Single core with HT or New dual core or Quad core"CONFU

andymchere · Post by **andymchere** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:14 pm

Hi can anyone answer me this question?
WILL HT WORK ON THE NEW PROCESSORS?

I want to take advantage of the hyperthreading within msp8 and notice on the ulead site you need a pentium processor with HT technology to make it work succesfully especialy doing realtime previews.

The new processors are now marketed as dual core or quad core not mentioning HT.
I want to purchase one of these but I need to know if it will work as good as a processor with HT built in as required for MSP.

Im currently running msp8 on and amd 2400 XP CPU without HT technology.with 1 gb of ram and 3 x 400gb drives.

Cheers Andy

andymchere · Post by **andymchere** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:45 pm

SILLY QUESTION BUT NEEDS TO BE ASKED.

Which is best AMD or INTEL

troppo · Post by **troppo** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:10 am

I did a lot of research on this kind of thing before I purchased my previous computer.
At the time I found out a P4 3.4Ghz single core will encode video faster than a P4 2.8 Dual Core (Pentium D)
So when it comes to encoding video (the most processor intensive part of MSP8) dual cores make no difference, it is all processor speed.
Actual usage of MSP8 may speed up because one core can take care of the background processes required by the computer, while the other plays with MSP8. But I found I lose most of my time in the encoding process, so this is where I sought to increase speed.
I know MSP8 and 7 claim to use HT, and it was this reason I bought a new HT machine way back when I was using MSP7. Did it make any difference? Probably, but the general consensus in the computer industry was that HT was a more effective marketing tool, than an effective technology. Actual performance gains were always fairly marginal. (This might have had something to do with code not being written to effectively utilize the HT ability, either way, it was still pretty useless)

The new Intel dual core processors don't have HT (except the 'extreme' version) but they still are alot faster at encoding than the old Pentium 4 based chip. This is to do with the way they process the information, they can process bigger chunks at a time (which is why they run at a slower clock speed than the old Pentium 4s)

I am using a Core 2 Duo 2.4 Ghz (T7600) in a laptop, and it is more than twice as fast as my custom built Pentium 3.4, which I optimised for video editing.

As far as AMD goes, at the time I did my research, Intel had a better chip architecture for encoding video, with their built in instruction sets. I read a review somewhere where the 1.8 Ghz C2D was giving the top end AMD processors a run for their money. But this was a year ago (a long time in processor land!)

Forget about HT, it's yesterdays tech. With dual cores (and quad) it has basically become obsolete.

So, a new Intel Core 2 Duo will be the best for you

Devil · Post by **Devil** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:28 am

Now I'm confused. My video rig has a Core2Duo 2.6 GHz on a NVidea chipped m/b. The BIOS shows the option of HT on/off. If it were unavailable, would it not be greyed out (as are some other features)?

I admit that I have not done practical tests to see whether it makes a difference.

I agree Intel is a march ahead of AMD and their new pricing policy of having them all, except the cutting-edge top one, at a reasonable price, means they are likely to remain ahead.

andymchere · Post by **andymchere** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 11:05 am

Thanks for the great information troppo. Much appreciated.

Now I can start looking.

MMMM..... Dual or Quad??

Which one...I`ll flip a coin.

DLA · Post by **DLA** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:23 pm

I can confirm that. I had an Athlon X2 that fried because of lightning, (un)fortunatly. I replaced with a Core 2 Duo. At least twice as fast.

troppo · Post by **troppo** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 2:04 am

MMMM..... Dual or Quad??

Which one...I`ll flip a coin.

I don't think you will see much performance gain with a quad processor over a dual core. In fact in some reviews I've seen quads actually run some software *slower* than a dual!
Unless the software code is specifically written to take advantage of multiple cores, then the application only uses one core anyway.
However, if you are like me, then you will love the idea of 4 cores and buy it regardless!
It's always a good idea to future proof your system, with the uncertainty of MSP8's future. Some of the newer editors out there are designed for multiple cores.

Now I'm confused. My video rig has a Core2Duo 2.6 GHz on a NVidea chipped m/b. The BIOS shows the option of HT on/off. If it were unavailable, would it not be greyed out (as are some other features)?

I dunno about your motherboard, but if you indeed have a core 2 duo, then I'm afraid it doesn't have HT. At least, according to Intel it doesn't.
http://developer.intel.com/technology/p ... s_products
But then the site also doesn't mention the extreme edition C2D having HT, and I was pretty sure it did. So who knows, maybe you do