Yet another Pentium 4/D VS Core2Duo question

[julitomg]

I just sold my home made editing PC to my brother. I was pretty happy with it as an all around video workstation (capturing, editing, encoding, authoring, graphics and audio). It was a 3.2 GHzPentium 4 HT with 1 Gig of DDR RAM, etc..(see my computer details).
As I said I was happy with its performance but now have to build another one, applying the same philosophy of trying not to buy the latest/biggest/fastest components but a notch or two below in order to obtain almost the same performance, same technology but a substantially lower price (in other words, good bang for the buck)
I just bought the MoBo for it, an ASUS P5LD2 SE , it supports most newer Pentium and Celeron CPUs, including Core2Duo and Extreme and DDR2 memory
Now, I was thinking of buying a Pentium D of, let´s say 3.2 or 3.4 GHz expecting its performance to be at least equal (and probably better) than my old 3.2 HT...but reading more and more about the Core2Duo processors I got curious and would like to give them a try...
Finally my question would be the following: where can I find a comparison chart or table that shows me the equivalence of the Core2Duo´s speed against the "traditional" P4 speeds?
All I´ve been able to find are performance benchmarks on complete systems or dry technical spec charts.
Is there something like this?
Pentium 4----Pentium D-----Core2Duo
3.0---------------3.0----------------?
3.2---------------3.2----------------?
3.4---------------3.4----------------?

I know they are "different animals" and that there are several "but´s and if´s" regarding front side bus speeds, cache, etc...but I´d like this little starting point just to compare prices and features in order to make sure I´ll have in the end a machine that al least´d be as fast as my older rig.
One last question...about RAM. as I said that MoBo accepts DDR2 and I intend to put 1 Gig (2x512), and probably later another Gig (2 Gigs total)...will there any diference in performance if I use 533 MHz or 667 MHz?

[edDV]

Depends what you are encoding.

Here are two from Tom's Hardware:

Divx
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=433&model2=464&chart=177

H.264
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=433&model2=464&chart=182

[BKL]

www.overclockers.com has run several articles looking at Core2Duo vs Pentium D performance, especially from an overclocking standpoint.

[edDV]

...

I know they are "different animals" and that there are several "but´s and if´s" regarding front side bus speeds, cache, etc...but I´d like this little starting point just to compare prices and features in order to make sure I´ll have in the end a machine that al least´d be as fast as my older rig.
One last question...about RAM. as I said that MoBo accepts DDR2 and I intend to put 1 Gig (2x512), and probably later another Gig (2 Gigs total)...will there any diference in performance if I use 533 MHz or 667 MHz?

I'm building a budget Core2 Duo machine now. I can partially answer.

Core2 Duo runs a 1066 MHz FSB. DDR2 memory usage depends on the motherboard. 533 MHz "dual mode" runs 1066 MHz and matches the CPU. Without motherboard "dual mode" support, the memory runs half speed @ 533MHz. The CPU may have to wait for memory.

667MHz is expensive but may be of value if you intend to overclock the FSB. Most advice is to refrain from overclocking the first generation motherboards. Know what you are doing if you go that route.

PS: 667 MHz memory also matches the intermediate FSB "Intel Core Duo" which is the older brother of the 1066 MHz FSB "Intel Core2 Duo". Difficult to keep this straight.

[discguy001]

what kind of editing software are you going to run? Spend your money on quality software and tailor the computer around the specific software package, otherwise your building a house from the roof down.

[julitomg]

Editing with Premiere 6.5, MPEG encoding with TMPGEnc, authoring with DVD Workshop 2.2, burning with Nero

[edDV]

Newer generation applications will support dual procs and SSE2 SSE3.

Info is lacking on legacy version performance.

[jagabo]

MPEG encoding with TMPGEnc

TMPGEnc is the slowest of all the commercial MPEG encoders by a wide margin. CCE for example is 2 to 4 times faster.

[julitomg]

I know jagabo...but I like the quality it´s given me...
EdDV, thanks for your answer about memory, that´s more like I was looking for, and as for the benchmarks...well, my question was not so much as comparing the processors but just knowing the speed correlation...for example, if you told me "Pentium D @3.0 GHz is equivalent (more or less) to 1.86 Core2Duo" or whatever(again, it´s just an arbitrary example..); then I can go to the benchmark pages and select a certain type of encoding to see what to expect.
Still I appreciate a lot the info

[edDV]

I know jagabo...but I like the quality it´s given me...
EdDV, thanks for your answer about memory, that´s more like I was looking for, and as for the benchmarks...well, my question was not so much as comparing the processors but just knowing the speed correlation...for example, if you told me "Pentium D @3.0 GHz is equivalent (more or less) to 1.86 Core2Duo" or whatever(again, it´s just an arbitrary example..); then I can go to the benchmark pages and select a certain type of encoding to see what to expect.
Still I appreciate a lot the info

This is a more fundamental change. More like PIII to P4. No, more like Pentium to Pentium II where everything changes at the motherboard level as well. The transition is more fuzzy with Core2 Duo because there is more legacy support (depending on the motherboard).

My decision was to put off the big upgrade (to 4 core) while I experiment with Core2 Duo on a budget ECS transition motherboard.

PS: There isn't a direct equivalent comparison since the new model is more massively parallel both inside the core and then multiple cores. The changes are more fundamental. Software needs to adjust to optimize. The future is 4 core, 8 core, 16 core and so on with binary math.

[julitomg]

Ok, EdDV, I see...and by the way, can I ask you what processor will you use in yours?, can you put some of the specs of your own project?

[edDV]

Documented here.
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=311893&highlight=

[julitomg]

Thanks a lot , I think it´s more or less what I had in mind

[edDV]

I usually maintain multiple machines for different purposes.

Day to day I use a main "video editing" machine, a side machine (for web access, encoding and PVR) and a notebook. The side machine is usually the previous "video editing" machine.

This time I decided to upgrade the side machine first.