AMD or Intel for video editing/rendering?

[Netgeek]

I'm looking at a new system to use for video editing, rendering, and authoring as well as image editing. The system will not be used for games. I've come up with both an Intel Prescott config and AMD 939 config. Basically, I'm looking at an Athlon 3500+ on a Gigabyte K8NSNXP mobo or an Intel P4 3.2 on an Asus P4C800-E. The other components in each config are the same including 1 GB of RAM.

Should I expect a significant performance difference between the two setups? For the future it looks to me like the AMD solution provides more headroom (i.e. future CPU swap w/o changing mb) whereas future Intel chips will be out for the 775. Don't know if I'd ever change CPUs but it's nice to have that option.

Anything else that I need to consider before pulling the trigger? Has AMD announced how far they'll go on 939?

 

[Mik3y]

yes, with socket 939, amd leads in everything over the intel. yes, you should find pretty significant improvements with the 3500+ over the p4 3.2ghz. even againts a 3.5 or 3.6ghz P4 prescott, the athlon 64 still takes the lead. basically, intel lost their last bastion of power by losing in encoding/decoding to amd.

 

[Tab]

Oh god.........flame war........

 

[oldfart]

Depends on the program. Some will run better on Intel, some on AMD. Depends on how its optimized. You cant put a blanket statement that one is better than the other.

 

[dmw16]

I would go s939. Besides the fact that AMD is showing a major speed difference over the compartive speed rated Intels on the 939 chips, but also for upgradability. The s478 from intel is nearing the end of its life span, but the s939 is just starting. Some people never get a new chip w/o getting a new board, but if you would ever possibly upgrade just a cpu then the 939 is the way to go. Actually, just go AMD anyway

 

[IPLaw]

You should try looking at Anandtech: Here

Tom's also has some benches: Here

 

[dennisjai215]

amd all the way

 

[Cook1]

I don't see how this could get into any sort of flame war. All he wants to know are the down and dirty facts and I think they have been answered.

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: IPLaw
You should try looking at Anandtech: Here

Tom's also has some benches: Here

Exactly my point. It depends on the app. I happen to use Pinnacle Studio 9. P4 > A64 in that app. It is ahead of the A64 in quite a few others as well. I also use LAME MP3 audio encoder (CDex). The P4 is also ahead in this one.

You need to look at how each performs with the program you intend to use.

 

[DarkAmeba]

Originally posted by: dennisjai215
amd all the way

yup

 

[Netgeek]

Thanks everyone. I didn't intend to trigger a flame war, just trying to figure out how to spend my $$$. I did dig through the various review sites trying to figure this out. It seems as though AMD is the clear winner when gaming but, since that's not what I'm trying to do, I wanted to get some opinions. I think AMD is more appealing to me since in a year or so I could drop in a new CPU when the higher end chips get more affordable.

Forgive my ignorance, but would the Gigabyte MB accept any future 939 CPUs from AMD?

 

[DarkAmeba]

Originally posted by: Netgeek
Forgive my ignorance, but would the Gigabyte MB accept any future 939 CPUs from AMD?

It certainly would.

AMD is even better in encoding when on the 939 socket, so its perfect for you

EDIT: why did it post in italics??

 

[Titan]

as much as I like AMD, the fact is that intel always wins the compression and rendering (that involves compression) benchmarks. It's due to the higher raw clock speeds. The difference is like 10%, but it is consistently there. Note that northwoods perform better than prescotts at the speed of like 3.4ghz. If you care about video rendering times to a ridiculous degree, then go pentium. Actually, dual xeons with hyperthreading works even better, but that requires an OS that recognizes 4 cpus.

EDIT: realize that for 3d rendering, AMD always wins, due to a much better optimized floating point engine.

 

[JonB]

While I am a big AMD fan, for a dedicated video editing system, I'd still probably chose the P4 with an Intel chipset.
I've looked at some higher end systems based on the Matrox RT.X100 card (with Premiere Pro 1.5) and the newsgroup buzz indicates problems with AMD motherboards in general (but good success with a few). It appears that the Matrox board just works better with the Intel chipset, and the Intel chipset only works with the P4 (imagine that).

all that said, I'd try it in my MSI NEO first. If it sucked, I'd move it to another platform.

 

[geologist]

Would another advantage to the P4 be that, while rendering video with hyperthreading enabled, your system wouldnt be crippled to a snails crawl while doing something else, like surfing the net?

 

[Mik3y]

with amd's hypertransport, it beats the need of having intel's hyperthreading. hyperthreading only helps multi-task 5-10% more then a normal cpu, whereas hypertransport's raw speed helps amd in faster data transfer.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
with amd's hypertransport, it beats the need of having intel's hyperthreading. hyperthreading only helps multi-task 5-10% more then a normal cpu,

It's more like 10-30%, typically 20%.

whereas hypertransport's raw speed helps amd in faster data transfer.

Which don't matter very much for uniprocessor systems where HyperTransport is only used for I/O and the bottleneck is in the hard drives.

 

[geologist]

with amd's hypertransport, it beats the need of having intel's hyperthreading. hyperthreading only helps multi-task 5-10% more then a normal cpu, whereas hypertransport's raw speed helps amd in faster data transfer.

I didnt realize the hyperthreading helped multi-tasking so little. I have a P4 at 2.8ghz, and often have several processor-intensive programs going at the same time, but none are slowed down. I thought it was a benefit of hyperthreading.

 

[sandorski]

Athlon 3500+ vs P4 3.2, the Athlon is going to likely beat out or tie the P4 in those Apps that usually give P4s an advantage. If the comparison was between an Athlon 64 3200+ and P4 3.2 it would be a much closer comparison and more difficult choice.

 

[nealhe]

Hello,

ASUS also has a new motherboard P5AD2 for socket 775 that looks good.

www.asus.com


Cheers,

Neal

 

[AluminumStudios]

When you say "rendering" what software are you talking about? Some 3D software like Lightwave is noticably optimized for P4's. If you planned on doing lots of 3D rendering or work from a particular package you might want to find some benchmarks for that package and see if it makes a difference.

I do a ton of video editing, compositing, and image editing on an aging Athlon XP2200 system. I often wonder if a HypterThreadign P4 would help since as someone mentioned, my system gets horribly bogged down when I'm encoding or rendering (from AfterEffects or Combution or encoding in Tmpeg or VirtualDub) and want to do something else at the same time...

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

threadjack:
anybody know when the next generation amd boards will come out/will these have ddr2 and pci express/will the chipsets will perform better?

if i were entering into the market now it might be worth waiting.

i know ddr 2 533 doesn't have any advantages over low latency ddr 400 and pci express is the same as agp for current cards.

 

[sterling]

Why would you want to spend the extra 100 bucks on a AMD processor? Its a toss up when it comes to performance. Maybe the AMD might be a little faster on apps. I built a computer using a Pentium 4 3.0 about 5 months ago and have no regrets at all. This processor runs extremely cool on stock fans. Its as stable as can be. Its been on 24 hours a day since assembly. Theres absolutely no problems running any software on this machine. If the Amd were the same price it might be a different story. But, since you're only talking about a few frames here and there I'd definitely go with the Intel.

 

[caz67]

I don't think you could go wrong with either CPU. Both offer great performance in thier own right.

 

[DotheDamnTHing]

what i want to know is how come you didnt compare similar cpus such as a p4 3.2 vs a socket 754 3200+