Video Editing help

[trout33]

I am builing a new machine mainly for video editing, and am on abit of a budget. I will be using adobe premier pro and encore DVD. I have read that premier is optimised for the pentium 4 so a P4 will outperform a A64 system. However with my budget I could only afford to get a P4 530 3Gz. For the same money I could get at least a A64 3200+ sck754. Will the P4 530 outperform the A64 system despite the higher rating of the A64?? Ram, video will be the same for both systems. Thanks.

 

[amdskip]

I'm no expert but I would put $$ on the 64 beating the P4 easily here.

 

[ribbon13]

AMD will thrash Intel...
Seriously whats your budget $?
I would go for 939, because the Toledo (dual-core) upgrade path will be far far more worthy than Intel.

 

[trout33]

My budget for MB + CPU is ~$330. I could get a 939 3200+ or a P4 530 3Ghz system. I am not sure whether the adobe optimisations for the P4 would give superior performance despite its lowe rating compared to the A64 3200+. Does anyone know what sort of performance premium these optimistaions give??

 

[ribbon13]

I would go for a 939 because Toledo is coming out at the end of this year which will render that arguement obsolete.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_608,00.html

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-152-049&depa=0
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-502&depa=0

 

[gsellis]

Either processor will suite in this space. You may get better performance with an Intel Prescott core, but that is for encoding. Encoding is usually only about 10% of my project time (or less). But, it is not a spanking either way. (but I sure would love to try that SLI Dual Opteron using 242's and SLI 6800's! Way past your and my budget! )

The real caution is with the Firewire chipset. TI over VIA if you can. But in a pinch, you can buy a card or use the one on a Creative Labs Audigy.

For Adobe PP, I would lean towards nVidia over ATI. PP uses OpenGL. Even though ATI is making huge improvements in OpenGL (they are rewriting the code), nVidia is still better and has better support from peers in the Adobe community (go to Adobe and see their support forums.) For PP, a 6800 is a waste, so look mid-range.

Get an audio card. The mobo chipsets can lead to sync issues with A/V on either capture or encoding. Get an Audigy 2 ZS at minimum. M-Audio boards are preferred by the sound folks, but I do not have one.

HDD! I have 650GB of capture space. When I do a 20 tape project, it is not enough. I have a Chenming case that currently holds 5 drives and 2 DVD drives.

Pioneer or NEC on the DVD burner for the best error rates. Speed is not the thing, compatibility is. The single significant advantage of the NEC over the Pioneer is DVD+R bit setting (booktype). Requires a 3rd party BIOS found at Cdfreaks with a search. BUT, out of 100 customers on a recent shipment, that was 2. Both had old Panasonic settop players (3 years old). Both DVDs that 'failed' played on their Cyberhome/Apex machines "upstairs" (sigh).

 

[kini62]

I'd say go with the P4, unless you are definately planning on upgrading in the next year. I had an Athlon 64 3500+, and in encoding, rendering it was 20-50% slower than my current P4. Even OCed to 2.5Ghz it was still noticably slower, especially in encoding, plus my system wasn't too stable OCed and too slow at stock speed. I wasn't impressed with the 3500+ for what I wanted it to do.

 

[CalvinHobbs]

for purely encoding then intel is hard to beat..but then if you mind a few mins slower then go for the amd64

 

[Mik3y]

Originally posted by: kini62
I'd say go with the P4, unless you are definately planning on upgrading in the next year. I had an Athlon 64 3500+, and in encoding, rendering it was 20-50% slower than my current P4. Even OCed to 2.5Ghz it was still noticably slower, especially in encoding, plus my system wasn't too stable OCed and too slow at stock speed. I wasn't impressed with the 3500+ for what I wanted it to do.

all this coming from a guy who buys a fully loaded dell xps for gaming. go figure.

 

[ribbon13]

If you really need to capture Hi-Def, Opterons on a board with the AMD8131 is great, and not a dead upgrade path like Intel's heat wave. They've reached the thermal barrier. A new core means a new socket is likely for Intel.

A Opteron with PCI-X would give you the most upgrade options, or at least the Abit WN-2S+ which will take opterons, unbuffered ram, has 2x PCIe-16 and a PCIe4.

 

[footbal07]

Originally posted by: kini62
I'd say go with the P4, unless you are definately planning on upgrading in the next year. I had an Athlon 64 3500+, and in encoding, rendering it was 20-50% slower than my current P4. Even OCed to 2.5Ghz it was still noticably slower, especially in encoding, plus my system wasn't too stable OCed and too slow at stock speed. I wasn't impressed with the 3500+ for what I wanted it to do.

i would also find it near imposible to for a a64 at 2.5 to perform %20-50 slower. honestly you will probibly not notice more then a 5-10 percent difference on similar configurations from either company in encoding. i would build a s939 nf3 or 4 system with a 3000+ winchester, and you should be able to hit 2.4ghz + without too much tweaking. if you are really serious about video editing and can afford it you should try to swing a single 240 or 242 opteron on a dual cpu tyan thunder or tiger board with a gig of ram. that would give you a lot of room to upgrade in the long run, but it really depends on your priorities.

