OT. Is this PC any good for HDV?

newbe wrote on 11/20/2005, 4:07 AM

Some time ago I bought a Sony FX1. My present PC is getting a bit "old" and I feel I need a new one, one that can handle HDV. Lately my wife is in a good mood so I better take advantage.

There is a lot of talking on this forum about Dual Core- processor technology for the handling of HDV.

I wonder, what is the opinion of the amazing forum members about this PC I'm considering buying.

THANKS FOR ANY HELP.
Eric
.

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Comments

gdstaples wrote on 11/20/2005, 6:09 AM

If money is an issue get the AMD 4400x2 and if money is not as much an issue get the 4800x2.

The fastest dual core Intel 840DEE matches up very closely with the AMD 3800x2. The 4800x2 simply toasts the Intel by a very large margin and the 4400x2 trounces it as well. This is according to every single benchmark I have read (lots).

Get at least 2GB of RAM - preferably 4GB.

You don't need a super high end video card.

250GB will only buy you about 4.5 hours of storage for HDV. The medium Cineform AVI files (only) run about 45GB/hour.

WLAN is basically useless for HDV as it will take close to an hour to push a couple gigabyte file across your network. I would hard wire Gigabit - minimum.

The other items listed are not necessary IMO and you would be better taking $400 and putting it towards a Canopus ADVC 300 card for output to external monitor.

Duncan

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/20/2005, 7:25 AM

> The 4800x2 simply toasts the Intel by a very large margin and the 4400x2 trounces it as well.

Agreed. Forget Intel! AMD Dual Core is the way to go. I have never owned an AMD in my life; always been an Intel supporter, but they took their eye off the ball and AMD is going to be the fastest processor out there for a few years to come.

I just built a new PC based around the AMD X2 4600+ dual core. My specs are in this thread but I’ll repeat them here:

Case:    Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black       $99.99 

Mobo:    ASUS A8N-SLI Premium                       $169.00

Proc:    AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Socket 939          $637.00 

Mem:     CORSAIR XMS 2GB Twinx2048-3200c2pt         $276.00 

HD 1:    WD Raptor WD740GD 10,000 RPM SATA150       $165.99 

HD 2&3:  2 x WD 250GB WD2500JS SATA II (Raid 0)     $201.98 

DVDRW:   Pioneer DVD Burner DVR-110DBK               $42.99 

Video:   MSI Geforce 6800GT 256MB GDDR3             $298.00 

Floppy:  SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy             $7.99 

KBD:     Logitech Internet Pro Standard Keyboard      $9.98 

Mouse:   Logitech MX510 Optical Mouse                $38.00 

Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9500 LED 92mm Heatsink           $67.99 

OS:      Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/SP2    $134.95

-----------------------------------------------------------

Total                                              $2059.89

I ran the original VASST render test on my old and new PC’s and here are the results:

Intel P4 3.0Ghz: 1:35

AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+: 0:39

Looks like the AMD X2 4600+ is 3x faster than a P4 3.0. So you want to buy a dual core P4 3.0? Even if it is twice as fast as a single P4 3.0 it is still 33% slower than an AMD.

I can play HDV at 720x540 Preview mode (that’s the largest window I can get on my 1280x1024 LCD) and full screen on my Windows Secondary Display at full frame rates (29.97).

Bottom line: HDV = AMD Dual Core

~jr

Yoyodyne wrote on 11/20/2005, 11:31 AM

Hey - I'm building a very similar set up, my parts just got here from new egg. Although I did spring for the 4800 - I'll try a post a report when I get it up and running (wish me luck)

newbe wrote on 11/20/2005, 12:29 PM

Thanks for the info Johnny.
One question, wil your build run just as well with Windows XP Home?
Thanks to all.
Eric.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/20/2005, 4:14 PM

> Although I did spring for the 4800 - I'll try a post a report when I get it up and running (wish me luck)

I would be very curious to see what the 4800 times are for the render test. It has the same 2.4GHz processor as the 4600. It just has more L2 cache. Not sure how that affects rendering times. (BTW Good Luck! a new build is always an adventure) ;-)

> One question, wil your build run just as well with Windows XP Home?

After reading this on PC Advisor I decided that to make the best use of dual core you really should get XP Pro. XP Home will work, but just not as good because it is optimized for a single processor only.

~jr

GlennChan wrote on 11/20/2005, 5:02 PM

After reading this on PC Advisor I decided that to make the best use of dual core you really should get XP Pro. XP Home will work, but just not as good because it is optimized for a single processor only.
That might just be misinformation. XP Home should support dual core. XP Pro is not especially optimized over XP Home, although it does support dual processors while XP Home does not.

The fastest dual core Intel 840DEE matches up very closely with the AMD 3800x2. The 4800x2 simply toasts the Intel by a very large margin and the 4400x2 trounces it as well. This is according to every single benchmark I have read (lots).
I don't think those benchmark results can be generalized to Vegas. There's wide variation in the results depending on what's being tested- this just highlights the importance to looking at relevant benchmarks.

