Two questions regarding new computer technology

[snafubaby]

Hi. I have two questions regarding somewhat new computer technology.

The first one is multiple-core computers. Is the process of producing a video significantly faster when using dualcore, triplecore, and quadcore processors? Are we talking a very wise investment to buy these specific types of computers?

Now the second part. Solid state drives and 10,000 rpm drives. Would either of these two options greatly reduce the amount of time to process a video? SSD drives are quite expensive, of course, but from what i hear, your boot time for windows start-up, and application start-up, are super quick. Would it be a wise investment to buy an SSD drive, or a 10,000 rpm drive? I would assume 10,000 rpm is a faster SPINNING hard drive, but i also would assume that the read/write head(s) scan across the disk a lot faster than 7200 rpm drives.

I'd appreciate any answers to these questions.

[racer-x]

Q1= Yes, especially when dealing with AVC.

Q2= No. When dealing with video, a good old 5,500 rpm HDD is plenty fast enough unless you're working with uncompressed video( and who does that anymore?).

[redwudz]

I agree. A multi core CPU will help with most types of encoding, especially if you also multitask. I use a six core CPU that improves encoding time significantly when using codecs that are multi core aware, such as H.264 and sometimes codecs like Divx. Doesn't make as much difference with MPEG-2 encoding. A very fast CPU is a better investment for that.

I've used SSD drives and Raptor 10K RPM drives both as boot drives. I favor the Raptors as I had problems with the SSD drives maintenance. They will help you boot faster and load programs faster, but make little difference with encoding as that is CPU intensive, not drive intensive.

I use separate drives for capturing, encoding and editing, usually two in addition to the boot drive. The boot drive is constantly accessed by the OS, so not a good place for drive intensive operations. And except for capturing and editing, a fast drive in any position usually won't help much with CPU intensive operations like encoding.

[jman98]

The lifespan of SSDs is expected to be quite a bit longer than that of hard disk drives, but some people do have problems with SSDs through no fault of their own. redwudz's experience attests to that. SSDs are quite expensive and industry insiders do not see that changing for the next few years, if ever. Basically it is going to take some kind of major breakthrough that hasn't happened yet to get the cost down to manufacture SSDs and some industry experts predict that such a breakthrough will never happen. redwudz's suggestion to use different drives for booting and video work has great merit.