Computer help

[JoshSpence]

I am looking at purchasing a new computer almost solely for the puprose of video editing.

What it be at all benefitial (if so, how benefitial) to have two processors? I want to run two Pentium 4 3Ghz processors but I am yet to find a motherboard which would allow me to do so. Any suggestions?

Also could someone please explain the difference between IDE, SCSI and SATA. And which would be the best for me. I would use one IDE (?) 120GB hard drive as a local disk for programs and what not and then another hard drive for video editing temporary files.

Also how much RAM would be ideal? I am thinking 2GB DDR2 (533) RAM although I have no idea what DDR2 RAM is, could someone please explain this aswell.

And is there any use in using two monitors or is one just fine?

Also sound and video cards... any thoughts...

Thanks in advance,
Joshua Spence

[redwudz]

OK, I'll give it a shot.

Dual processors? Not many programs make good enough use of them yet. Maybe in the future. Not worth the extra cost at present. IMO.

Difference between IDE, SCSI, SATA: IDE is an older designation. PATA is used for the average IDE drive these days; Parallel data access. SATA, Serial data access, SCSI, Small Computer,etc., an older format. Still fast, but becoming rarer.

SATA is faster than PATA, but slower than SCSI, but not by much. But it is likely to replace PATA and SCSI drives in the future. There is now SATA II that is a bit faster. Use SATA for newer systems and you won't go wrong.

1Gb is usually sufficient for most video editing. More won't gain much. This is because of the programs normally used. Photoshop working with static images can use more memory. Very few video editing programs can. Windows 64 can use more memory, but there are few consumer editing applications that are set up for more memory in 64 bit format.

Two monitors are great. There are many video cards that can take advantage of them. You can put the menus on one and the video on the second. It works well if you do a lot of video editing or photo editing.

Sound cards, depends on what you are doing. Sound cards only play back your computer audio. Not really related to what or how you edit or encode for output. Video cards are similar. What you see on your computer screen is not necessarily what you will see on your finished video.

Bottom line, again IMO, is a fast processor with large multiple hard drives. 1 Gb memory, a decent video card to display your edits. From there, it's just your talent with editing and a good editing program if you want high quality results.

For HDs, you rarely would need more than 80G for the boot drive. The video drives can be big, though. A smaller boot drive just makes it easier to clean things up if the system badly crashes. You can put an OS backup on one of the other drives.


DDR memory: Double Data Rate. Just saying that the memory speed can be faster than the CPU bus speed. Your MB needs to access the memory at that higher speed to make a real difference. That said, DDR or DDR2 memory will probably become standard in the future. There are faster schemes, but a little pricey at present. DDR400 'MHz' is good, DDR533 is better if your MB can use it. DDR2 is faster, but not a lot of support yet.

If you have a particular editing system or program in mind, then base your computer on that. Software determines what you will need and use for a computer. Just my opinion, again.

[edDV]

I agree, CPU speed is the main bottleneck. 1 GB RAM is good enough as is IDE disk technology (OS drive plus one or more video drives) unless you are going multichannel uncompressed (RAID territory).

Dual processors or dual core CPU (e.g. Pentium D) are highly desirable and are currently supported by prosumer up software (e.g. Premiere Pro, Vegas, Avid).

[JoshSpence]

Ok, I've got most of it all planned already. Just a few more computer related questions...

What is ECC and non-ECC RAM? Which is better? What is the difference between 667Mhz RAM and 533Mhz RAM? Which is difference?

What is PCI Express x16 and PCI Express x1? Are they anything like AGP?

Is a 1066Mhz bus processor better than an 800Mhz bus processor?

Thanks in advance,
Josh

[redwudz]

ECC= Error Correcting Code. Used mostly for servers where data errors can be critical. Generally runs slower that the same version on non-ECC. (Because of the error correcting.) Doesn't serve much purpose with a non-server computer and costs more.

Faster RAM is better, but your motherboard has to be able to make use of it. The most common speed is PC3200 (DDR400). Go with the speed your motherboard recommends is usually the best advice.

PCI-Express is a newer internal bus system. Better explanation here:http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/pcie.ars/1

It's used on 64bit motherboards. Uses a generally faster video card (No AGP.) and one or 2 PCI-E auxillary slots. Will likely be the successor to AGP.

A faster bus speed will generally make a faster computer, but other factors may be involved.

[JoshSpence]

I know this is a video forum but I do not know any computer forums....

Which is better overall and which is better for video editing: a Pentium D processors (dual core) or a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition (with hyper threading).

Thanks in advance,
Josh

[TBoneit]

IMHO if I were doing it today I would get the dual core over the HT processor. Dual core is mostly equal to dual processors in performance. OTOH vs the extreme HT, maybe this links can help?

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050603/index.html

It looks like the dual core performs very good with dual cores and HT it should surpass the Extreme edition.

I use programs from TMPGEnc and they take advantage of HT and thus should also take advantage of Dual Processors & HT. Just looking under the CPU tab of preferences in TMPGEnc 3.0 Xpress shows that it uses multithread when filtering, encoding and performing motion search. These would benefit form cpu power IMHO.

In terms of speed going from fastest to slowest
High speed scsi, sata, pata (IDE) hard drives.
DDR2, DDR Dual channel, DDR, SDram
PCI Express, AGP, PCI for video

Personal preference, 1 Big monitor vs 2 small monitors if budget limited. Otherwise two 19" at least, flat panel to save space and energy, so that you can monitor something happening with the video app and still browse internet for example. As an example due to space restrictions I'm on a 19" FP and am shrinking a DVD as I type this and have another internet application for usenet running. With the one monitor I have to keep switching to the usenet application, interact and return here. 2 displays would help if I had the room for them.

