Which CPU to Buy?

[lakerace]

FREE' Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500(1.66GHz,2MB L2 Cache,667MHz FS [Included in Price]

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB) [add $200

I'm wondering if I should upgrade to the higher processor or use the $200 and get more ram and or more hard drive or a better video card?

I'm looking at buying a laptop to do some video editing and some gaming.

My main question is when I take my video from my Mini DV camcord about 45 minutes, and compress it to fit on a DVD to play on my stand alone dvd player how much time am I saving myself by getting the faster processor?

If I'm not saving more than 30 minutes I may as well and stick with the slower processor and put the extra money into more ram or a better Video Card.

I've read the charts on tomshardware comparing processors and video cards but I'm having a difficult time figuring my main question out.

 

[yakyb]

your not going to save 30 mins so i wouldnt bother to be honest not for $200 the max you will get would be around 5-10% at that clock speed increase

 

[Santino]

you will not be saving more than 30 mins, im not familar with that software but video compressing video on a core 2 duo dosn't take all that long anyway maybe out 15 mins the most, and if u did get the fast cpu it would only cut down time by only a few mins

 

[lakerace]

I heard the 4mb L2 Cache makes a difference from the 2mb L2 Cache.

How much of a difference?

If I'm compressing 40gigs of video. I think that's accurate 40 gigs from 45 minutes of video off of my Mini DV video camera. Will the higher Cache show a big difference?

 

[yakyb]

how long does this take you to compress at the moment and what is the spec your currently using?

 

[lakerace]

it's been some time since I last did this but I have

AMD Athlon XP 1700
512 Ram
80 gig hd 7200 rpm
NVIDIA Geforce 5500

it took about 4 hours to compress about 40 gigs or 45 minutes of video off of my Mini DV video camera

 

[joefriday]

The most important question is: how long does it take to transfer that 45 minutes of video onto your hard drive? I hope you're not figuring that into your "4 hours to encode" estimate. As long as your current laptop has USB 2.0 or firewire (you fail to mention which conduit you use to transfer this media), you're not going to gain any speed during the transfer with a newer notebook, as the camcorder and the connection between it and the laptop are the primary bottlenecks in transfer speed.

Now, the second most important question is: What software do you use to encode your media to MPEG-2, and is it multhithreaded (can it take advantage of a dual core CPU)? Contrary to popular belief, there are still a handful of quality encoding applications that have yet to become multithreaded (TMPGenc just recently became multithreaded). If you know your software program (especially the version number) is multithreaded, then you'll definitely benefit from a dual core CPU. If you don't know, you'd better check before buying anything. That $200 difference may be needed to buy better software.

 

[lakerace]

I use CyberLink PowerDirector 5

www.cyberlink.com

I bought it in 2005 so I don't think it supports multithreading.

I also use Firewire to transfer the clip from the camecorder to the P.C. That transfers second for second. I didn't add this into the 4 hours.

It takes four hours just to compress the movie then I still have to burn it to DVD.