Computer upgrade Advice...

[helper]

Hi all.

I am looking to upgrade my old Pentium 4 Pc, it has the old 478 pin board, so I am going to get a new machine. I am getting confused on what is the best bang for the buck to do my video editing with. I currently use Sony Vegas movie studio for my race editing and alltoavi for converting mkv movies to avi to burn them to divx dvds. I was able to find a core i7 setup for just over $950 all i would need to do is move my extra drives and power it up. But, is this over kill being I am running XP 16 bit and programs I mentioned? Would a quad core work just as good and save myself $200 or more?

Thanks for any help on this...

[RabidDog]

P4 to i7?? sheesh, you're gonna be in heaven.
Save the 200 skins if you really need them.
XP 16bit? thats DOS.

[helper]

Hello,

It is actuall xp professional, but that is still a 32bit OS my bad... I got confused between 32 and 64 bit os. I meant 32 bit and not 16. I am thinking the extra money may be worth it but dont want to buy a Ferrai and only have it run at 55mph, when a toyota can do the same thing for less. I would rather save the money then do that.

[redwudz]

For just video editing, you don't need a lot of power. Video encoding is where the fastest CPUs shine. Most any of the faster quad cores are a good choice, something around 3GHZ speed, 4GB DDR RAM and lots of hard drive space. Some of the newer video cards also work for acceleration and speed up video processing and encoding, older cards are just for displaying the video.

[lordsmurf]

I have some dual cores that are actually faster than some quads.

[helper]

Hello,

The weird thing is for a similar setup on a 3ghz I think it was the 9550 quad, it was only $120 more for the i7, even though it is slower ghz, it is true quad and not 2 duo, from what I read, now if this means anything with the programs I am using I do not know and was hoping to find out..

Thanks for all the help...

[jagabo]

I'd shoot for Core i7 920. Are you editing standard def or high def? What output formats are you using? MPEG2 for DVD? h.264?

h.264 encoding shows a big difference for the i7 over earlier quads:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/824/6/
Differences with MPEG 2 encoding are usually far less.

[budz]

IMHO you'll do well in getting a Q9550 w/4GB of ram. Unless you have loads of money to burn then go for the i7. In 2 weeks supposedly Intel will drop prices again.

[helper]

Hello,

The place I was going to get it at the difference between a 9550 and an i7 was under $100 maybe even less of a difference.

Jagabo, at this time I do mostly SD Xvid, for the divx dvds and avi to meg to DVD for the race videos.

Thanks for the info...

[jagabo]

Xvid isn't so well multithreaded so it won't benefit much from running more than 4 threads (ie, 4 threads on a Q9550 vs 8 threads on an i7). Even going from 2 threads to 4 threads the gains aren't that great. I don't know about Vegas' MPEG 2 encoder. Most h.264 encoders scale much better.

[nic2k4]

Here's a nice little chart that should give you a clearer idea on a CPU bang for buck value. Read the whole report for specific software performance numbers.

[jagabo]

A single chart of performance/price of CPUs is of limited use. The author of that article even says "what you see below is a crazy experiment and probably meaningless."

[nic2k4]

Well it's always easier to do a comparison visually than to try and juggle a bunch of numbers. The complete system chart really puts a different perspective on things, but you should still choose your CPU according to the software you plan on using.

[JimmyS]

AnandTech has a recently put up a good benchmark page. I like its ability to compare two CPUs against each other.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?b=2

[jagabo]

Tom's Hardware also has comparisons:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-desktop-cpu-charts/benchmarks,60.html

You can compare two (or more) processors across all benchmarks too. Unfortunately, it's not done graphically, just by the numbers.

[ocgw]

I have some dual cores that are actually faster than some quads.

I disagreed w/ you about a certain single core beating a quad core but I "got your back" about some dual core out performing some quads

I am about to upgrade my daughter's PC to a AMD Rigor dual core (designed as dual core, not quad core reject lol), $65USD and it out performs some Intel and AMD budget quads

ocgw

peace

[stiltman]

I have some dual cores that are actually faster than some quads.

I disagreed w/ you about a certain single core beating a quad core but I "got your back" about some dual core out performing some quads

I am about to upgrade my daughter's PC to a AMD Rigor dual core (designed as dual core, not quad core reject lol), $65USD and it out performs some Intel and AMD budget quads

ocgw

peace

We're sure glad smurfy didn't mention single cores huh?

[JimmyS]

Tom's Hardware also has comparisons:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-desktop-cpu-charts/benchmarks,60.html

You can compare two (or more) processors across all benchmarks too. Unfortunately, it's not done graphically, just by the numbers.

Glad to see TH has finally updated their CPU charts. Thought about mentioning them as well, but last time I checked, they were still at the Q3 - 08 version, without any of the recent CPUs. An interesting exercise is to compare various CPUs in the same price range and see just how competitive AMD is in their price brackets.

[helper]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the great information. After reading and looking and not wanting to end up like I did when I bought my original pentium so many years ago. I am going to go with the i7 920, as I can always upgrade to a fast cpu later and it will be a major change from my p4.

Thanks again....

[helper]

Hey all,

one more question... I am debating between a 650w corsair or the 850w power supply. I am planning on running 2 1 TB wd drives and a 640 drive, 1 sli video card, 2 dvd drives, 3 fans in the case, maybe in the future adding another 1 tb internal. Which would be the best with the i7 core cpu

Thanks in advance, you all are a great help

[jagabo]

A good 650 watt PSU is fine unless you plan on a very high end graphics card (or two, or more) for games.

[JimmyS]

Hey all,

one more question... I am debating between a 650w corsair or the 850w power supply. I am planning on running 2 1 TB wd drives and a 640 drive, 1 sli video card, 2 dvd drives, 3 fans in the case, maybe in the future adding another 1 tb internal. Which would be the best with the i7 core cpu

Thanks in advance, you all are a great help

More is usually better in a performance PC. A lot depends on the graphic card you are using. This article may give you some insight.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-radeon-power,2122.html

[helper]

Hello,

Sorry forgot to add going to be using a XFX Nvidia 9600 GT SLI compatible with 512 DDR3 memory on it, hooked up to a dvi, and svideo to TV

[helper]

Hello,

Also thinking of oc to 3.33ghz, as it does not require a voltage increase... Would the 650 still work or would a 800 be better, corsair. Looking at the test model they used on the oc test of the i7 they used a 1000 watt psu or higher

Thanks for all the help..

[ocgw]

650-700 watts will be fine, I recommend any of the fine single 12v rail psu's, by Corsair, OCZ, Silverstone, or PC Power and Cooling

http://www.silverstonetek.com/tech/wh_single12.php?area=

ocgw

peace