Looking at which CPU to revamp comp for DV and gaming!

[AtomicDude512]

Ok people, we're getting a digital video camera. Since both of our comps are not really good for DV it's up to me again to revamp mine. Here are some of my questions about good hardware for DV.
1) Which CPU? AMD Athlon XP 2100 T-Bred B, XP 1700 or XP Barton 2500? The XP 2100 and 1700 look best to me, maybe on the 1700 I can even hit 200FSB!
2) How much memory is enough? I think 1GB would be necessary...Im gonna look into the low latency HyperX.
3) Do I need a really good video card (say, Radeon 9500) for editing video?

And I know im gonna get a nForce2, probably the Epox 8RDA+.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

 

[Necrolezbeast]

I don't know much of vid editing, but I'm sure a high fsb/clock speed would be excellent so any of the cpu's would be good, also the 512k cache may help it a bit and if you can overclock that 2500+ to 2.2ghz or so it would be real nice. Also I think 1gb RAM would be sufficient, not sure if it is high or low, it just sounds pretty good.

 

[oldfart]

I do quite a bit of DV capture/edit/authoring. My thoughts:

1) The more CPU the better. I know you asked for AMD, but Intel P4 rules when it comes to video encoding. Look at any benchmark at any site including Anandtech. If you go AMD, or Intel, get as much CPU as you can afford.
2) I run 1 Gig. 512 is OK, but 1 Gig does help
3) Video card has nothing at all to do with it. Zippo. After you capture the DV file (13 Gig for 1 Hr video), you edit it, add titles, effects and what not. Then you encode it to MPEG1/2/4, WMF, etc depending if the finished product is to be VCD/SVCD/DVD/DiVX or a Windows Media format or whatever else. That is what takes the time and the CPU power. Again, that is where the P4 shines. Very fast for media encoding.
4) Since you didn't mention it. Plenty of HD space. 80 Gig minimum. If you do one video at a time, its 13 Gig for the capture, then ~ 4.5 Gig for a DVD if that is what you are making.

 

[AtomicDude512]

Thanks for the info guys! Do you think an "el-cheapo" 2.4C (C denoting Prescott) would be good for encoding? I hear they are supposed to be at around $168 and that is a comfortable price for me. Only thing about the Prescotts is that they have their pipeline extended again, I hope they have better branch prediction...

So maybe a 2.4B would be beter because it's branches are not as long, but the the Prescott has HT...

 

[oldfart]

You will be waiting a long time for Prescott. Its not out till the end of the year. Prescott is .09u, 32K L1, 1 meg L2 800 FSB. What you can buy now is Northwood .13u, 16K L1, 512K L2, 400, 533, or 800 Mhz FSB. People around here are generally using 2.4B and 2.53 and overclocking them to 3 GHz+. I run a 2.4B @ 3.06. The 2.4B 533 MHz FSB retail is going fpr $160. If you get a good one, you should be able to get it to ~ 3 GHz.

A couple of good inexpensive single channel DDR boards are the Albatron PX845PEV Pro ($82) and the Abit BH7 ($92)

If you want to go DC DDR, the i875 Canterwoods just came out but are still a bit pricey. The 865PE Springdale boards will be out soon and will be more affordable.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: oldfart
I do quite a bit of DV capture/edit/authoring. My thoughts:

1) The more CPU the better. I know you asked for AMD, but Intel P4 rules when it comes to video encoding. Look at any benchmark at any site including Anandtech. If you go AMD, or Intel, get as much CPU as you can afford.

Aren't there a couple hardware-based encoder boards on the market? Or are they too expensive/slow?

 

[wicktron]

Matrox's RT.X series is good stuff.
A friend of mine owns an RT2000, and it works wonders for his editing.