Now PC Build but what CPU is best for Video studio

[VinMan]

Hello to all

OK need abit of help here going to build a new pc just for video editing gonna go with Asus mother board but not sure which CPU to get will video studio work with a Quad CPU or is it best for a Duo CPU

If i get a duo im gonna get the (Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16GHz) Socket 775 Wolfdale 1333FSB)

Also would I be better to upgrade to the new version of Video Studio 11.5 (I have V10 Plus)

I am using a Sony DCR-SR72 (60gbharddive version) camcorder

Thanks

[Ken Berry]

That will always come down to a matter of personal opinion. You will see from my system button that I have Core 2 Quad, which is great. The "problem" is that not many programs are written as yet which can take advantage of all 4 cores. Video Studio only uses 2 as far as I can see. This of course leaves plenty of system resources left over for running other programs at the same time, and to an extent provides some future proofing for when more programs *are* written to take advantage of all the cores.

That being said, the Core 2 Duo you are thinking about has more than enough grunt for just about anything you can throw at it, including avchd if you ever change your camera to a high definition avchd model...

As for the version of VS, well that in turn depends on what operating system you install on your new computer. If it is Vista, VS11/11.5 is written to be compatible with Vista. VS10 was not and requires a patch to make it more or less Vista compliant. (By the way, if you use Vista, make sure you install plenty of RAM as it is very resource hungry as an OS.)

If you install XP, then VS10+ is probably all you need if you are dealing with standard definition video. VS11 brings a few new bells and whistles, but those are mainly in the high def area. But it also brings quite a few problems. So if you don't have high definition, and no current plans to do so, then stick with the tried and better trusted VS10. And wait to see what emerges with the next version (12).

All that being said, I seem to be one of the lucky ones as I have never had any significant problems (apart from capturing analogue source material via firewire) with VS11+/VS11.5+...

[2Dogs]

Hello to all

OK need abit of help here going to build a new pc just for video editing gonna go with Asus mother board but not sure which CPU to get will video studio work with a Quad CPU or is it best for a Duo CPU

Hi VinMan - not bin-man right?. Some quad users report video encoding using VS not much faster than an equivalently clocked Core 2 Duo. VS seems not to be optimised that well for quad core. There are other programs which can make better use of the four cores, but nobody knows if Corel/Ulead will improve quad core support. There is an argument that a quad core is possibly more "future proof" but then just about any pc will be obsolete in just a few years.

If i get a duo im gonna get the (Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16GHz) Socket 775 Wolfdale 1333FSB)

Ain't you lucky! With VS, I would expect it to encode video faster than a similarly priced, but lower-clocked Q6600. Wolfdale is of course built on the 45nm process, which shows a bit of a performance gain over Conroe for the same clock for encoding tasks. You might be an overclocker too, and get an extra 25% out of it.

Also would I be better to upgrade to the new version of Video Studio 11.5 (I have V10 Plus)

That would depend on if you valued the improved features of VS11.5 over VS10. I think the encoding speed would be just about the same.

I am using a Sony DCR-SR72 (60gbharddive version) camcorder

Not sure if that can also be connected by Firewire - in which case you might go for a motherboard with built in Firewire support. I believe the norm for hard drive camcorders is transferring video files via USB. The Sony records in mpeg-2 PS format - so if your intended final output is a DVD, it would probably be best to avoid re-encoding the video - in which case your pc will just be Smart Rendering most of the video, and only re-encoding parts with filters, transitions and effects, titles and so on.

You'd notice more of a speed difference if you were encoding miniDV avi video to DVD compliant mpeg-2, but Smart Rendering the already DVD compliant mpeg-2 video will be very fast, limited more by your hard drives than by the cpu.

[VinMan]

Thank you all
Just one other quest that I forgot to ask does it make any difference to what graphic card I use to the speed of the encoding?

Would a GPU help ?

Thanks

Vince

[2Dogs]

Video editing, and certainly standard definition editing consumes very little in the way of video resources. Even the humblest integrated graphics will do fine - there's no need for a 3D video card. There's no improvement in video encoding speed.

Having said that, however, I would personally fit a mid range card to an E8500 based pc, since you could then use it to play some great recent video games.

If you plan to play back H.264 encoded HD video on your pc, many video cards can offer hardware acceleration, which can reduce cpu usage - but the E8500 should be fast enough to play HD H.264 video without that acceleration.

