If you don't care about waiting for the superior 45nm quad cores to come down, then you may as well spring for a 65nm quad. The prices between those and the dual cores aren't considerable these days.

My own system uses an Asus motherboard, the P5K-E WiFi/AP with a Intel Dual Core E6750 2.66Ghz overclocked to 3.2Ghz. My motherboard's gotten pretty good reviews, and most Asus boards in general seem to be good. The P35 chipset is a good choice, for 65nm quad cores.

I held off on a quad core back in Sept. when I bought this system mostly because I wanted to wait for the 45nm models with a 1333FSB, which my motherboard supports. My current dual core processor has a 1333FSB, but all the quad cores which did at that time were ludicrously expensive. There was a 1066FSB quad core for about $100 more than the E6750, but it didn't seem like as good a match with my motherboard.

Interesting question as I'm about to replace one of my venerable systems. One thing I'm not certain about is the value of 4 cores over 2 cores. I've noticed for certain types of rendering only 1 core gets used, that's most likely just the nature of the task at hand. But it leaves open the question of would a uber fast 2 core CPU be more bang for the buck than spending the same money on a slower quad.

The other question is the value of the 45nm CPUs. These seem to be more efficient and I guess one shouldn't discount the cost of power used over the life of the system. As it seems pretty likely all of us will be seeing significant hikes in energy costs over the next few years this becomes an even more valid consideration.

Bob.

Interesting question as I'm about to replace one of my venerable systems. One thing I'm not certain about is the value of 4 cores over 2 cores. I've noticed for certain types of rendering only 1 core gets used, that's most likely just the nature of the task at hand. But it leaves open the question of would a uber fast 2 core CPU be more bang for the buck than spending the same money on a slower quad.

The other question is the value of the 45nm CPUs. These seem to be more efficient and I guess one shouldn't discount the cost of power used over the life of the system. As it seems pretty likely all of us will be seeing significant hikes in energy costs over the next few years this becomes an even more valid consideration.
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Bob,
Most of the articles I have read seem to suggest that for video editing the software doesn't utilize all four cores, but I remember John Cline posting that he has tested this and gets faster renders with the quad he uses in the same board I referenced above and said that it does indeed use all four. I think he has the more expensive "extreme" series Quad.

He can correct me on all this if I am wrong.

The 65nm CPU motherboards take DDR2 ram which is a lot cheaper than the DDR3 most of the 45nm boards take. In reading the test scores for the newer boards they don't seem to blow away the 65nm boards as far as I can tell.

John

"Not easy to find anymore, but rock solid is the Intel 975XBX2KR."

I'll second that. I have had quite a few Asus boards before but I'm running this board with a q6600 quad core. Good solid board, lots of BIOS options, good overclocking, and pretty bullet proof. I enjoy this one much more than any of the Asus systems I've had.

On my rendertest-hdv.veg file, a quad-core is almost exactly twice as fast as a dual-core at the same clock speed.

Ive been running the quad-core with an Intel 975XBX2KR "Bad Axe 2" for over a year and it is the most solid and reliable motherboard I have ever had. I've used high-end Asus, Gigabyte and SuperMicro motherboards, but the Intel has been bulletproof. Intel motherboard, Intel chipset and an Intel processor, doesn't get any more "Intel Compatible" than that.

"Not easy to find anymore, but rock solid is the Intel 975XBX2KR.

I will second John and Blink on this one too - that baby rocks! :-)

One comment I will add is, that this motherboard did just install with drivers etc. without any hickups at all. I have been building my own PC's for many years now, and have seldomly experienced it go this smooth.

/Ulf

Newegg is shipping Intel 975XBX2KR mobos from stock, with both the OEM version ($189.99) and the Retail version ($229.99) available.

The only difference seems to be that the Retail board comes with a round cable instead of a flat disk cable, and 3 years P&L warranty instead of 1 year ditto.

They sell the Q6600 for $219.99 and the Q6700 for $274.99 (with an OEM copy of the Midway game). Q6700 is faster, uses less power, and is more overclockable, for $55.00 more. Anyone here bought the Q6700?

Anything else worth noting?

I did and I'm about to install it in my Intel DG965WH mobo later today [currently using an E6600 in it]. Will report as soon as there's anything reportable.

Well, that was easy. I was concerned that it may require a BIOS upgrade, but no, it didn't. Just removed the old cpu, popped in the new one, rebooted and I'm back in business. Half an hour total, that included all the prep work.

The rendering improvement was disappointing, maybe 40% [no, I stupidly didn't actually time a render of the same veg with the duo]. But there is a reason for that. My bread and butter interview videos are shot under controlled conditions, so there's seldom any need to color correct, or fool with levels. So my usual renders will just be disc i/o bound. In fact, the 4 cores were lazing along at about 50-55% utilization, with slight peaks whenever transition dissolves occurred. When I added some FX to the video bus [grain, monochrome, and film scratches] rendering the same veg , cpu utilization went up to the 90-95% on all four cores. That's impressive.

> Not easy to find anymore, but rock solid is the Intel 975XBX2KR. AKA "Bad Axe 2"
> I will second John and Blink on this one too - that baby rocks! :-)

Count me as a third. I've built around Gigabyte and ASUS motherboards in the past, and my current Intel 975XBX2KR is the most trouble free system I have ever built. I just works!

~jr

So I'm a little confused about which processor/Mobo will work with my RAM. Corsair XMS PC2 6400 DDR2 800 Dual Channel RAM. I don't understand which Intel motherboard and CPU will work with my four 1GB sticks. I've been use to AMD specs which I admit seemed easier to understand.

Any ideas?

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt

Ditto with jr and John Cline.

Ed B

Newegg reviewer of the Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive:

"Benchmarks suggest this drive is nearly the same speed as two of the older WD 500GB drives in RAID0"

"Xbench disk test result was twice (100 vs 50) the speed of my two 500GB WD SE16 WD5000AAKS drives"

"I am getting above 95MB/sec transfer rates -- my 500GB WD drives average around 65MB/sec"

I think I found my next system drive... :O)

Anyone having any thoughts on Q6700 vs. Q6600?

They will both be obsolete before the year is over, so I see no reason to go bonkers on the spending.