Alludo USER to USER Web Board

With all this video editing and me beta testing for Blu-ray with my short track speedskating videos, I'm going to be building a new computer system completely dedicated to video encoding.

I've personally used both a Core 2 Duo (E4300) and a Core 2 Quadro (Q6600) for my video editing. It seems to be faster on a Core 2 Quadro due to the fact that the CPU runs faster 1.8GHz vs. 2.4GHz.

However, I do see that my quad core doesn't seem to be working as hard as my dual core. My quad core AT most heads up to only about 50% while my dual core hits around 80% utilization.

So, would it be better to get a faster dual core CPU (E8500 @ 3.16GHz) vs. a quad core CPU (Q9450 @ 2.53GHz)?

What I plan to run is the following:

Windows Vista Ultimate x64
4GB of DDR2-800 PC6400 RAM
2 x 150GB Raptor hard drives
LG GGW-H20L Blu-ray burner
Ulead Videostudio 11.5 Plus

That's it. This machine will NOT be used for anything else BUT video encoding.

QUAD - Minimum of Q6600 @2.4Ghz using an Intel M33 - M35 Chipset (minimum).
A really nice Video Card for HD is the ATI HD2600XT 512mpeg PCE-E 16x (uses DDR3 memory).
The above of course is just my opinion. What I also like about the ATI is the AVIVO High Def acceleration along with installing the ATI Hydravision under Vista which will allow you to access multiple virtual desktops, all programmable.

Depending on your power settings a Q6600 rated at 2.4Ghz idles at 1.6Ghz.
The frequency is controlled by the APM settings. You can access these settings under Vista and see the actual frequency your processors are running at.
If you have the power settings to maximum savings then a quad will idle at 1.6Ghz and jumps up to 2.4Ghz when it's loaded.

If you setup the Power Settings to minimum savings then the cpu's run at their full rated Ghz. You can view all these settings in Vista.under the Resource Manager.