Likewise, the amount of installed RAM has virtually no effect on video encoding speed, although there are other benefits. DDR2 RAM is currently so cheap that there would be no need to have less than 2GB. Although you might be able to install 4GB, the 32 bit versions of Windows can really only use 3GB without some fancy work-arounds.

[etech6355]

I wouldn't even think twice about using a quad Q6600 compared to the Core2 Duo. Just for better overall system performance and you can set the virtualization to certain cores. So in VS or other programs if they do use to much of all 4 cores you can assign only 2 cores to the program, leaving 2 more cores for other tasks.

VideoStudio does use all 4 cores, it depends on what video codec your editing in. The same with MovieFactory 6+. If you encode avc/h264 video VS I've seen VS use all 4 cores at 85% cpu usage.

The Asus boards can easily overclock the Q6600 to 3 or 3.2 Ghz. Doubling the performance over a Core2-Duo @ 3.2ghz.
Intel has also announced they will be cutting the price of the Core2_quad cpus in around April.

Even if you go with a Core2-Duo with the correct ASUS MB P5K Enhanced you could always swap out the cpu for a quad later on.

[2Dogs]

The Asus boards can easily overclock the Q6600 to 3 or 3.2 Ghz. Doubling the performance over a Core2-Duo @ 3.2ghz.
Intel has also announced they will be cutting the price of the Core2_quad cpus in around April.

Whereas the E8500 could similarly be clocked to perhaps 4.3gHz, so the fairer comparison of speed difference when running software fully optimised to take advantage of the four cores would be 1.5 : 1

You have to be mindful that the quad core cpu's are basically two dual cores on the same die, and consequently use almost twice as much power and generate more heat. The E8500 using the 45nm process should have a low power consumption and heat output.

[sallyxi]

i have one too

[VinMan]

Thank you all for your help - OK just another thought (and this is a danger LOL)

Would it help to speed things up if a bought and dedicated A
Samsung 64GB 2.5" SATA Solid State Hard Drive for Video editing

As the hard drives are the bottle neck of data these days.

What do you guys think?

[sjj1805]

You might be interested in my set up


For further details please view:
Optimising the computer for video Editing

[2Dogs]

Thank you all for your help - OK just another thought (and this is a danger LOL)

Would it help to speed things up if a bought and dedicated A
Samsung 64GB 2.5" SATA Solid State Hard Drive for Video editing

As the hard drives are the bottle neck of data these days.

What do you guys think?

Don't even think about it! solid State drives have very low access times, and very low latency, but they don't offer any advantage in terms of data transfer rate. With video editing, you're generally dealing with a smallish number of large files, rather than lots of tiny files. Just use a flash drive with Vista to enable Ready Boost if you must, but it's not worth shelling out for a solid state drive at this point in time for what you're doing.

[VinMan]

OK all - now got built the new pc - pc spec - below


Gigabyte Motherboard GA-G33M - DS2R

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3Ghz 1333FSB)
2GB Corsair Kit

160gb Sata Segate HDD
500gb Sata Segate HDD

but quest Is will there be any benefit to run XP Pro 64bit for Ulead or just stick to XP Pro 32bit?


Cheers

[2Dogs]

64 bit version will enable the use of more RAM. 32 bit can't really use more thjan 3.5GB. Whether you see any benefit will depend on the kind of things you're doing with the pc. It used to be hard to get 64 bit drivers, but lately users report it's not so much of a problem.

If you're principally using the pc for editing with VS, there wouldn't be any advantage I could think of from going to XP 64 bit. 2 gig of RAM is plenty for XP.

Happy new pc!

[etech6355]

Yes, the hardest thing is if you have to install drivers for a device they will have to be 64bit drivers. Many pci add-on cards still don't have 64 bit drivers.
For this reason some peronss have 2 versions of XP installed on their computers, 32bit OS & 64bit OS. This way they can boot into the OS to use the device that's not supported in the 64bit version yet.

I've stayed with the 32bit version of XP & Vista.

[Clevo]

From what I have gathered...if you are going to go 64bit like i have Vista 64 bit is supported more now that XP 64 bit when it comes to drivers.

This is because drivers for vista MUST work in both 32 and 64 bit.

I chose Vista 64 bit for future proofing and for the ability to get more RAM.