Which CPU - Bang for the buck!

[Philip]

I have looked for similar question here and didn't quite find an answer to my question so here is my question.


I am about ready to build my next system. For my CPU I have been planning for awhile to use the Core 2 Quad Q6600. I know Edius uses only 2 cores but the 4 may speed up encoding processes.

What about the Core2 E8400 based on the new 45nm technology with the 1333 FSB. I understand the new SSE4 instructions may be a boost down the road for some video tasks as well. I would bet Edius will "embrace" the SSE4 quicker than threading for 4 cores.

The E8400 is actually less expensive than the Q6600.

I am wondering if the performance boost for editing in the E8400 with faster FSB will outweigh any benefits of encoding on a quad core (and any future benefits when apps are threaded to use 4 cores)

If the E8400 is a significant boost in Edius over a Q6600 I figure by the time Edius works with all 4 cores it will be time to build a new machine anyway. Am I on the right track.

BTW....I do mostly Edius editing and encoding. I am doing HD via the Canopus HQ codec and will soon start encoding and burning BluRay discs for my customers. Thought I would mention that in case the enhancement in encoding on the quad for HD will be a bigger benefit and speedier editing.

I don't have funds for the super Extreme processors that are 4x the money of the E8400 and Q6600.

[GrassValley_BH]

I know Edius uses only 2 cores but the 4 may speed up encoding processes.

http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4555&p=27350

It will use 4 cores... but only if you throw enough work at it.

[STORMDAVE]

SSE4 is too new...Maybe EDIUS will use it by v6? :P

Right now I would invest in a Quad Core instead of a Dual Core...but that's just me.

[Bluetongue]

[url]It will use 4 cores... but only if you throw enough work at it.

I can agree with that I was under the impression only 2 cores would be used but Edius uses all 4 even for playback. All 4 are used even in Word, can only be seen if pasting ar adding a large graphic but I have found ALL programs on my system are using all 4, well worth it for RT and rendering
Regards Barry

[Philip]

http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/fo...t=4555&p=27350
It will use 4 cores... but only if you throw enough work at it.

To fully utilize all your cores, you must present enough tasks that can be processed concurrently in order to get all the cores busy. This is why the Queue Manager in ProCoder is key for processing efficiency.

Great post ..... great comparisons!

You mentioned Queue Manager in ProCoder....what if I am only using PCE. Will it still push all 4 cores into action.

In EDIUS, it's a matter of how many tracks have active content and whether that content requires processing.

When you mention tracks with active content are you referring to layers of video and audio. A typical project willl have 3 layers of video and up to 6 or 8 layers of audio. Will this push all 4 cores into action. Sometimes the video players will have a white balance and/or YUV added. If this will push all 4 cores into action then it's a no brainer....the Q6600 is the way to go.

Thanks for the great explanation....I never found that post.

[gdame]

Q6600 2.4GHz 1066fsb = Under $300
Q6700 2.66GHz 1066fsb= Under $600
QX9650 3.00GHz 1333fsb = Under $1200

[STORMDAVE]

There is not a big difference between the 65nm and 45nm chips, except a bit of higher fsb and larger cache sizes...which mean less energy consumption (also = less heat) and a bit of speed increase. The difference is not as gigantic as a Pentium 4 vs. a Core 2 Duo...

I would get a good ASUS motherboard and pop in the Q6600 with a good 3rd party Heatsink (Zalman) and overclock it to 3.0 (Very easy nowadays)...you will have a smooth and quick machine (3.0x4cores= total of 12GHz of processing power). Matter of fact I plan to build a new PC with this CPU soon, the P4 is slow as molasses...

[gdame]

There is not a big difference between the 65nm and 45nm chips, except a bit of higher fsb and larger cache sizes...which mean less energy consumption (also = less heat) and a bit of speed increase. The difference is not as gigantic as a Pentium 4 vs. a Core 2 Duo...

I would get a good ASUS motherboard and pop in the Q6600 with a good 3rd party Heatsink (Zalman) and overclock it to 3.0 (Very easy nowadays)...you will have a smooth and quick machine (3.0x4cores= total of 12GHz of processing power). Matter of fact I plan to build a new PC with this CPU soon, the P4 is slow as molasses...

Dave, you are so right. If you dare to find the right mix of Mainboard, CPU and memory and most importantly cooling, then overclocking can yield some amazing performance for short money. Jerry seems to like overclocking a bit. Check out the OCZ forums for some great system specs and settings. A lot of guys over there use Asus mainboards. I would like to try a Quad 4.0GHz system with a 2000+ FSB and memory running at the same speed as the FSB. Maybe a liquid cooling system.

[Jerry]

There is not a big difference between the 65nm and 45nm chips, except a bit of higher fsb and larger cache sizes...which mean less energy consumption (also = less heat) and a bit of speed increase. The difference is not as gigantic as a Pentium 4 vs. a Core 2 Duo...

I would get a good ASUS motherboard and pop in the Q6600 with a good 3rd party Heatsink (Zalman) and overclock it to 3.0 (Very easy nowadays)...you will have a smooth and quick machine (3.0x4cores= total of 12GHz of processing power). Matter of fact I plan to build a new PC with this CPU soon, the P4 is slow as molasses...

