How can I estimate what CPU I should buy?

[WaiWai]

How can I estimate what CPU I should buy?
It appears the technology of CPU has been improved dramatically during recent ages. I have a feeling CPU is overkilling nowadays. Perhaps even a budget CPU can still be able to handle most uses.

1. How can I know how fast CPU I want? I don't want some generic descriptions (eg Core 2 Duo is a mainstream CPU. Buy it if you need a moderately good CPU). I need more specifics. Is there any resources/tools which teach/help us to estimate the CPU usage so as to pick the right CPU of a particular performance benchmark.

BTW, CPU 2007 benchmark: http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html


2. If the above info is unavailable, let me try to explain my needs. Hopefully you can pick a right one.

Compression and Decompression: I also do a lot of compression with different utilities (eg WinRAR, 7-zip). I sometimes compare different compressions so as to pick the best compressed file in a reasonable time.

Data Analysis: I want to run some data mining and analysis software, statistics software.

Gaming. I don't play games much. But I want my computer to be able to run the game smoothly when I play. I will run 3D games (as long as the graphics are displayed up to the standard, it is ok)

Audio editing: I would edit some sound files (eg make it louder, remove the noise, mix and match 2 music). The edit is simple and light. I need to batch convert files of one media to another once in a while (eg from wav to mp3)

Video editing: Seldom edit video but I need to convert video occasionally (eg AVI to DVD; DVD to AVI).

Image editing: No heavy editing but I will edit images with programs like GIMP 2. Also I will batch convert one format to another occasionally (eg from jpg to png)


3. I realise the motherboard and RAM must match the CPU to maximise the full power of CPU. Do you want what I need to notice so I ca get the best combinations of CPU + RAM + motherboard?

Regarding CPU <-> RAM, one thing I think I need to concern is FSB. If the FSB and DDR RAM speed doesn't match well, there is performance hit, isn't it? How can I know whether they match?

Regarding motherboard, I think the only concern is whether the motherboard support this CPU, and the compatibility issues (if any). Is there anything else I need to consider too?


Thanks a lot.

 

[MarcVenice]

I think, since you do a lot of encoding/editing and compression you will most likely be best of with a q6600. A fast dualcore, like a e6750 would probably do the trick too though, because all the encoding stuff isn't really your work, so it's okay if it takes a bit longer. Don't know what CPU you got now, but a e6750 will most likely allready be twice as fast if not faster. I'd go with a p35 mobo, you can buy a cheap abit ip35-e for 70$ AR, or a p5k-se or ds3l for 100$. Another stepup would be a asus p5k vanilla or gigabyte ds3r for 130$ish. If you are not overclocking, any ddr2 667mhz ram will do, it will be perfect for both the q6600 and the e6750. Personaly I'd still buy 2gb of ddr2 800mhz crucial ballistix though, 50$ AR.

 

[WaiWai]

I have one question.

You know a component being fast doesn't mean the whole computer will be fast too.
There is such a thing as "bottlenecks".

It appears the development of some components are (much) slower than CPU.
We may under-utilize a CPU if other components can't co-ordinate with it.
Software and operating system are also concerns. For example, quad-core CPU seems to be overkilling because few software are written to take advantages of multiple cores.

Does the CPU reach some bottlenecks so it doesn't really make sense to go higher?
Where is the line?

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: WaiWai
You know a component being fast doesn't mean the whole computer will be fast too.
There is such a thing as "bottlenecks".

It appears the development of some components are (much) slower than CPU.
We may under-utilize a CPU if other components can't co-ordinate with it.
Software and operating system are also concerns. For example, quad-core CPU seems to be overkilling because few software are written to take advantages of multiple cores.

Does the CPU reach some bottlenecks so it doesn't really make sense to go higher?
Where is the line?

