Bought an AMD is that bad?

[trikcard]

Well, I knew I'd make the wrong call. I was sitting there deciding which processor to buy and I went with the AMD 3800 dual core at the recommendations of my friends. However, my friends are mainly interested in gaming. I want to video edit. Is an AMD processor just as good for video editing as a Dual Core P4? I was reading about the Adobe Encore tool and one of the reviews says it doesn't even run under AMD, and the majority of the programs I use are Adobe, Encore, Premiere, PS. So although it's too late to switch it out, I just wanted to see what you all have found out so I can either sigh of relief or puke.

[FulciLives]

Intel is considered to be better for video work like video encoding and editing but it's not like AMD is bad ... only thing I know is that some older AMD chips would overheat really easily especially when the computer was encoding.

Also I would imagine that the Dual Core thing is more supported in software for Intel than for AMD.

However I am no expert in the Dual Core area so I could be wrong but you probably would have been better off with Intel yet I can't imagine something NOT working with the AMD just don't expect the Dual Core option to be well implimented.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[jtommyj]

I am using an AMD dual core Opteron 165 (which is almost the same as the 3800) for video editing and encoding. It is overclocked to 2.7 GHz on each core,and it blows away my dual Xeon 3.06 machine by almost 1/3 or more in encoding time. Obviously owning both i'm not a fan boy of either,and my Opteron has more cache than the 3800+ but i think nowadays the Intel for video is better than AMD is no longer true like it once may have been.

Tom

[rsgars]

I do a lot of editing, encoding and authoring using Premiere Pro, Encore and CCE. I am working with a 1.5 Gh AMD processor that is around four years old. It is still going strong.

[Bjs]

What a pile of rubbish .

Amd has alway's been designed around multimedia rich performance .
Intel is designed as the "all rounded" .

1:

Also I would imagine that the Dual Core thing is more supported in software for Intel than for AMD.

NO ... be aware that this issue appeared a while back with the first release of the 64bit os from microsoft which was in tuned to using intel chip's ... microsoft revised this os and produced an updated version for better support for amd chipset's .

This is why when building pc's , like I do , it pay's to stay current with ms , intel , and amd issue's on a daily basis .


2 :

However I am no expert in the Dual Core area so I could be wrong but you probably would have been better off with Intel yet I can't imagine something NOT working with the AMD just don't expect the Dual Core option to be well implimented.

Stop talking nonsense .

As for the current situation under 64bit ... it will take time for companies to produce 64bit product's that work under all 64bit cpu's ... one would expect adobe not to be far off and hard at work too address these type's of issue's ... and not just adobe .

For support and all you wish to do in the future , you have made a wise choice .

We have for some time been building these system's and have never had any complaint's arising from poor performance , and not one has been returned for any warrantee issue's ... they just keep going .

The only complaint is the common lack of 64bit program's at this time .

[jtoolman2000]

But are you using versions 2 of the above mentioned Adobe products?

[Marty2003]

BJs, Dual Core support and 64-bit support are two completely unrelated items.

[Richard_G]

Have a look here and compare what you bought with what you could have had from the Intel range. You'll probably find that you need to spend much more on an Intel to give similar performance.

http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html

[trikcard]

Not sure of my versions, I need to check.

Also, I didn't get the 64bit processor as I don't have the 64 bit OS so it would do little good.

[celtic_druid]

AMD has a better approach to dual core than Intel. Intel basically welded together two P4's to make it happen. AMD on the otherhand designed their architecture to support multiple cores from the begining.

If something is SMP optimised, then it supports multiple cores whether they be Intel or AMD. If it isn't SMP optimised, then it doesn't support either, although X2's still have decent clock speeds compared to single core CPU's so they still perform ok.

Ok, so dual core and 64bit are two different matters, but that fact is if you want AMD, then you have 64bit. Whether you use it or not is upto you though.

AMD CPU's support MMX, SSE1/2/3. So if it runs on Intel CPU's then it runs on AMD.

[jman98]

trikcard - I work in IT for a living and I have 2 PCs at home, one of which I built myself from parts. Both have AMD chips. In fact, I won't buy Intel. I feel very strongly that consumers win by having AMD and Intel in business, so I make a point of supporting AMD as much as possible. You get more bang for the buck with AMD. Frankly, their technology is better these days anyway. They lead and Intel follows, or at least tries to You might be surprised at how many of my IT co-workers run nothing but AMD at home too. You won't have any problems doing your video editing on an AMD box.

[ROF]

Last time I checked Intel still measures their Front Side Bus in MHz.

