What should I look for in Core 2 Duo for significant speed jump over2.4 gig P4?

On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:44:01 -0800 (PST)
muzician21 wrote:

I've got a P4 2.4 gig machine now running XP, largely want to improve
rendering speed for video editing, how much processor do I need in the
Core 2 Duo realm to realize a healthy jump in speed? Not too proud to
go used, can't afford the latest greatest, but would like to see a
"significant" jump in speed.

What kind of numbers should I be looking for, and any suggestions on
pieces to look for or avoid?

Thanks for all input.

OK, for any CPU-intensive task, you want the fastest clock speed (GHz)
you can afford, paired with the most cache memory you can afford. Once
you figure that out, if you have extra money then you can add more
cores. Examples:
1) Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz 6MB cache (if that beast exists)
2) Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz 8MB cache (if that beast exists)
Number one would be significantly faster due to the higher clock speed.

But you asked about video editing. That is one specific application
where video card (speed), RAM (quantity) and hard drive (speed) all
play a part.

For video editing, look for:
64-bit OS with 6-8GB of RAM
7200RPM hard drive with 32MB of cache
A recent mid-range video card like a HD 4770 or similar with 1GB of
dedicated video RAM

Your system might have other glaring weaknesses that will slow down
video rendering more than a single core 2.4GHz CPU will. For example,
if you have 2GB of RAM and are using "integrated" (on the motherboard)
graphics adapter, then upgrading to a faster CPU will offer no
performance improvement at all. -Dave

On Sun, 20 Dec 2009 19:09:05 -0800 (PST)
muzician21 wrote:

On Dec 20, 9:04*am, "Dave C." wrote:

But you asked about video editing. *That is one specific application
where video card (speed), RAM (quantity) and hard drive (speed) all
play a part. *


Really? I wasn't aware the video card per se had much to do with speed
of editing. By rendering, I'm not talking about in the Video Game
sense, I mean processing video files with something like VirtualDub,
Vegas Movie Studio - processing effects, converting to DVD etc.

Depending on what software you are using, many video editing
applications will use the GPU about as much as they use the CPU. The
reason most people don't realize this is, the typical GPU is much more
powerful than a CPU. So while the GPU is (relatively speaking)
coasting, the CPU gets HAMMERED.

If you are doing any kind of video editing, you need (at minimum) a
pretty powerful mid-range graphics card with lots of dedicated video
RAM.

On a side note, the days of the CPU are numbered. GPUs are getting so
powerful, they will soon take over all the CPU functions. -Dave

I've got a P4 2.4 gig machine now running XP, largely want to improve
rendering speed for video editing, how much processor do I need in the
Core 2 Duo realm to realize a healthy jump in speed? Not too proud to
go used, can't afford the latest greatest, but would like to see a
"significant" jump in speed.

What kind of numbers should I be looking for, and any suggestions on
pieces to look for or avoid?

Thanks for all input.

On Dec 20, 9:04*am, "Dave C." wrote:

But you asked about video editing. *That is one specific application
where video card (speed), RAM (quantity) and hard drive (speed) all
play a part. *


Really? I wasn't aware the video card per se had much to do with speed
of editing. By rendering, I'm not talking about in the Video Game
sense, I mean processing video files with something like VirtualDub,
Vegas Movie Studio - processing effects, converting to DVD etc.

muzician21 wrote:

On Dec 20, 9:04*am, "Dave C." wrote:

But you asked about video editing. *That is one specific application
where video card (speed), RAM (quantity) and hard drive (speed) all
play a part. *


Really? I wasn't aware the video card per se had much to do with speed
of editing. By rendering, I'm not talking about in the Video Game
sense, I mean processing video files with something like VirtualDub,
Vegas Movie Studio - processing effects, converting to DVD etc.

RAM will help and so will Hard drive speed, but there are still very few
pieces of software that directly use the graphics card.
When it comes to video proccessing a quad core processor is the thing to
have.
My rig is as follows:
Q6600 o'clocked to 3.4Ghz (this way I get clock speed and extra cores)
4GB RAM
4x 500GB hard drives. 2 of these are set up in RAID 0 array for extra speed
ATi X300 graphics because none of my software uses it.

Hope that helps.
--
Graham
Website - http://www.thedeathzone.free-online.co.uk

On Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:58:52 +0000
Benjamin Gawert wrote:

* SteveH:

Well, usually a good advice is to buy enough CPU power appropriate
to the task. Going above that is a waste of money and energy.

