, but NEVER happens with Intel. Besides that is a minor problem that can be fixed easily. Any competent computer builder can build a stable system with either AMD or Intel. If you ask most people that can build a system, they don't like to use Intel made motherboards. They prefer a third party brand with an intel chipset because of all the tweaks that they offer. Dell uses whatever is cheap to maximize profits. Why are they including only 256mb of memory with their mid-highend systems when Windows XP wants 512mb to run smoothly. These are their mid end/highend systems. They using onboard graphics and onboard sound.

[LSchafroth]

If you check out all the reviews, the latest Athlon will beat the Intel chip in all categories EXCEPT video and audio editing.

The Athlong is by far the better bang for the buck. If your system is for gaming and business use and the occasional video editing, defenitly go with the Athlon.

If your system will be dedicated to video editing and you can afford the overhead cost Inel nabs you with, then go with Itel.

If you're into overclocking, then Athlon all the way.

Lannie

[LanEvo7]

If you check out all the reviews, the latest Athlon will beat the Intel chip in all categories EXCEPT video and audio editing.

The Athlong is by far the better bang for the buck. If your system is for gaming and business use and the occasional video editing, defenitly go with the Athlon.

If your system will be dedicated to video editing and you can afford the overhead cost Inel nabs you with, then go with Itel.

If you're into overclocking, then Athlon all the way.

The latest desktop Intel CPU beats the latest desktop Athlon in pretty much everything.

[flaninacupboard]

That's probably because of AMD's over-zealous names for their chips though. isn't the XP3200+ running at a mere 2.2ghz? I understand their point that an athlon clock gets more work done than a pentium clock, but a one third improvement seems a little high. i think i'd advertise the 2.2ghz chip as an XP2800+ and it does seem to perform about as well as a P4 2.8ghz on video tasks. have a look here on how the different ones stack up http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030623/p4_3200-11.html

Personally i'll wait for the Athlon 64 and a 64 version of CCE

[TBoneit]

my two cents:

Get the 3.06 or 3.0Ghz P4 with the 533 or 800 Mhz FSB, intel chipset. If you are using TMPgenc and WinXp

Then TMPGenc and WinXp will increase your encoding speed (Shorten time) with the Hyperthreading in the P4 3Ghz CPU. To WinXp in the device manager a single 3Ghz with HT enabled (Do it before you install XP) shows up as 2 x 3Ghz CPUs... I know it won't actually run that way but it will be faster than a single Athlon 3000XP CPU. Whether it helps depends on your application. TMPGenc will use the HT capabilities of the P4.

And of course to me the Athlon systems are less expensive, but it seem like the Intel based systems are more stable and cooler running and quieter as they need less fans in the case.

Good Luck
Roger

[Coopervid]

dfgh11,

still undecided?

LanEvo7,

now you're pro Intel? Very strange.. I hate big companies like M$ and Intel etc. as well but there is also a standard on the hardware front. And it's THE STANDARD. I just can't recommend a non-Intel-chipset-based system for multimedia / video / DVD burning. All others are fine for games and office stuff. Just my 2 cents.

[LanEvo7]

LanEvo7,

now you're pro Intel? Very strange..

Coopervid, I was never pro anything. I'm sorry I gave you that impression. I buy whatever offers a better value to me. I don't go around stating **** company sucks and xxxx company is the best. They aren't paying me any money to do it.

I've built systems and own systems with both Intel AND AMD cpus. They've all run fine and still going. I also don't believe that people should state their personal opinions as facts. I know you've probably had a bad experience with AMD judging from your post, but the original Athlon and the Kt133 chipset is at least four years old. So even if they did have issues in the past, its been mostly corrected by now. I have a computer with a VIA chipset and it runs nice and stable.

I hate big companies like M$ and Intel etc. as well but there is also a standard on the hardware front. And it's THE STANDARD. I just can't recommend a non-Intel-chipset-based system for multimedia / video / DVD burning. All others are fine for games and office stuff. Just my 2 cents.

Its not a standard, its a preference. If you looked back one or two years ago. What was the "standard" gaming video card? Nvidia Geforce xxx. Now, ATI's gotten a over 1/2 of the market now. There is no standard. Its what you prefer. Games can take just as much, if not more cpu power das multimedia applications. A major reason why AMD doesn't have a big part of the market is because people are still MHZ driven. Do you believe an Intel Celeron 2.2 is faster than a Athlon Xp 2000+? Another reason AMD's top of the line CPUs are disappointing performers as compared to Intel's. In the lower-mid range section, the price/performance ratio of an AMD chip cannot be beaten by Intel.

[dfgh11]

Thanks for all your replies on this matter.

I just wrote out quite a long message (reply)on here a minute ago, took about fifteen or so minutes. Then when I pressed submit . It didn't post, something happened and I lost it all. So here goes a quick summary of what I said.

It would be no exaggeration to say, every other day I change my mind between the two systems.(athlon mp 2.0ghzand p4 3ghz)And it might even take something as silly as, one being a few minutes faster encoding than the other,to keep my mind set.And today, I must admitt, the idea of an athlon mp system is slightly appealing to me more, for many reasons.The only thing holding me back now I think,is whether or not it'll a: work well (be stable/fast etc..)in such a pentium optimized enviroment as adobe premiere and B: somehow become outdated faster than the p4 3.0ghz.


there we go, short but to the point.

thanks for your replies....
It'll probably still be a while before I make up my mind, so keep them comin'

[RabidDog]

just to add to your confusion.. the money you save by buying an athlon could be put to buying another hard disk thus speeding your encodes. or more memory. or adsl. or beer.

[dfgh11]

I don't really save that much when buying an athlon mp system to be quite honest. The price of a decent P4 system, is about the same as the price of a decent athlon system.

[Xtasy2002]

Let me say this: Intel is faster, Athlon is the better value.

This is 100% accurate. Let me also add in though you will put your dual CPU system to waste unless you fully intend on using it to multi-task. By that I mean encoding at the same time as doing other intensive applications like graphics editing, etc.

You can FULLY do that with a dual CPU system (you also need NT, Win 2K, Win XP etc. to use the 2 cpu's)... If you have a single CPU intel system don't expect to smoothly do a lot of work on your system while it's encoding.