- Nov 20, 2005
- 14,612
- 318
- 126
I have been studying in this forum and elsewhere for the answer to my problem, but each avenue just gets me more confused so I will just come out and ask the masters.
My Issue: I need a new computer to be my primary desktop. I don't play games and I never plan to play games on it. In fact there is just one task that I must do that my E4500 does not do fast enough- encode DVDs. I have recently began digitizing all my DVDs (over 100) to play on my PS3 in xh264 and my current two systems (the 3800+ at 2.6 OC and a 4500 C2D at stock speeds) don't do the job nearly as fast as I want. All other tasks will be light web browsing and basic office stuff.
As it is I am stuck between three CPUs: The Q6600, the E8400 and the soon to be released Q9300.
Now some might say "just get the q94xx," but I am determined to not spend more than $300 on a CPU (well, if it was close maybe but I bet I won't see a q94xx CPU for less than $350 for months after lanch and that is too much). Also the sooner the better as I want to get this project done as soon as possible - I would sacrifice 10% performance to gain 3 months on my project.
What I have gathered so far is that the quad cores are better at video encoding, but my singular task would seem to benefit greatly from SSE4 and a recent thread here has me believing that a E8400 with SSE4 would outdo the old Q6600 at my task. Now the Q9300 seems like the best bet for combining these two advantages but it has a lower cache than the q6600 and might be hard to get for some time (and I can get either of the other two now and start my encoding project).
I WON'T OVERCLOCK THIS SET-UP! (explained why below)
If the q9300 is going to be much better for me I will wait, but if the E8400 or the Q6600 will come close I'd rather just get one of the two and get on with my project.
Other system Details:
My motherboard is the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L. I have four sets of CORSAIR XMS2 1GB that have a 4-4-4-12 sticker on them. My power supply is a COOLER MASTER 600w and the DVD Rom drive I purchased to do the ripping on is this one (the fastest I could find):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16827135160
Finally my case is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811112056
Which is too small to add an aftermarket CPU cooler so I won't be able to overclock my CPU (except maybe something VERY modest).
Final Note: When I leave for work each day I put my E4500 on the task of encoding a DVD. Since I am already gone saving a few minutes off of four hours won't help me. My problem is that for a few movies (action ones usually) the encode is not done by the time I finish my 8 hour work shift and I like to put a second DVD onto encode before I go to bed. Additionally if any of these processors will give me the ability to encode two DVDs at the same speed that my current E4500 does one than that would help grealty and would be the best option for me. Basically I want to get done with this project as soon as possible and move onto bigger and better things.
Yet I will admit that I am a fool if I think that movie encoding is everything. When I bought my 3800+ X2 back in 2005 many at the time told me I was better off with a single core 4000+ since I only did basic tasks. Today I feel proud I took the advice instead of those that said that the 3800+ X2 was more "futureproof" as today I can run Vista on it much better than it would run on a 4000+. So if a certain CPU is a better value in this sense, I am willing to scarifice my primary project a little. I (like most people) like getting my money's worth.
Thank you in advance for all your help. I sure there are others like me who don't care about games (as most hardware sites/forums lean towards that task) who can benefit from this discussion as well.
My Issue: I need a new computer to be my primary desktop. I don't play games and I never plan to play games on it. In fact there is just one task that I must do that my E4500 does not do fast enough- encode DVDs. I have recently began digitizing all my DVDs (over 100) to play on my PS3 in xh264 and my current two systems (the 3800+ at 2.6 OC and a 4500 C2D at stock speeds) don't do the job nearly as fast as I want. All other tasks will be light web browsing and basic office stuff.
As it is I am stuck between three CPUs: The Q6600, the E8400 and the soon to be released Q9300.
Now some might say "just get the q94xx," but I am determined to not spend more than $300 on a CPU (well, if it was close maybe but I bet I won't see a q94xx CPU for less than $350 for months after lanch and that is too much). Also the sooner the better as I want to get this project done as soon as possible - I would sacrifice 10% performance to gain 3 months on my project.
What I have gathered so far is that the quad cores are better at video encoding, but my singular task would seem to benefit greatly from SSE4 and a recent thread here has me believing that a E8400 with SSE4 would outdo the old Q6600 at my task. Now the Q9300 seems like the best bet for combining these two advantages but it has a lower cache than the q6600 and might be hard to get for some time (and I can get either of the other two now and start my encoding project).
I WON'T OVERCLOCK THIS SET-UP! (explained why below)
If the q9300 is going to be much better for me I will wait, but if the E8400 or the Q6600 will come close I'd rather just get one of the two and get on with my project.
Other system Details:
My motherboard is the GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L. I have four sets of CORSAIR XMS2 1GB that have a 4-4-4-12 sticker on them. My power supply is a COOLER MASTER 600w and the DVD Rom drive I purchased to do the ripping on is this one (the fastest I could find):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16827135160
Finally my case is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811112056
Which is too small to add an aftermarket CPU cooler so I won't be able to overclock my CPU (except maybe something VERY modest).
Final Note: When I leave for work each day I put my E4500 on the task of encoding a DVD. Since I am already gone saving a few minutes off of four hours won't help me. My problem is that for a few movies (action ones usually) the encode is not done by the time I finish my 8 hour work shift and I like to put a second DVD onto encode before I go to bed. Additionally if any of these processors will give me the ability to encode two DVDs at the same speed that my current E4500 does one than that would help grealty and would be the best option for me. Basically I want to get done with this project as soon as possible and move onto bigger and better things.
Yet I will admit that I am a fool if I think that movie encoding is everything. When I bought my 3800+ X2 back in 2005 many at the time told me I was better off with a single core 4000+ since I only did basic tasks. Today I feel proud I took the advice instead of those that said that the 3800+ X2 was more "futureproof" as today I can run Vista on it much better than it would run on a 4000+. So if a certain CPU is a better value in this sense, I am willing to scarifice my primary project a little. I (like most people) like getting my money's worth.
Thank you in advance for all your help. I sure there are others like me who don't care about games (as most hardware sites/forums lean towards that task) who can benefit from this discussion as well.
He'll tell you the advantages of SSE4 and quad cores.
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