Dual Core or Xeon CPU?

aFlabbyPanda

I'm in the market for a new pc at the moment and I'm looking at either a Pentium D 930 3.0Ghz DC or a Xeon 3.0Ghz CPU. It's mainly going to be used for video editing and VOB/DIVX/AVI Conversion. Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts regarding pro's or cons for either cpu.

I do know that the dual core has got great reviews for divx conversion which is pushing me that way.

DannyBZR

BrianGT4 wrote:

I'm in the market for a new pc at the moment and I'm looking at either a Pentium D 930 3.0Ghz DC or a Xeon 3.0Ghz CPU. It's mainly going to be used for video editing and VOB/DIVX/AVI Conversion. Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts regarding pro's or cons for either cpu.

I do know that the dual core has got great reviews for divx conversion which is pushing me that way.

Intel tend to be the matter at video encoding, and editing, but definatly go dual core, better job altogether

astrofool

With the advent of dual core, AMD and Intel are on an even footing with regard encoding.

Of the above two, the pentium would be a far better choice.

ShiverinEskimo

I'm bias towards dual core because I have dual core. I wouldn't trade it for anything. So fast for multitasking its not right.

Thats my 2cents

DemonOfTheFall

The pentium D would annihilate the Xeon.

ShiverinEskimo

And the Athlon X2's annihilate the Pentium D's.

aFlabbyPanda

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

And the Athlon X2's annihilate the Pentium D's.

intel still wins for divx conversion of which I will be doing a lot of, so no interest in AMD I'm afraid.

SouperComputer

Id go with the athlon myself. Of course someone will again mention the fact that encoding is generally better on intel's chips, but not by the same amount as the price difference.

Of course, if you already have a board, then go for intel. Otherwise, grab an athlon, youll get more bang for your buck. Even with video encoding.

DC means that you can:

1) encode a movie on one core, and play a game, rip CD's do "office" work on another.

2) use two instances of a given program to render two streams

3) use sofware that can use both cores to encode a file faster.


If you have a few bob to spend, I know some video editing places have just built or bought 5 or 6 older or used machines (circa 2000-2800Ghz) as an encoding farm, much more horsepower than a dual core CPU for the price. Each has a dedicated RAM bus etc etc, so the performance is excellent. Not sure what software they are running though. Heres one example:

http://www.vidomi.com/

Not sure if it supports divx 6, but if you have a few CPU's and mobos knocking around, you could get some serious encoding horsepower for your money.

Im on a bit of a rant here, anyway ive done some sums:

From komplett:

MSI 945 PLatinum: 161.99
P4 3.4D: 680.00
Cooler: 29.5
1GB RAM corsair value 4200: 112.00

Total: €983.49

Say €1000 incl shipping.


Or.... grab 5 of these:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DELL-GX240-P4-2-0-GHZ-20GB-512MB-CD-ROM-WINDOWS_W0QQitemZ8764346313QQcategoryZ179QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You could probably get them @ 140Gbp each + 80Gbp shipping.

Its a bit more expensive, but you get a total of 10Ghz of processing power, each with 512Mb dedicated RAM sticks, their own dedicated FSB's too.

If you bide your time on the FS board, you could pickup a few fairly powerful machines for your encoding needs for buttons. It means you can roll out your cash gradually too.

As for heat and power consumption, well thats another discussion. You could probably safely turn off the heating in the room!

Im fairly tempted to rig up all the scraps I have here and see how this software performs.


build your own render farm

DemonOfTheFall

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

And the Athlon X2's annihilate the Pentium D's.

Hardly for what the OP wants. A Pentium D 920 with a decent cooler overclocked to 4.5ghz would almost definitely rip the X2s a new in video work.

SouperComputer

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

Hardly for what the OP wants. A Pentium D 920 with a decent cooler overclocked to 4.5ghz would almost definitely rip the X2s a new in video work.

and so the debate begins....................

I still think, euro for euro, the Athlon64 performs better than the P4 even in video encoding. Throw overclocking into the discussion and you open another whole can of worms!

ShiverinEskimo

The X2's overclock too - quite decently too.

I convert avi's to DVD (MPEG2) very often and have two instances of DivxtoDVD running simultaneously endcoding 59fps on average. Thats 118fps on one CPU.

Anyone use this program on an Intel chip? Whats your normal fps?