dual vs. single CPU

[stephenrmills]

Looking to purchase a new encoding station and not sure if I should go with a dual P3 1gHz or single P4 1.9gHz. Any past experiences or tips are appreciated. Thanks

[JackPost]

simple!! one processor.. you wont be able to take advantage of 2 processors becouse none of the programs that works with video cam handle 2 processors.. if you have 2 processors and you are running e.g. windows 98 it wont make a difference.. becouse win 98 only works with 1 processor and if you are running win2k you will be able to work with 2 processors, but only if the software does it!!! otherwise will use only 1 processor... consider this, dual processor is not adding 2 processors speed and having a realy good speed, it's just 2 diferente "process" running at the same time and on diferente processors... if you go for just one precessor, you will have only one "process" at the time, but considering the options you have in mind a P4 1.9 is much better.. I would say go for the 1.9, looks like a much better option for me, but its up to you!!!

good luck

[deltaboy]

really, id go for the dual. even tho the 1.9GHz will be far more faster, if youre planning to run 2K, a dual system can handle so much more. anyway, 1GHz is fast enough, unless youre a total speed freak! i run a dual P3 866 and its smokin! i can encode multiple AVIs and capture and whatever without suffering a loss.

the choice is yours...

[Jim Dandy]

me personally i run dual with windows xp professional i have dual 1ghz p3 now the p4 you can have a bigger f.s.b. but my friend who is an Amd freak said the p4 isn't a true 400 mhz f.s.b. but thats all talk id benchmark the two with sandra to see what runs better my guess if you doing videos and all that get a single but if you play games like me id go for the dual.

[purplepoopdaloop]

i would sugest dual athalon with a tyan board they just released one fore about 200 and the pros about 150 each for the mp 1.2 .the way the athalons are benchmarking against th p4 you get best of both worlds horsepower from 2 chips and even when 1 is being used it will still be as fast as a p4 .now xp is coming out so p4 might see some improvements.i have a duel p3 at 1ghz and with tempeg it doubles in speed of the 1 ghz i am also planing on building a duel athy

[tinycorkscrew]

Hi -

While I am by no means wealthy, I'd been saving money for the last four years to go toward a new system, so cost was really not as high a consideration as performance.

I had planned on going with dual Xeons, but I read reviews and looked at benchmarks, and I found that Athlon MPs perform better for most applications (including some video encoding processes).

I built a system with two 1.2 ghz Athlons, 1 GB of DDR RAM, a 18.4 GB Seagate Cheetah 15,000 RPM SCSI hard drive, and an Addtronics W8500 case (very cool). Had I built a comparable computer with dual Pentiums, it would have cost over $800 more.

Unless you plan on playing a lot of Quake 3, dual Athlons are your best bet for performance (not just price), but feel free to read this review rather than take my word for it:

http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=p4xeon&page=1&mscssid=&tp=

I can encode a widescreen DVD to VCD via TMPGEnc using the standard TMPGEnc VCD template with high quality settings at better than 30 frames per second. A 90 minute movie ripped with SmartRipper and prepared with DVD2AVI takes about 70 minutes to encode.

Two processors does make quite a bit of difference with TMPGEnc, Premiere, and After Effects. Having a dual system also makes a big difference with apps that don't support dual processors. For example, one processor can be used to burn a CD at max speed while I play games or browse the net with the other.