AMD has been doing the GHz thing for quite sometime and all modern AMD Chips are 64Bit. Given the choice of hyperthreading or hypertransport I'll take hypertransport anyday no matter what application I am running. Given that when most people are doing something CPU intensive they tend to allow the single process to run it's course before beginning another CPU intensive project. It just makes sense to buy AMD. You can buy Intel but you'll pay more and get less when you could pay the same or less for AMD and get a whole lot more. Then again price should be a consideration but definitely not the deciding factor when you make a CPU purchase.

[oldandinthe way]

Not much point to discussing religious issues on a technical forum.

AMD vs Intel is to a large extent based on how you were brought up.

Too many of us old farts remember when AMD was a foundry building "second source" parts so other chipmakers could qualify their products. You always hoped your equipment included the primary vendors parts, and I can remember replacing 500 AMD DMA chips on 8088 based PC's because AMD didn't copy the design but designed its own and it didn't quite work..

You don't buy from a vendor which made you do that much work, no matter how much they have changed.

[redwudz]

trikcard, I've never had any problem running Adobe programs on AMD processors. That review may be talking about the early venisons of Windows 64, but looking at the latest compatibility list for XP64, there is no problems mentioned with Adobe products and the 64bit OS, and I am unaware of any problems with AMD with the XP 32 OS and Adobe. I haven't used a Intel processor since the 400 Celeron.

[lordsmurf]

AMD is not better than Intel, Intel is not better than AMD. Anybody that makes grandiose statement along those lines is an idiot.

They are, however, geared towards different audiences.

Intel is workhorse made for business and office work, which includes video. Many video programs work better with Intel CPUs. It's long been more stable and had a more reliable selection of motherboard/CPU combinations. You won't really get Intel folks to geek out on you like an AMD fanboy, so you'll hear less from them (they're busy using their equipment, not running around bragging about it).

AMD choose gamers and surfers and non-important usage as their crowd. You tend to get overclockers trying to squeeze out that last tenth of a Mhz worth of power while running liquid coolant across the CPU (which cost more than the CPU itself, in some cases). These sorts of people tend to be a bit of a pain in the ass in general, so they often cry out "bang for the buck" and other silly sayings. Those tomshardware sites are biased in this direction.

There are exceptions both ways (stable AMD, overheating Intel), but that rarely lasts more than a portion of a chip generation. In general, this is how things work.

There's no fault in which one you pick, just realize they tend to be made for different uses. I have two Intels and an AMD. In TMPGEnc Plus, the AMD is faster than both Intels, but in everything else video, it really sort of lags.

As long as your software works with the CPU (especially Adobe), you'll be fine.

[lordsmurf]

What a pile of rubbish . Amd has alway's been designed around multimedia rich performance .

The issues in years past surrounding SSE and SSE2 instructions would negate this as a "fact". For the longest time, AMD was simply designed around "being cheaper than Intel". Only in the past couple of years did it really embrace a true market, that of video games and other recreational use.

[jagabo]

Not Adobe products but video encoders:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page32.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page33.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page34.html

[lordsmurf]

Not Adobe products but video encoders:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page32.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page33.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page34.html

The video clips are too short to be a valid test. Video does not encode the same speed from start to finish, it often varies along the way. You'd really want to encode a 30-minute chunk of video, not a few seconds or minutes worth.

[InXess]

I can't resist re-posting BJ_M's link from another thread as it seems to be quite relevant here.

AMD WINS!! AMD WINS!!

After running the benchmarks and the results are pretty clear - AMD wins. We went back and tweaked the heck out of the Pentium Dual Core machine to try and catch the AMD, but we couldn't get the same results.

http://www.videoguys.com/DIY4.html

oldandinthe way Posted: Apr 24, 2006 15:23
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not much point to discussing religious issues on a technical forum.

AMD vs Intel is to a large extent based on how you were brought up.

Wake up oldandinthe way. You've overslept... face the day.
Videoguys are not an authority but their experience seems to question what others strongly believe about Intel. AMD is here to stay and who knows maybe Intel will have to move over...

[FulciLives]

I was just looking on the mwave.com website and the "top-of-the-line" AMD CPU chips are far more expensive than the "top-of-the-line" Intel CPU chips.

I am not paying THAT much for a CPU ... not these days.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Just to be clear I was comparing the AMD Athlon 64 X2 CPU chipsets to the Intel Pentium D CPU chipsets.

[vitualis]

Agreed.

You mostly do get better performance on the Athlon64 X2 CPUs but the Pentium Ds (in a role reversal) have better "bang for buck" if you want to go dual core.