Preference of 3 drives, one for OS and apps, One for video source, one for edited video.

You should be able to find benchmarks etc on Tom's

Keep in mind that all apps may not benefit this year from dual core but more and more video and sound applications will be benefiting from it. In a way it depends on are you the type of person that will keep your system for a few years or be upgrading/changing MB/processor within the year. If you keep things for a while go for the dual core, my opinion. I've been using my 3.0 HT since approx 6 months after they were released. Still fast enough. Sooner or later I'll end up working on very fast dual core P4 and then come home and decide that I have to upgrade. That's what usually drives me to upgrade, working on customers computers and then coming home to slower.

BTW if you aren't a gamer yo don't need a 500$ Video card and super high end sound card. I find that the built-in Sound is all I need to check video/audio sync.

Good Luck

Edit: Where I'm coming from: I'm a Computer technician for a local computer store, a franchise PC Warehouse since 1996. So I must be doing something right. Video dabbler since I bought my first ISA still image capture card for my 486. Ran a BBS, First computer had a whopping 16K memory back in the early 80s, upgraded it to 64K, 64K not MB. Dabbled in OS9, CP/M and programming with a compiler for dBase III. First Intel based computer was a dual floppy 8088. Always built my own DOS and windows computers excluding one 386-sx that was too cheap to pass up.

[JoshSpence]

Sorry I'm still a bit confused.... ok I am comparing the following processors: Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition (http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentiumXE/index.htm), Intel® Pentium® D Processor (http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium_D/index.htm) and Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor Extreme Edition supporting Hyper-Threading Technology (http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium4HTXE/index.htm)

Now I'm not sure if I'm reading all this correctly but I believe that the best processor would be the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition, because it is dual core (is it?) and has hypterthreading (does it?). The only disadvantages I can see to having it is it only has a clock speed of 3.2Ghz compared to the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition supporting Hyperthreading, which goes up to 3.73Ghz. Another disadvantage compared to the Pentium 4 Extreme supporting Hyperthreading is the bus speed is only 800Mhz compared to 1066Mhz. Looking at all this information, what processor would be the best?

Also - are any of these processors 64-bit, I'm not quite sure myself. And why is it good if you have a 64-bit processor?

Thanks in advance,
Josh

[edDV]

Remove Hyperthreading as an issue. They all have Hyperthreading.

Few if any XP video apps and encoders use 64bit currently. I would remove 64bit from consideration. Your machine will be obsolete before 64bit becomes mainstream unless you are going way high end in which case you would be buying dual Xeons in supported configurations anyway.

Also apply cost to those choices. Cutting edge CPUs are way overpriced for the small benefit.

You haven't explained the type of video prcessing you intend to do other than encoding. Not all software supports dual processors and hyperthreading. A little more detail will help narrow the choice.

[JoshSpence]

I will be doing everything related to video editing on this new computer - from capturing footage from a DV camera to editing using Avid Xpress DVD or Adobe Premiere Pro to adding effects using Adobe Aftereffects to editing graphics with Adobe Photoshop to encoding video with Canopus ProCoder 2 all the way down to DVD authoring with Adobe Encore DVD.

But I will not be using the computer solely for video editing. I will also perform tasks such as word processing, occasionally maybe games, internet browsing, checking e-mails nad recording and working with audio.

Wouldn't 64-bit be a worthwhile investment for preparing for the future though?

[edDV]

I will be doing everything related to video editing on this new computer - from capturing footage from a DV camera to editing using Avid Xpress DVD or Adobe Premiere Pro to adding effects using Adobe Aftereffects to editing graphics with Adobe Photoshop to encoding video with Canopus ProCoder 2 all the way down to DVD authoring with Adobe Encore DVD.

But I will not be using the computer solely for video editing. I will also perform tasks such as word processing, occasionally maybe games, internet browsing, checking e-mails nad recording and working with audio.

Wouldn't 64-bit be a worthwhile investment for preparing for the future though?

I remain unconvinced but I would go PCI-Express so cards will work in future motherboards, others may differ. When you are ready for a 64bit upgrade in 2-4 years, just replace the motherboard, CPU and memory with something that is fast then (probabaly well over 5GHz per 2x-8x multicore).

[JoshSpence]

Well I don't really want to spend more money in the future to buy new stuff I'd rather buy good stuff now.

And what processor should I get?

[edDV]

Well I don't really want to spend more money in the future to buy new stuff I'd rather buy good stuff now.

And what processor should I get?

Whatever you buy now will seem slow within a month of use. It will look like a snail when 4 core Pentiums and AMDs are out in a year and so on. If you want to play the game, figure the mobo is good for 2-3 years.

BTW: you will need a render farm of those machines to get any speed out of AfterEffects. My general rule of thumb is never spend more than $2000 on a new machine. Save the money for the next upgrade.

[JoshSpence]

Ok well what prcoessor should I get?

[harley2ride]

Watch for deals, and buy the most system you can get for the money. On recent deals, I've seen dell dual 3.0ghz systems with 1gb memory etc., for around $1400.00, including a 20" lcd and 5.1 speakers. Even a single 3.2ghz p4 is plenty for current video editing specs. I used to use a 2.8ghz p4 system with 1gb of ram and had no problems at all.