High Def, Dual Core CPU's v Single Core CPU's

[laser]

For those of you interested I've just built a dual core 2 PC for a friend so I took the opportunity to install Avid Liquid 7 SP1 and benchmark the perofrmance against my Pentium 4 3GHz system. The results were pretty impressive for the dual core processor.

In summary the systems are:

System 1:

Intel Duo Core 2 E6400 CPU running at 2.16Ghz
1GB for DDR2 RAM
1 x 80 IDE HDD (8MB Cache) for OS and 320GB Seagate SATA 1.5GB/s HDD
Asus Nvidea EN7300GS 256MB PCI-X graphics cards
Gigabyte Intel GA945PL system board
Windows XP with Sp2

System 2:

Intel P4 3.06Ghz CPU
1 GB PC2700 RAM
1 x Samsung 160GB IDE HDD for OS and 200GB Maxtor SATA HDD
ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB Graphics Card
Gigabyte Intel 865 System Board
Windows XP with SP2

Encoding a 4m34sec 1080i clip into a 720 WMV file took:

System 1: 31m35secs
System 2: 1h20m02secs

[senu]

Thanx for that.

( I guess youll be getting yourself something similar for Christmas then? )

At the video Forum ( at Earls Court) earlier this year, the dual processor motherboards ( with dual processor) and the very few ( then) dual core processors were used to Demo HD editing wth Avid Liquid 7.
Even then, it was apparent that to get anything like the fluidity of SD editing, some form of enhanced processing was needed

Thankfully dual core in the Intel and AMD procressors have become much more affordable and even laptops costing £750 have them. I can only imagine that editing SD on them will be a breeze

Still annoying though is the very slow developmrnt of HD DVD or BD writers and media to put all this HDV edited material on!

[sprognak]

Nice improvement there.

Although the dual core will offer some improvement, there are many other architectural differences between the new Core series processors (which are based on the low power Pentium M series) and the P4's.

I suspect however the main improvement is due to the RAM. The old system is based on DDR memory running at 333MHz which will give a typical bandwidth of around 2Gb/s on a dual channel setup. The newer system uses DDR2 memory which for a Conroe system would probably use PC2-6400 800MHz as a minimum. With this setup you're looking at around 6.4Gb/s bandwidth.

Additionally the increased cache size on the Dual Core will help out a lot, ideally the 4Mb variant of the E6600 would improve things further as this provides 2Mb per core rather than 1Mb.

Either way, you can't under-rate the importance of a high-end system for this kind of work.

[evans]

They are getting quite cheap the dual processors mainly because the processor is not very expensive. Performance is fantastic as i demo one that was T1.66mhz and it was alot faster than my 1.8 mhz pentium M.

Aslo the ram is alot faster, Ive got 1gb on my latptop at 333mhz DDR ram and my freinds computer has ddr2 480 MB ram at 533 Mhz and it is as fast as mine!!

The worrying fact is that I bought mine only 2 years ago for over 1000 pounds and now it is old technology. Intel I guess already has faster technology , they just release it slowly so they can make maximum profit!!

[laser]

The system was built for £560, not bad for a 100% performance boost. Its certianly a lot cheaper to build yourself than to buy a pre-built dual core 2 system at the moment. A similar system sold by Dell is £1099.

Interestingly, the 945 system boards runs at 800Mhz FSB whereas the 965 and 975 system boards run at 1066Mhz. How much difference this makes, I'm not sure.

However, it was decided to go with the 945 board and save the extra £60 over the cost of the 965 system board.

[laser]

Originally Posted by senu

Thanx for that.

( I guess youll be getting yourself something similar for Christmas then? )

:

Most definatley. I was very very surprised at the performance increase. I only expected a 20% increase in the time taken to create the WMV file.

[senu]

I have built for the last 10 years sometimes buying the bits all at once, sometimes gathering them over a period.
I find it immensely satisfying especially when the PCs remain in service many years on. the issue of cost varies though as handpicked components may drive up cost but certainly never as much as premium commercial ( dell type) Simlar products
Does your figure include optical drives? Im assuming Audio, firewire and network are intergrated

PS: Im very very tempted to get one for xmas myself Even if one can wait for rendering, the fluidity during editing alone is worth the extra boost of power.

[laser]

The system included the optical drives. The networking and sound were intergrated and the IEEE1394 card was taken out of a old system. That would have added an extra £10 to the cost had I had to buy one.

[PDP-434HDE]

my Dell Dual Core is 6x my XP 2400 Athlon, DDR2 533Mhz RAM in the DELL.

(5010 model)