Regards.

[sam9s]

Well, I knew I'd make the wrong call. I was sitting there deciding which processor to buy and I went with the AMD 3800 dual core at the recommendations of my friends. However, my friends are mainly interested in gaming. I want to video edit. Is an AMD processor just as good for video editing as a Dual Core P4? I was reading about the Adobe Encore tool and one of the reviews says it doesn't even run under AMD, and the majority of the programs I use are Adobe, Encore, Premiere, PS. So although it's too late to switch it out, I just wanted to see what you all have found out so I can either sigh of relief or puke.

Just read this Review and every thing would be crystle clear, n BTW you made a wise decission coz in a nut shell AMD beats the hell out off Intel.

[Morse2]

Hi trickard;

Not even going to touch the "AMD vs Intel" thing, it really is a matter of "religion", but you chose well. The 3800+ is a chip that really performs nicely for multimedia. It runs relatively cool so you don't need a high noise cooling solution, it's fast, fast, fast. You really have to work at it to bog the thing down and it's a very very stable chip IME.

Don't know about it's gaming performance, since I don't permit modern video games on any of my computers (too many issues with "copy protection" schemes that can "break" your computer). Civ II and it's contemporaries are fine, since that was before software makers decided to corrupt our computers to prevent kiddies from copying programs they can't afford anyway.

Good luck on your purchase - don't have 'buyers remorse', you "done good". Now if you haven't done so, get a good low noise cooler and use it for multimedia apps - you'll be amazed at what a good performer you have!!

All the best,
Morse

[Beavis]

Trikcard - As others have mentioned, you're going to be quite happy with your new system. Also, you didn't mention what your old system was. If it was pretty old, the new one is going to be so blazing fast that the last thing on your mind will be whether or not you could have made a different choice and cut a few extra minutes off your rendering or encoding time.

[jagabo]

Not Adobe products but video encoders:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page32.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page33.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_2005/page34.html

The video clips are too short to be a valid test. Video does not encode the same speed from start to finish, it often varies along the way. You'd really want to encode a 30-minute chunk of video, not a few seconds or minutes worth.

You're argument is flawed.

[MarcoEsc]

I was reading about the Adobe Encore tool and one of the reviews says it doesn't even run under AMD...

Adobe Encore DVD barely even running might be an issue, but it has nothing to do with AMD. Encore is one of the buggiest programs ever forced out the door by a software publisher. Here's hoping the new version 2 has cleaned things up a bit, as 1.5 was just layer upon layer of bugs.

You bought a great processor. Don't worry about it.

[lordsmurf]

You're argument is flawed.

And your grammar is atrocious. I do not accept comments like the one you just made, as it gives no reasoning. Telling somebody they are wrong is entirely unacceptable unless you're also willing to tell them why (or at very least, provide worthwhile information for debate). What you just did is akin to a little kid saying "huh-uh" on the playground.

Adobe Encore DVD barely even running might be an issue, but it has nothing to do with AMD. Encore is one of the buggiest programs ever forced out the door by a software publisher.

This is very true.

[dun4cheap]

Lordsmurf pointed this out:

Adobe Encore DVD barely even running might be an issue, but it has nothing to do with AMD. Encore is one of the buggiest programs ever forced out the door by a software publisher. Here's hoping the new version 2 has cleaned things up a bit, as 1.5 was just layer upon layer of bugs.

It maybe a close battle with Pinnacle and there Studio line. Especially Studio 10.


I didn't read through the hole thread, but in the early days heat was an issue as well. The AMD processor used to run a lot hotter. I know this is not the case any longer. As for duel core, it will be interesting to see the results when main stream editors like Avid Express, Avid LE7, Premiere and Sony Vegas take advantage of the Duel and quad core processors. It will be an new erra in editing. Not to mention we will see a flood of economical HD cams hit the market within 6 months. I can't wait, its killing me.

[jagabo]

You're argument is flawed.

And your grammar is atrocious.

Heheh! Should I go back and fix my grammar the same way you fixed your spelling?

[INFRATOM]

Don't feel bad about what you bought, everything works. The difference between systems is not that much. The big difference is how optimize it is and geared for specific reason and if you don't install every cr--p program or else your computer will run fine. The rest is personal forexample I don't like "The best bang for the buck" I say " Buy more than you can afford" when it comes to computer and don't upgrade wait for a new technology and build a new computer. The programs change with time and they are optimized for new CPU's so it is better to make one strong system and wait to make another strong one when new hardware is out there.