With any cpu, the biggest bottleneck will be the hard drive. Having a quad-core cpu just exacerbates that problem. For instance, I've got one of the faster consumer hard drives made, a 320GB Seagate 7200.10. With my Q6600, doing video conversion with software that uses all four cores, the faster I ran the processor, the less benefit the higher speed processor made, because I had hit the limit of my hard drives capability to keep up. For what it sounds like you want to do, you'd definitely want to use two fast hard drives. That way, you can use the first as your source drive, and the second to output the files to.

Also, depending on which software you're using (and which versions of it), nearly all of the things you're wanting to do are quad-core enabled, even some of the newest games.

 

[WaiWai]

Regarding the bottlenecks of hard drives, I just wonder if I can use RAM to solve it.

Use some spare RAM to create virtual hard drive (the drive is made of RAM).
Instruct the application to do all encoding/compressing/decompressing on RAM first. Move contents to hard drive only when the whole progress is complete.

But I don't know whether it is possible to achieve this.
If you know how, please tell me.

 

[CTho9305]

Keep in mind that this forum has a lot of members who, to put it bluntly, tend to make purchases and recommendations that, at least in appearance, are e-penis related. The forum is driven by people who are into really bleeding-edge high-end stuff - not people who use computers "normally". People also tend to have very skewed perceptions of system requirements - many people here will read "I want my computer to be able to run the game smoothly when I play" as "I want 60fps minimum at 1600x1200 with 4x FSAA", and not "I'm fine with 800x600 and 30fps". Given the requirements you specified, I would recommend buying something low end to the low end of "midrange" (e.g. a cheap Athlon 64 x2 - don't spend more than $100 on the CPU) unless when you do your video conversion you actually sit around waiting for it to finish. Image and audio conversion will both be fast even with a low-end system. One of the nice pluses of not buying high-end is that a year later, you can upgrade components to newer hardware and still have spent less total money than you would have by buying a faster machine up front.

Don't create RAM drives. The OS should manage virtual memory much more efficiently without you taking a big chunk out of the available RAM. People don't like to admit it, but there actually are smart people behind a lot of things at Microsoft. If your hard drive is a bottleneck, it will be blatantly obvious (since the disk will be thrashing)... the only good solution is more RAM .

Quad-core is probably a waste of your money at this point.

If you want real statistics on what people really use for gaming, see Valve's hardware survey.

 

[harpoon84]

IMO, since you will be doing fairly CPU intensive work, you really should get the best CPU you can afford. In terms of price/performance, there are 3 standout choices IMO.

They are: (using Intel x1000 tray price, retail may be slightly higher)
E4600 @ $133, 2.4GHz / 800FSB / 2MB L2 cache
E6750 @ $183, 2.67GHz / 1333FSB / 4MB L2 cache
Q6600 @ $266, 2.4GHz / 1066FSB / 8MB L2 cache

Budget permitting, you should aim for the E6750 at least, especially as you'll be doing a lot of compression/decompression, which benefits greatly from a bigger L2 cache. Of course, if the budget can stretch that far, the Q6600 is the pick of the bunch, as I assume most of your applications are multithreaded.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: WaiWai
Regarding the bottlenecks of hard drives, I just wonder if I can use RAM to solve it.

Use some spare RAM to create virtual hard drive (the drive is made of RAM).
Instruct the application to do all encoding/compressing/decompressing on RAM first. Move contents to hard drive only when the whole progress is complete.

Would that be slightly faster than having two hard drives? Probably, but why go to not only the extra expense, but also the extra headaches, when just simply adding a second hard drive would completely solve the problem?

Originally posted by: CTho9305
If your hard drive is a bottleneck, it will be blatantly obvious (since the disk will be thrashing)... the only good solution is more RAM.

Says the guy who's obviously never done any video editing. BTW, my system was faster, once overclocked higher, than a dual Xeon X5355, with 16GB of system RAM, even though I've only got 2GB of system RAM.

edit: Faster at video transcoding, the only thing we tested.