THanks JR for clearing that up for me - I'm working in HDV exclusively.

WHat about the slower tri-core lends itself to faster rendering? I thought NLE's weren't able to utilize more than 2 cores - or am I mistaken on that for Vegas Pro???

I tend to see the tri-core as more forward thinking than a dual core but wanted to get advice on that before I made my purchase. My dual core has seemed rather lacking these days since moving to HDV and wasn't sure if getting a faster dual core or a slower multicore was the way to go.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

In the reviews at Anandtech.com and at Tom's hardware news, they have both seen that the archetectural improvements between Athlon X2 and Phenom were more then marketing hype. The individual cores within the Phenom designs are 20-25% faster than an X2 core at the same clock speed. (The test actually disabled cores so they could look at single core performance.) That 20-25% advantage is not going to overcome the 35% increase in clock speed that the X2 you are looking at offers. You will however get one more core, that could make a nice difference in many apps, including vegas, but more importantly, may allow you to run more concurrent apps. I know I end up with Sound Forge in the background 75% of the time I am running Vegas. A third core would be quite nice. I think a lot of folks here have Vegas and Sound Forge or Photoshop, or some other app running at the same time to get the job done. You probably are as well.

Joe

Joe

just my opinion, but got a different mb & get a quad core. It'll be worth it imho. Price of the AMD Quad's isn't much & you can get decent AMD mb's that support all their CPU's for under $100. My mb currently costs $80 on newegg.

What MB do you have? I don't see any tri-core only phenom gigabyte mb's on newegg.

but if you MUST only choose between those two, get the tri. At work it will be just as fast but you'll have more cores to edit with if you want to use multiple instances of vegas (or vegas + another program)

> WHat about the slower tri-core lends itself to faster rendering?

Some of the render engines like MPEG2 are multi-threaded and will take advantage of all of the core that you have. Preview seems to be single threaded so it never takes up more that 25% of my QuadCores.

> I thought NLE's weren't able to utilize more than 2 cores - or am I mistaken on that for Vegas Pro???

It depends on the task. Multi-threading is like delegating tasks to other people.. If you only have two tasks to perform, it doesn't matter that you have 4 people who can do them, you can only keep 2 people busy. You need 4 threads to take advantage of 4 cores. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. It all depends on the task. Vegas Pro uses 4 cores quite nicely at times.

> I tend to see the tri-core as more forward thinking than a dual core but wanted to get advice on that before I made my purchase.

Actually tri-core is a dead-end stop-gap measure by AMD because they could not make a QuadCore in time. It was thrown out there to keep you from switching to Intel for a QuadCore. Personally, I would buy a new motherboard and get an Intel QuadCore or get an AMD QuadCore if you want to stick with them. I don't know what the tri-core cost but if you have the money and feel the need to upgrade, go for the tri-core.

~jr

THF - I have the Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 (rev. 1.0) motherboard - if you scroll down to the bottom - you can see which Phenom processors are currently supported - only the tricores at the present time. I personally would like to utilize one of the new AMD Opteron 1352 Barcelona 2.1GHz 75W Quad Cores - but I have no idea if it would even run on my motherboard - I can't even find any information around which motherboards support it.

I'm beginning to discover my weakest link in post now is the processor and although I did go AMD AM2 for compatibility, it seems I'm running out of options that I deem reasonable without building out a new computer - something I'm not in agreement with personally and doesn't align with the core values of my business since I view much of the computer industry as mass consumerism.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

AAhh.. that's an AM2 board, not an AM2+. :)

I know that you are trying to keep your present mobo and memory, but I think that you would be better off going to a new Intel mobo with a Quad core CPU. I presently have an AMD setup and I did upgrade my CPU from single core to dual core, but now I regret not having made the switch to Intel altogether. Intel now just has so much more variety in terms of both mobos, CPUs and the number of mobo manufacturers, that I think an investment in AMD is a bad idea, even in the short term.

At the moment, you can find Internet deals on both HP and Dell full Intel quad core systems for less than $700, shipped. These systems come with Vista x64 Home, a 500 GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM and a 2.5 GHz Intel quad core CPU.That's also why I wouldn't take a chance with a processor upgrade, that may or may not go smoothly.

reformat with a CPU upgrade if you're adding/removing cores. works best that way.

I think you mean, reinstall the OS, right? I did my CPU upgrade without an OS reinstall and it worked fine, but the prevailing opinion is to not take the chance, as you suggest.

Also, I forgot to mention a further reason to go with a whole new Intel quad core system. Then, at least you can continue to use your old AMD system and make a gradual transition. Sony allows you to install Vegas on two PCs, as long as you are using only one at a time. If you're also using Adobe stuff, then the activation process might be a hindrance and Cineform also poses a few hurdles when you are making the transition to a new PC. Another advantage is that you can network the two machines together and use the old machine as a file server for big files, etc.

Keep in mind that even if all you do is change the CPU, any software that requires activation from the "mother ship" server might not work without tinkering, since the hardware fingerprint that is used by almost all the activation routines may have changed enough to throw a spanner into the works.

Hi

I also did a duo to quad upgrade a few month back, and no OS reinstall, just bios-upgrade and new processor - voila - very easy :-)

/Ulf

The reason for my question is that I shelled out quite a bit for new mics over the course of the last 2 weeks and I'm still recovering from that ;)

I was on NewEgg this morning - this is what I have found Intel wise - As I said, I'm trying to use as many of my existing parts as I can.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775
Intel BOXDP35DPM LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard

I can utilize my 4x1GB of PC6400 Corsair XMS Dual Channel RAM, my nVidia 7300LE PCI-x video card and all my drives.

I'm trying to keep this as inexpensive as I can especially with the equipment purchases I just made.

Any comments?

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

I assume you mean it's a PCI-e card. PCI-X is a different beast altogether and implies a pretty expensive motherboard.

Rob

oops - my bad - yeah - I meant PCI-e

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

As was mentioned before, if you are editing long form projects or rendering using a well-threaded codec like MainConcept MPEG2 or MainConcept AVC then the more cores the better, because that will help you be more productive. If you are rendering smaller projects that require cuts-only rendering, then you should get the CPU that helps you preview your footage more accurately.

Well, this morning my decision was made for me - I went to turn on my computer and it didn't post. It had gotten quite warm yesterday and I thought I better shut it down - well, I think the damage was done. Went and got a new power supply to verify it wasn't that - I got one long beep - according to my owners manual - motherboard bad. I pulled all the ram and other cards. Still wouldn't post.

So I have an AMD Phenom Quad Core and new motherboard ordered and hopefully they will arrive middle of this week. The cost was enough of a difference to stick with AMD for the time being on my desktop.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com