How is getting a larger PSU a waste of energy?

How is a CPU a PSU?

Benjamin

BTW: an overszed PSU is in fact a waste of energy as most switching
PSUs are working less efficient when loaded way below their maximum
rating.

If your PSU is junk quality, that is correct. -Dave

On a side note, the days of the CPU are numbered. GPUs are getting
so powerful, they will soon take over all the CPU functions

This really isn't true.

GPUs are very good at performing a very small number of tasks, and for
those specific tasks, no modern general purpose CPU can compete.

General purpose CPUs' days may be numbered, but it will take more than
GPUs to replace them.

What you fail to realize is that it would be trivial to design a single
chip to perform both functions. We already have quad-core chips being
the de-facto standard. How long do you think it would take AMD/ATI
(for example) to integrate a CPU into a GPU fab?

It's coming. Now you know why AMD bought ATI. They needed to. -Dave


--
Dave C.

* muzician21:
I've got a P4 2.4 gig machine now running XP, largely want to improve
rendering speed for video editing, how much processor do I need in the
Core 2 Duo realm to realize a healthy jump in speed?

Well, except the intel Atom and similar low-power CPUs of course you
probably will have a hard time finding a somewhat newer CPU that doesn't
give you a very noticable performance improvent.

Not too proud to
go used, can't afford the latest greatest, but would like to see a
"significant" jump in speed.

Well, a P4 2.4GHz sounds like Socket428 to me, and honestly, everything
you can get for this socket is old and slow. However, if your mobo is
already Socket LGA775 then it depends on the mobo. Older LGA775 boards
are limited to the Pentium D (basically a dual core Pentium4) which will
already give you a noticable performance boost (get a Pentium D 9xx not
the old 8xx series, though!).

However, if your board supports it then the Core 2 Duo/Quad is the way
to go.

Benjamin

* Dave C.:

OK, for any CPU-intensive task, you want the fastest clock speed (GHz)
you can afford, paired with the most cache memory you can afford.

Well, usually a good advice is to buy enough CPU power appropriate to
the task. Going above that is a waste of money and energy.

Once
you figure that out, if you have extra money then you can add more
cores. Examples:
1) Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz 6MB cache (if that beast exists)
2) Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz 8MB cache (if that beast exists)
Number one would be significantly faster due to the higher clock speed.

This is only true for single threaded applications. With multithreaded
programs #2 runs circles around #1. And figuring out how many cores can
be used by the software should not be secondary in the list, it should
be the first thing that is checked.

But you asked about video editing. That is one specific application
where video card (speed), RAM (quantity) and hard drive (speed) all
play a part.

This is not quite right. First, if the video editing software is no
64bit application then buying more than 4GB RAM is a waste of money for
that task. Second, only very few editing programs actually support GPGPU
functionality, and those that do use it only rudimentary.

For video editing, look for:
64-bit OS with 6-8GB of RAM

While I agree that when buying a new OS it makes sense going for the
64bit version, there is no reason why the needs to buy a new OS just
because he wants a faster system.

7200RPM hard drive with 32MB of cache
A recent mid-range video card like a HD 4770 or similar with 1GB of
dedicated video RAM

As most video editing programs that support GPGPU still set on NVIDIA's
CUDA recommending a midrange ATI card isn't a good recommendation. Any
low-end card (Radeon 4200/300 series, Geforce GT120 etc) does as well as
a Radeon 4770, is cheaper and consumes less power.

Your system might have other glaring weaknesses that will slow down
video rendering more than a single core 2.4GHz CPU will. For example,
if you have 2GB of RAM and are using "integrated" (on the motherboard)
graphics adapter, then upgrading to a faster CPU will offer no
performance improvement at all.

This is complete nonsense. Every integrated gfx solution benefits from a
faster processor as it offloads many things onto the CPU. In fact, for
any video editing application that does not have GPGPU support an
integrated graphics solution does as fine as any separate graphics card.

Following your recommendations, the OP would spend a ****load of money
for something which brings very low or even no return in value.

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:
* Dave C.:

OK, for any CPU-intensive task, you want the fastest clock speed
(GHz) you can afford, paired with the most cache memory you can
afford.

Well, usually a good advice is to buy enough CPU power appropriate to
the task. Going above that is a waste of money and energy.

How is getting a larger PSU a waste of energy?
--
SteveH