Low Resource Utilization on a High End Machine

[gmurnane]

I just built a large/fast machine to run CS5 at a place that has been using Ulead, and was asked to add Videostudio Pro X3 to it, because it says it makes use of Intel core i7 and Nvidia CUDA. With the i7 980X, a GTX 570, 24 GB of DDR3 1333 RAM, an SSD for system files, and a RAID array for the video files, Videostudio uses
-18% CPU (all on the 6 real cores)
-1% RAM (about 300 MB total. Windows uses 2.6 in idle, and Videostudio pushes that to 2.9, but with 21.1 free, I thought it would load all the files to RAM)
-8% GPU (It stops using this about 1/3 of the way through rendering)
-6% of the RAID's read/write speed (reading one file, writing to another. one was the file in the library and one was output file)
-5% of the IOPS the SSD can do (mostly small reads from the same 50 or 60 dlls)
during rendering. (I was rendering standard definition, imported from a DVD, to a DVD video file with only simple cuts/a few transitions)

The CPU usage is all on the real cores (it seems to ignore hyper-threading) so the CPU usage is really more like 36%. Am I missing some limiting factor, or is Videostudio using less than half of this system?

I am sure that the RAM, GPU, RAID, and SSD are not limiting it, because I can add stress to those and get exactly the same render in the same time. I have no idea how to test this with the CPU, because CPU load is ridiculously complicated. I may try it without hyper-threading or with some cores disabled to compare the times on those. When CS5's disk arrives, I will do the same testing with that to compare (this may be a while). Any ideas about what would cause such low utilization/what I can do about it?

[Ron P.]

I've read where to edit HD video using VS X3 on i7 machines, hyperthreading needs to be disabled in the bios. So I would guess that VS X3 does not make proper use of hyperthreading.