The Q6600 is at the price point you are describing. Dave is right about the ease of overclocking this processor. Cooling is the most important thing to consider if you are going to do this. The Zalman is a great cooler. I, however, went for overkill and used this one. Here is a review.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coo...ltra120ex.html
Put a Scyth fan on it and it keeps the processor really cool.
I am not a massive overclocker. Most of the newer Asus boards have preset overclocking stops. It is really simple and quick. The newer boards also have a protection circuit so that you do not fry the processor.

[Philip]

There is not a big difference between the 65nm and 45nm chips, except a bit of higher fsb and larger cache sizes...which mean less energy consumption (also = less heat) and a bit of speed increase. The difference is not as gigantic as a Pentium 4 vs. a Core 2 Duo...

I would get a good ASUS motherboard and pop in the Q6600 with a good 3rd party Heatsink (Zalman) and overclock it to 3.0 (Very easy nowadays)...you will have a smooth and quick machine (3.0x4cores= total of 12GHz of processing power). Matter of fact I plan to build a new PC with this CPU soon, the P4 is slow as molasses...

Actually I was going to build a Small Form Factor PC for portability reasons since I travel on occasion. It will be nice not to have to lug a big tower around with me. I was looking at this motherboard...Gigabyte DS2R. From what I have heard for the SFF form factor it is one of the hottest MB out there. Has some good reviews and great overclocking abilities as well....and 6 SATA ports so I can add lots of eSATA drives if I want. :-). I don't need a bunch of add on cards and the like so it will be a good, portable computer with desktop power.

I don't use an NX card or anything like that so SFF PC is a great fit for me and my very small studio space. Not sure if there is room in a SFF case for a zalman cooler. I was going to run it stock and possbily overclock just a tiny bit but not agressively. I have overclocked one time and that computer is still stable so I will probably try again with this one.

[GrassValley_BH]

You mentioned Queue Manager in ProCoder....what if I am only using PCE. Will it still push all 4 cores into action.

If you're using PCE by itself, probably not unless both the decoder and encoder use two cores each and the decode and encoding are "heavy" work-wise. Usually decoding isn't too "heavy" so you won't see the decoding cores too busy.

When you mention tracks with active content are you referring to layers of video and audio. A typical project willl have 3 layers of video and up to 6 or 8 layers of audio. Will this push all 4 cores into action. Sometimes the video players will have a white balance and/or YUV added. If this will push all 4 cores into action then it's a no brainer....the Q6600 is the way to go.

3 layers of video (I'm skipping the audio for now) would provide the following "work opportunity" or "jobs" to the system for a given point on the timeline (meaning that there's 3 video clips "stacked" at that timeline location):

1. Decode video layer 1
2. Process (filters/effects) video layer 1
3. Decode video layer 2
4. Process (filters/effects) video layer 2
5. Decode video layer 3
6. Process (filters/effects) video layer 3

Note that because video filters and keyers on a single clip are processed sequentially, no matter how many filters/keyers you have a on clip, it's still one "job" though that job might be able to utilize multiple cores.

The same thing happens for audio, though audio filtering tends to be much less CPU-intensive, so even if you're heavy on the audio tracks, it probably won't show up in your CPU utilization graph.

This brings up an interesting point here...

Adding cores may not speed up your processing (with the exception of multicore-dominant things like Speed Encoder), but it will minimize the speed-impact of adding more video layers to the mix (since you're just utilizing more cores).

If you need to process faster then you'd benefit from faster cores. But if you just need to do more at your current speed, get more cores.

Thanks for the great explanation....

You're welcome. I try... :)

[Philip]

Once again...excellent explanation. It appears I may be able to push 3 of the cores a little. I don't use a RAID so pulling three layers of HQ codec through an sSATA may be about all it can push through. I use the option to skip 5 frames in multicam so even with my old AMD x2 4800 it does an ok job. The Q6600 should smooth out any wrinkles there.

Another great explanation....thanks for taking the time...hopefully it will benefit others that stumble on this thread.....have you been taking lessons from Mike Downey or are you just that smart? :-)

I used to be a programmer so the whole sequential explanation and breakdown made perfect sense to me.

[gdame]

.....have you been taking lessons from Mike Downey or are you just that smart? :-)

He is just that Smart! I am sure Mike learned a bit from Brandon over the years. ;-)

[GrassValley_BH]

Once again...excellent explanation. It appears I may be able to push 3 of the cores a little. I don't use a RAID so pulling three layers of HQ codec through an sSATA may be about all it can push through.

Yes, sounds like you're storage-bandwidth-limited at this point.

I used to be a programmer so the whole sequential explanation and breakdown made perfect sense to me.

I used to be a programmer too. :-)

Mike Downey's a smart fella. He and I go way back to when we were both still customers. If I grow up to be like Mike, I'd call it a successful life.

[Philip]

Yes, sounds like you're storage-bandwidth-limited at this point.

So with Canopus HQ is there enough bandwidth coming out of an eSATA drive to do 3 layers in RT without the 5 frame gaps in the playback during multicam? Just curious if I hit the limit there or if a RAID should be created. Just curious if it was my processor that causing slowdowns or the data pipeline from the hard drive.

I can never keep track of all the numbers for data rates and keep them straight. I just know that eSata is the same as desktop.

I have had terrible luck with RAID0 setups. For all my other tasks the eSATA has been plenty fast enough. I do mostly weddings and the ceremony is the only part with 3 layers in Mulitcam. Everything else is 2 cams max and a bunch of highlights that are single track.