Processor Upgrade Question

[mowermanEd]

I currently have a Biostar GeForce6100 M9 Socket 939 motherboard with Athlon 64 3200 Venice with 3G Ram using onboard video and running Vista Business Edition. I'd like to speedup my video encoding by upgrading my processor. What would give me the most bang for the buck? Any suggestions?

[boing]

I'd also be very interested if anyone can give some specs on the set up which would give the fastest encoding times

[redwudz]

That MB appears to be able to handle a 939 Dual Core CPU 4800+ (200MHz) processor. The dual core will give you a big benefit for multitasking, even if you opt for a lower speed CPU. You should be able to find a ADO4800DDBOX for about $150US. Check the BIOSTAR website to make sure it can run that CPU.

In general, CPU speed is by far the most important factor controlling encoding speed. The system bus speed, memory speed, hard drive speed will not have much effect on encoding speed. A dual core will let you do other things with the computer while encoding. Some encoders can fully use both cores for even better performance.

[jagabo]

Some encoders (TMPGEnc Plus for example) run nearly twice as fast on dual core CPUs. But socket 939 X2 processors are getting hard to find.

[redwudz]

jagabo said:

But socket 939 X2 processors are getting hard to find.

True. You can get a AM2 4800+ X2 CPU for about $135 at present. Throw in about $60 for 1GB DDR2 memory and another $50 for a new motherboard, and you would likley be better off. But the ADO4800DDBOX would be an easy enough upgrade and should give a a fair decrease in encode time.