 

[kini62]

"all this coming from a guy who buys a fully loaded dell xps for gaming. go figure"

I didn't buy it for gaming. I needed a new PC to make videos/DVDs from my ever expanding DV footage. Through no fault of Monarch Copmuter I had 2 systems, one P4 and one Athlon 64, both went back and I got a Dell. I got the XPS because it was the better deal, and I do like to play FPSs, which the Dell does as good or better than my 3500+ with an OCed 6800GT. It is also noticably faster in video encoding. For example using DVDShrink, using the same DVD and the same quality settings, AMD 43 mins, P4 25 mins, that's actually 70% faster. Overclocking the 3500+ to about 2.5 the time came down to 39mins, still a more than "noticeable" difference.

Encoding 15min photo slide show with music into MPEG2, the P4 was almost twice as fast as the 3500+ at stock clock speed. Same files, same program. And no there was nothing wrong with the AMD system, 3Dmark05 GPU 5300, CPU 5180. Dell XPS GPU 6100, CPU 4900. When it comes to video encoding using common apps such as DVDShrink and Adobe Premiere, the P4 is WAY faster. And when encoding with the Athlon the system was pretty much unresponsive, not too good at multi-tasking. That doesn't make it a better chip. I know the Athlon 64 is superior in many ways. It was just disappointing in what I wanted to do. Besides my XPS with the X850 is MUCH quieter than my 3500+ system with the 6800GT was.

 

[ribbon13]

For the price of the 'one P4 and one Athlon 64' you could have had a dual Opteron which would waste a P4, Xeon, or Athlon 64.

Haha... a fool and his money are parted. I guess that's why AOL and Dell survive... like nuclear cockroaches.

 

[kini62]

"For the price of the 'one P4 and one Athlon 64' you could have had a dual Opteron which would waste a P4, Xeon, or Athlon 64."


But the original poster has a limited amount of money to spend on a CPU/MB combo. And that person wants to use it mainly for video editing. So that person would be better off with a P4. Better video editing/encoding and you can actually use the computer for other things while it does it.

 

[ribbon13]

p4 better when a dual core Athlon Toledo would waste it? Why go into a dead upgrade path when dual-core is just months away?

 

[UsandThem]

Pentium 4's are faster for video encoding period.

This is one area Intel leads in in overall performance. Just read the reviews and you will see that they are faster than Athlon64's.

Now if it was gaming, it would be a different story.

 

[kini62]

Again, the poster has a limited amount of money to spend now- not 6 months from now. The dual cores most likely won't be sorted out, (chipsets and MBs) for quite some time as far as upgrading is concerned. I though about that too, it's just that the Athlon 64 was such a poor performer for my use, it would've made waiting torture. Plus there's no guarantee that current MBs will work with dual core, AMD says they will use Socket 939, they don't mention chipsets, MBs etc...

Intels dual core will use Socket 775 but won't work with the current chipsets, AMD likey to be the same.

Just get the P4

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
p4 better when a dual core Athlon Toledo would waste it? Why go into a dead upgrade path when dual-core is just months away?

Right now, a dual core is vapor. Besides, buying a board with the express desire of upgrading the processor is not a good strategy. Although the socket is the same, that does not mean that the mobo to really support it will be the same or at least not optimized.

Also, buying a single CPU with the desire to buy another later can be difficult. Steppings need to match and that makes it annoying.

 

[mshan]

http://www.videoguys.com/system.htm

 

[mshan]

I've got an Asus P4C-800-E rev. 2 Deluxe and P4 3.0c with a 2 x512 MB dual channel Kingston Value RAM PC3200 memory kit.

In terms of video editing, how much difference would overclocking the system to ~ 3.5 gHz make?

Would investing in an additional 2 x 512 MB RAM make more sense?

What about low latency RAM vs. just a lot of quality, but not fastest, RAM?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated! (especially elaborating on what types of perceptible changes I would see with the above mentioned changes)?


P. S. - if I am just capturing and encoding from a DV camcorder, is a separate sound card necessary in order to avoid AV synch issues?

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: gsellis
Right now, a dual core is vapor. Besides, buying a board with the express desire of upgrading the processor is not a good strategy. Although the socket is the same, that does not mean that the mobo to really support it will be the same or at least not optimized.

Also, buying a single CPU with the desire to buy another later can be difficult. Steppings need to match and that makes it annoying.

No, Master of Magic II is vapor....

This is not:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_608,00.html

It's very likely due to that way it's implemented that only a bios update would be required.
nVidia has also stated they are working closely with AMD to ensure thier chipsets support it.

Originally posted by: kini62
Again, the poster has a limited amount of money to spend now- not 6 months from now.

Can she afford a prescott with hyperthreading"? If not then why are you suggesting Intel?

 

[mshan]

Is it possible that the Pentiium 4 machines are faster at video editing simply because these high end video editing suites like Adobe Premier are just optimized for that platform?

 

[Blain]

I'm an expert... Stay with your Intel pick.

 

[mshan]

Could you look at my more general video editing questions several posts up?

Any insights would be greatly appreciated!


" I've got an Asus P4C-800-E rev. 2 Deluxe and P4 3.0c with a 2 x512 MB dual channel Kingston Value RAM PC3200 memory kit.
In terms of video editing, how much difference would overclocking the system to ~ 3.5 gHz make?
Would investing in an additional 2 x 512 MB RAM make more sense?
What about low latency RAM vs. just a lot of quality, but not fastest, RAM?
Any insights would be greatly appreciated! (especially elaborating on what types of perceptible changes I would see with the above mentioned changes)? "

 

[Blain]

The Video Guys have never steered you wrong yet, have they?