What processor?

8 replies [Last post]
Toby
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Joined: Apr 26 1999

I currently use Premiere 5.1 with one of the miro DC range of capture cards on a system based around a pentium 200MMX cpu.

I am looking at PII 400MHz, the AMD K-6 3 400MHZ and the AMD K-6 2 400MHz. Does anyone have any suggestions as to which would be the best buy for video editing?

jarroda
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Joined: Mar 31 1999

Buy the fastest thing that you can.

AMD are now producing a 466MHZ chip. Intel are also producing a 466 Celeron. These are presently the best value for money.

The P3-500 is still the best processor of all, but carries a large premium price.

Andrew

miker
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Joined: Apr 27 1999

I use AMD cos I'm a cheapskate. Get intel if you can afford it, especially since the new instructions on the PIII are optimised for DV (allegedly)

SteveP
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Joined: Apr 10 1999

Whilst buying the fastest processor you can afford is a sound choice in the world of video editing it is important to remember the CPU is only one link taking the strain rendering your video footage. In your considerations remember a 400MHz PII is only some 7% faster than a 350MHz PII but with a much more weighty price tag. A high end Celeron is also a good choice for the money and near performance to it's higher cache cousins. Remember even the fastest processor will be crippled by other poorly chosen elements of your system causing bottlenecks. Choose plently of RAM, 64Mb min, a BX chipset motherboard at least and if editing full video make your delicated UDMA Hard Drive for video data the biggest you can afford. Remember to get the best out of any CPU you have to give it an environment it can perform in. Good luck.

bcrabtree
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Joined: Mar 7 1999

Steve,

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Well, I could, of course...

...but I'd have had to work hard to do so.

;)

Bob C

Christian Lett
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Joined: Apr 26 1999

If you're motherboard can handle it, try overclocking the processor by one step (ie. from 400Mhz to 450Mhz). I recently found out that the higher speed processors are the same as the lower speed ones but made with a better tolerance. Beware though, overclocking produces more heat but adding another fan (and maybe drilling a few holes in the case) should keep this at bay. A friend of mine has overclocked his Celeron 333 to 450Mhz and this works fine.

The other thing to take into consideration is the cache on the processor. The bigger (and faster) the cache, the more efficient the CPU will be at getting data into and out of the core.
PIIs have 512K of half speed cache whereas Celerons have 128K of full speed cache. The cache memory is the expensive bit of the CPU which explains why the Xeon processors are sooo expensive (512, 1Mb(!) or 2Mb(!!) of full speed cache). A Xeon would be cool for video editing though.
PIIIs have the same cache as PIIs but include the SIMD (single instruction multiple data) commands which will help with video editing *provided* that s/w authors have written the programs to use them. I doubt Adobe have yet but they will do in future releases.

It's a tricky one... I'd go for the PIII 500 if I could (because it's a better designed chip) but either the Celeron 450 or a PII 400/450 (bound to come down in price with the introduction of the PIII) will be great with, as SteveP says, a BX motherboard, a shed load of RAM and a decent HD (IBM's 25GB Titan is UDMA 66 compatible). I also heard that Windows NT is a better OS for editing but I'm not sure whether this is true. if you do use NT, 128Mb is the minimum RAM (to avoid irritating disk swapping) and 256Mb will be even better.
Finally, get the best 2D graphics card you can (Matrox Millenium with 16Mb on board) as this will reduce CPU usage.

Phew! Big credit card bills ahoy...

------------------
Christian J. Lett
clett@nationalexpress.co.uk

Christian Lett After Effects and Maya Artist www.quarterlightpictures.com

Toby
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Joined: Apr 26 1999

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the advice!

digitalpaintbox
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Joined: Apr 7 1999

Repeating much of the above id go for better components first . I hasve a client who bought a pentium 200 mmx system off me almost 2 years ago and is still very happy.
He is using a dc30plus and premier 5.1. He upgraded to a 32mb ati fury graphics card and lifted his memory to the 128mb level ( the most you will ever need). Then spent more on an extra big Hard drive (maxtor 17 GB) and he hasnt bothered with the cpu.
The maths speak for themselves.
128 mb memory 134.00
Ati fury 130.00
maxtor HD 209.00 (Which you would need anyway)
total 473.00

as apposed too:-

PII 400 250.00
Bx mother Brd 90.00 ( a good one)
New Atx case 75.00 (again a good one full tower)
new keyborad 15.00 (if yours is non ps2)
ps2 mouse 10.00 (it all adds up)
total 435.00
(plus you would probably have to change your memory for pc100 add another 135.00)
Now this i here you say makes the upgrade to PII looks cheaper( if you do have pc100 memory) but then you ask is it worth it for 30% speed increase over your existing system . If you go for the first option you will have an immiediate increase in speed due to the memory and graphics card and you will have the all important extra 17gb space on the extra hard drive.And if you dont need the space then get yourself a cd burner or whatever else you think will benefit you more than a jump in speed.

The choice is yours
Chris

Paul Cryer
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Joined: Apr 5 1999

As I have said in other posts, I would always go for a PII due to the large onboard cache.

PII 400 = £188.50
128MB PC-100 SDRAM = £97.50

Paul