Video Editor - what processor?

[voodoo1694]

I'm looking for a processor for straight up video editing. My budget is around $400 (plus or minus 20/30) I very very rarely play games. Maybe a few a year for shits and giggles. I've looked at countless benchmarks and it seems like Intel has a slight edge with encoding. What do you guys think i should get? Athlon or Intel?

 

[AluminumStudios]

Neither CPU is going to way outrun the other, especially for that low of a budget. I'd worry more about getting lots of fast hard drive space. ATA RAID is great for video editing and cheap too. In the long run a faster, larger disk system will make your system better at video editing than another speed grade on the CPU.

 

[airfoil]

The Pentium 4 pretty much rules the roost as far as video editing is concerned and for the money you're willing to cough up, you could get the 3.4 GHz CPU or maybe better.

Wait for a couple of weeks before you make the purchase though, to let he 8/22 Intel CPU price cuts to percolate.

 

[voodoo1694]

just to clarify, i have 400+ for the processor alone

 

[thirdlegstump]

P4 Xeon hands down for vid editing and final rendering. Anything else, Opteron.

 

[Kaido]

go for an athlon 64...heck, if you have the cash to burn, get an athlon fx 64. also invest in a fast drive like a 74g raptor @ 10k rpm (for the main drive).

if you're not in the athlon camp, check out those P4 EE chips...big caches

 

[MScrip]

Good god... Athlon FX 64 and a Raptor? What kind of editing is this guy gonna be doing? I make do with a P4 1.5 and a Seagate 80GB drive for capture. I can edit and burn DVDs just fine... although I might have to wait a lil longer for it to encode.

You don't have to go ultra-expensive in order to do video editing. You could buy the fastest hardware at the highest price now... and then you'll kick yourself when the price drops in 2 months.

You need to find where the sweet-spot is for performance and value. You'll never notice the speed increase of 3.2 vs 3.4... but you will notice the extra $200.

 

[Cawchy87]

when my friend was buying a computer for video editing the guy at a local computer store printed out some benchmarks that showed that the differance between a p4 2.8ghz northwood and a p4 3.4ghz EE was less than 10 seconds of rendering time. I would have to agree with MScrip on this one. Once you get to a certain point (I would say 2.0-2.4 ghz P4 and above) it really is just over kill. Quite like gaming... "well, 80 fps is good, but with an fx-53 i can get 100!" If you got the money bud, go nuts. but i would save it for a really nice monitor to watch those movies on.

 

[Mik3y]

i say wait a week or so till the 3500+ drops down back to $400~ and get that. it's superior to the intel on encoding/decoding and etc, but if you dont want to spend that much, you might as well pick the intel 3.4GHz or athlon 64 3400+. i, personally, would go for the amd, cuz its a better performer in everything else. i'm a patient person and dont mind waiting an extra few minutes on the encoding with amd's socket 754. socket 939 is, like i mentioned, faster then intels best.

 

[MScrip]

Yeah... and those benchmarks are probably the type where they defrag the hard drive, run the test.... Reboot the computer, defrag the hard drive again... run the second test... etc... Hardly a real world example.

You'll want to get a decent amount of hardware... but for video editing there are much more important choices such as software, camcorder and other equipment.... and knowing how to edit and tell a good story = priceless.

 

[manko]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
i say wait a week or so till the 3500+ drops down back to $400~ and get that. it's superior to the intel on encoding/decoding and etc, socket 939 is, like i mentioned, faster then intels best.

Simply not true. I'm sure you're thinking of the oft-cited AT review comparing the $800 FX-53 which is just about able to keep up with the $417 (after price cut) 3.6GHz Prescott.

I'm not going to get in a big debate about this again, but the last time I looked into a number of reviews of the A64 3500+ (939), it generally performed between a P4 Northwood 2.8GHz and 3.2GHz on encoding and rendering tasks, depending on the application. I can pull up the review links again if you want, but most people are locked into a certain mindset and don't bother to read them anyway.