There's not much data for Vegas, although there are quite a few rendertest.veg results. It does seem to suggest that Intel and AMD run neck to neck when comparing similarly-priced single-core processors. There aren't any dual-core results for Intel, although I suspect Intel's dual core CPUs don't scale up as well as AMD.

39s - AMD X2 4600+
SOURCE: http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=423138&Replies=4

*39s/74s - AMD X2 4400+ (Toledo core, 2X2.2ghz, 2X1MB cache, no dual channel memory, Vegas 6.0b)
SOURCE: philfort@ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=399447&Replies=26

*40s/76s - AMD X2 4400+ (Toledo core, 2X2.2ghz, 2X1MB cache, no dual channel memory, Vegas 6.0b)
SOURCE: TheRhino@ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=396239&Replies=61

*75s - P4 3.6ghz overclocked from 3.0 Pentium. A new 5xx-series 3.6ghz should be as fast or slightly slower.
SOURCE: Stormcrow@ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=396239&Replies=57

78s- AMD64 3700+ (san diego core??? [2.2ghz, 1MB cache], vegas 6, dual channel RAM)
SOURCE: Charley Gallgher@ http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45178&page=2&pp=15

*78s- P4 3.2 overclocked to 3.8ghz (Northwood core???, 800FSB [it's overclocked, so the FSB is actually higher])
SOURCE: jamcas@ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=256422

79s- AMD64 3400+ (unknown core, Vegas 6)
SOURCE: Charley Gallagher@ http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45178&page=2&pp=15

89s- 3.0E Pentium Prescott (865 chipset, dual channel RAM, Vegas 5)
SOURCE: Glenn Chan@ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=396239&Replies=57

90s - 2.8ghz Pentium (Prescott)
SOURCE: TalawaMan@ http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=262716

gdstaples wrote on 11/20/2005, 5:31 PM

The comparisons of the D840EE against 3800x2 were done using a ton of different applications including:

Photoshop (various filters)
Video Rendering (sorenson and others)
Gaming
Maya (other 3D modeling/rendering)
Etc....

Based on numerous tests which included other video rendering tests, I think it would be safe to say that the numbers would port relatively the same to Vegas.

Duncan

GmElliott wrote on 11/23/2005, 7:27 AM

Glen I got :45 seconds in the render test with my "lowely" 3.0 Pentium D.

The AMD's are faster and will probably build a 4800+ X2 next but :45 seconds for a $1200 machine isn't too shabby. I got a Vaio Desktop.

GlennChan wrote on 11/23/2005, 9:26 PM

Glen, that's not too shabby! It looks like your machine beats others for value.

Videocanuck wrote on 11/24/2005, 2:13 AM

I had never done the render test before on my P4 2.0 GHZ 1.00 GB of RAM computer, so thought I'd try it to see what kind of speed increases I might enjoy if I upgraded. My humble little computer took 2 minutes and 37 seconds!!

newbe wrote on 11/24/2005, 8:07 AM

Sory if this is a stupid question, but where do I get this Vegas render test?
Eric.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/24/2005, 8:23 AM

> where do I get this Vegas render test?

You can get it from the VASST web site. Here is a link to the download page

~jr

newbe wrote on 11/24/2005, 9:47 AM

Thanks Johnny, this is for Vegas 3c, can I use it on Vegas 6?

fldave wrote on 11/24/2005, 11:57 AM

Yes it works fine in v6.

I downloaded and ran again, noticed that it was at "Best" quality, thought I remembered it was supposed to be set at "Good" so I ran it both ways:

P4 3.2, single core, HT enabled, no overclocking, 1GB 4200 DDR2 ram, Dynamic Ram Preview set at both 16MB and 516MB:

Good:
16MB --> 56 Seconds
516MB --> 38 seconds

Best
16MB --> 1:17
516MB --> 1:02

GlennChan wrote on 11/24/2005, 8:41 PM

fldave:
Those are interesting results... they are quite a bit faster than similar systems running on Vegas 5 (and 4). That RAM preview makes a difference is interesting.

fldave wrote on 11/25/2005, 4:37 AM

Shutdown antivirus, zone alarm, unnecessary services (carefully), no Media Manager, very small preview size, then let er rip.

With rendertest being generated media, increased RAM preview seems to help. Don't believe it helps much on straight video to mpg rendering. Lots of previous discussions on this topic on the board in the past.

newbe wrote on 11/25/2005, 6:08 AM

Thanks Dave, it works.
My PC gives poor results,(3.5 min.) need a new one in a hurry.

Wes C. Attle wrote on 11/25/2005, 9:59 AM

After moving from Intel to AMD for the first time earlier this year, I strongly recommend you go with an AMD x2 64 processor. You won't be sorry. The 3800 x2 is by far the best deal out there. Intel won't have anything to compete with AMD for another 12 months. So don't bother looking at Intel until 2007. Intel also has chipset and memory bottlenecks that will hold them back for awhile too.

If you do a lot of rendering, you could go with a dual proc Operteron motherboard with dual-cores. Those four core systems really cook. I have two single core Opterons that perform just as fast as the dual-core Athlon 64 X2's.... So go with the Athlon X2's if you are on a budget and do not require four cores to stay sane.