Hyperthreaded Processors and Vegas

plasmavideo wrote on 6/1/2004, 12:52 PM

Do the new hyperthreading processors enhance Vegas and Sound Forge performance? I have an opportunity to upgrade my computer at a reasonable cost and would like to know if going from a P4 2.4 133FSB with SDRAM to a 3.0 hyperthreaded processor and a 800FSB with DDR would show a notable improvement?

Also, has anyone used the new SATA drives for video and what has been your experience.

Thanks

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 6/1/2004, 1:00 PM

yes, but only marginally so, unless you are using multiple copies of Vegas at once. Or running Forge/Vegas at the same time.
You won't see Vegas using the HT aspects like you will with Lightwave, Combustion, etc.

busterkeaton wrote on 6/1/2004, 1:09 PM

I think Hyperthreading is worth for multitasking. It seems to run smoother with it on for me.

Someone on this board ran a test and found that renders were 12% faster for him with it on. Others have said that for their system hyperthreading was a little slower. I work in multiple instance of Vegas at the same time, so I use it.

Also the faster FSB will be a help.

Jameson_Prod wrote on 6/1/2004, 1:36 PM

I have a P4 2.4 at work and a P4 2.8 w/ HT (overclocked to 3.1) at home on a ASUS P4P800 MB (800FSB). Unofficially, I had a 50 minute project at work.....Vegas 5 was showing over 5 hours to render to AVI. At home with the same settings....1 hour and 30 minutes. To many differences to draw a true comparison but in my case......yes I think it makes a difference.

Disclaimer: Work computer is a HP/Compaq on a Novell network. Home computer is set just for audio and video.

My .02 worth........

plasmavideo wrote on 6/1/2004, 2:06 PM

Thanks for the replies. The consensus from our IT guys at work is that the FSB and DDR will make the biggest improvements in a number of apps, rather than the hyperthreading alone. I was confused at first and misunderstood that hyperthreading performance approached dual processor level, but that rumor got quenched pretty quickly after I read some additional articles.

Thanks again.

Tom

BillyBoy wrote on 6/1/2004, 9:28 PM

So-called hyperthreading as the term is thrown around by Intel is misleading. Their family of P4 +HT chips have the ability to hand off some instructions so in effect the processor is capable of handling multiple threads at once. But there is a big but....

Some instructions can't be handed off, others can but with no increase in performance. So the term itself is misleading. In many time slices of any "cycle" the processor may still be sitting on its hands doing nothing.

As far as DDR memory its better in that it is better utilized then "plain" memory. The relationship to FSB and CPU clock speed is the most important. The faster the FSB can be set and also if your BIOS and motherboard support a high enough mutliper that's the easiest way to get a performace boost. Adding more RAM has little if any effect beyond 1 GB. Video cards have no effect on rendering for Vegas, can help for Boris some other things if you get a graphic card that can exploit it.

Orcatek wrote on 6/2/2004, 7:10 AM

HT - the biggest benefit I've found is the abitlity to use my PC with good performance while rendering. This does slow rendering, but at least the PC can be used for the things that always seem to come up. I have found a few programs that will not run under HT - my HP scanner for one. So I end up switching it on and off.

SATA drives - I've been using them and like them. I've haven't conducted any comparisions, but in my configuration Drive 1 temp files, Drive 2 source files - it seems to do well.