You should probably pick up a 3.4GHz Northwood after the price cuts next week for just under $300.

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: deathkoba
P4 Xeon hands down for vid editing and final rendering. Anything else, Opteron.

 

[sandorski]

It really comes down to Applications being used. Some work better on a P4, others work better on an Athlon 64.

 

[Runner20]

Pentium 4 3.0 or 3.2.

My Pentium 4 3.0 can handle any task you throw at it. Any game, any application.

 

[Kenazo]

I do some pretty long vids (1/2 hr plus) thrown together from maybe 100 different clips captured using raw AVI/wav. All i use is an AXP 2500+@3200 speeds and a seagate 120 gig hard drive. It works fine. Get a gig of ram, that will help a lot, though it will work w/ 512.

 

[Blain]

* Dual 242 Opteron's - Right inline with your budget.
* Dual 2.8/800 Xeon's - Pushes your budget a little.

* Single 3.4GHz/1mb P4 775 - Saves you $$ for extra memory.

 

[Blain]

For a basically pure video editing machine...
Would onboard NF2 IGP or the Intel extreme graphics 2 be enough for video output?

 

[manko]

Originally posted by: Blain
For a basically pure video editing machine...
Would onboard NF2 IGP or the Intel extreme graphics 2 be enough for video output?

Actually, yes it should be. An 8MB video card (with no 3D) is enough for video editing. Current integrated graphics are more than capable and probably perform better than the cards in editing systems from a few years ago. If you go with a dedicated card, a basic Radeon 9000 level card would suit an editing machine fine.

 

[gsellis]

There are some statements in this thread that are not always correct, but that is dependent on what NLE is being used.

An 8MB video card (with no 3D) is enough for video editing.

This is not true for Pinnacle Liquid Edition. It uses the GPU to render some effects and requires 64MB minimum. 128 is better, but 256MB addes additional functionality in Hollywood FXs for real-time preview. For others, this may well work. Windows Movie Maker, Vegas 5, and Premier Pro do not specify. I do not work with them or hang on their boards, so cannot tell you if it makes a difference. With ATI 9600XT cards reaching the $150 mark (9800 Pro is in the same range - I bought 9600XT from Newegg as a refurb in May at $114), you could afford something faster. Check the web boards of the NLE vendors as some cards work more consistently than others with that software. ATI works well with Pinnacle, but that could also be because of their hardware partnerships.

well paraphrasing... The faster chips only have 10 seconds difference in render time

One benchmark does not justify not buying a faster chip, but do remember that you need to consider the savings over the lifetime of the computer. If one chip is faster at rendering, allows more effects (such as PiP to be displayed in realtime) and has a faster workflow. It may pay for itself in 6 months or less.

Xeon/Opteron? Does the editing suite say it recommends a dual? If not, it would be a waste of time. Prescott over Northwood, maybe. Some suites do better with Prescott. Tom's actually got better rendering results in Studio 9 with a Prescott at the same clock speed. The 3.4 and 3.6 are being discounted (see main page or the Inquirer?). AMD? Check the recommended page of the NLE and any support boards. Some NLEs have specific support packages (iow, the vendor has those in the lab - a lot to say for resolving issues when you know the vendor has one too.)

I have a dual myself. Not way over what a 3.0 could do until I start adding multiple effects to the same clip(s) in a 1.5 hr project. Then it is only 5-20% faster than a single. But, that means less frustration waiting for the machine to catch up. But, my NLE supports duals and many do not.

But, before you spend more money on a CPU, check what you have for HDD. If you plan to do a lot of editing, 500GB is a good idea. My current project for a drum corps is at 175ish GB. And that is SD, not HD.

 

[Cerb]

Without knowing the specific app, there is no recommendation to make. I can pull a benchmark out of my ass (AKA google) to show the A64 whoopin' the P4 into place, and the other way around. Either are good choices if you haven't a clue.