Dual PIII or AMD 1.4 or P4 1.7

Guest · Oct 1, 2001

I am thinking about upgrading my system. Currently I am running a PIII 1.0Ghz single chip on an ECS D6VAA motherboard. I have 768 Megs SDRAM, two 40Gig ATA Maxtor drives. I am using a Matrox G400 Video card. I want to do a lot of Video recording and conversion.

I do not know which way I want to go. I can add a 2nd CPU to my current board or go with a P4 1.7 GHz or an AMD 1.4 GHz.

What would you all recommend. I want the fastest system possible for video conversion. Please let me know what you all think.

JJDUEN

Matisaro · Oct 1, 2001

Dual athlon's would be your best bet. If not a single 1.4 is great as well. If you have to get a new mobo anyways might as well get a dualy athlon mobo.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

AmdMELTDOWN · Oct 1, 2001

a P4 1.7(socket478 type) is clearly the best bet for video, and you have an upgrade future if you want.

as for the dual p3 that's not a bad idea either.

"AMD/VIA!...you are still the weakest link, good bye!"

8procstooslow · Oct 1, 2001

Is your OS and your video editing software multi CPU capable? If yes get another PIII. With the money you save you could get a Raid controller and some more disks which would give you much better performance for the work you are doing.
To go the P4 route you will have to replace the motherboard, the ram unless you go down the i845 (yuk) route and of course the CPU. Big bucks.
If the software ain't dual capable, then check to see if it has SSE2 optimization, if so go the P4 route (but higher clockrate), but wait till Northwood. Otherwise AMD is the way to go, cheaper CPU, Cheaper memory

Kelledin · Oct 1, 2001

Hmmm...what apps do you plan to use? Do you plan to keep your existing RAM?

I'm not able to find the D6VAA on ECS's web site...but I gather from PriceWatch listings that it's a dual Socket370 VIA Apollo Pro board with PC133 support and optional HighPoint IDE RAID.

If you plan to keep using the 768MB you've got, that leaves out dual AthlonMPs and makes the P4 a very bad choice. It leaves a single Athlon or dual P3's open, and I'd probably consider those options to be neck and neck generally.

If you plan on getting new memory anyways, that opens up your options. Dual AthlonMP's would probably crush anything else except dual P4 2GHz Xeons--and the dual P4 2GHz lead will probably only last for another week anyways (until the Palomino release). A second PIII is not a good choice unless you're keeping your existing RAM.

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."

FatBurger · Oct 1, 2001

To go the P4 route you will have to replace the motherboard, the ram unless you go down the i845 (yuk) route and of course the CPU.

Or if you go with a P4X266 board, which isn't a bad option either. In fact, it might become a collector's piece, if Intel ends up winning their side of the lawsuits.

I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP

Oni · Oct 2, 2001

As much as I don't like to admit it pentium 4 is the best choice for video editing and and video format conversion. If you use Adobe Premiere 6.0 You'll get Dual processor support, but besides that I don't know what other affordable editing programs are MP capable. dual 1.2 GHz Athlon MP chips are pretty nice too, you'll save a TON of money going the Athlon route for a video system. I'd say go the AMD route and buy some more hard drive and a RAID controller. You'll need some fast drives to capture your video, and LOTS of space to store them. Consider spending the extra money on a nicer video capture solution as well.

If you want to be set really fast, just buy another 1 GHz P3, RAID controller and some more hard drives.
By the way what video capturing solution, and editing program to you plan to use?
I personally have a 1.4 GHz Tbird overclocked to 1575 MHz and 2 40 gig hard drives in RAID-0 for my video editing computer. It works great with Premiere 6.0, I helped create my senior video last year with a similar setup and everyone was dazzled with what I could do. I simply had a firewire card and firewire capable video camera, nothing to special.

Atolsammeek · Oct 2, 2001

dont forget you have to buy a mother board when you upgrade

AmdMELTDOWN · Oct 2, 2001

>dont forget you have to buy a mother board when you upgrade

no sh!t sherlock! given that, not a bad deal considering most AMD users have gone through 2 or more mobos and are waiting for the next best thing.(A7v --> A7v133 --> A7v266 --> kt266 --> kt266a) do you ppl notice how stupid you are?

"AMD/VIA!...you are still the weakest link, good bye!"

Yahiko81 · Oct 2, 2001

I say if it's not done for professional editing then just stick in another pIII. It's a quick and effective upgrade. If you want to go for a new system please tell us how much you want to spend. If you got about 2k then I would recommend a dual AMD setup.

Nice Lizards crunch Trolls cookies.......

Yummy!!

FatBurger · Oct 2, 2001

As much as I don't like to admit it

*sigh*
That's the problem around here. Too many people blantantly biased, and hardly wanting to give up any ground.

Hey Meltdown, how many people do you personally know that have bought 5 boards for their Athlon?
Out of me and about 6 friends, we've had a total of 7 Athlon boards. Hmm...
Besides, we're talking about REQUIRED upgrades for Intel procs. Understand the difference? Let's hope.

I post so you don't have to!
9/11 - RIP

Guest · Oct 10, 2001

Thanks guys for your replies.

The D6VAA board is a Dual PIII board with a 133FSB. It has a RAID controller. I am running 2 - 40 gig ATA100 HD, 12X CDR and a 16X DVD.

I am using the Matrox G400 TV card, which is rated as one of the best capture cards under $600. The Matrox uses hardware compression during recording. The system I am running can sustain a capture rate of 20Megs/sec. This is not where the slow part is.

The converting program I use is TMPGENc, Ligos, Cinipak, and Adobe Premire 6.0. I like the TMPGENc the best because it gives more control over the processing qualities. All these programs do have multi-cpu capability.

Currently, it takes ~ 15 hours to compile one 90 minute movie. I want to speed that up considerable.

I have looked at the Dual AMD but currently, the MP cpus are only at 1.2 gig. I do not know if the "XP" chips are also duel capable or not.

I ordered a AZZA P4X2 Motherboard and P4 1.7 CPU and 512Meg DDR memory but cancelled the order because I am just not sure what to get.

The main thing is 'I WANT SPEED'

Any replies would be welcomed.

Matisaro · Oct 10, 2001

In most benchmarks those 2 cpus which "only" run at 1.2ghz will wipe the floor with the dual p4's@1.7.

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

Raystonn · Oct 10, 2001

I do not think I have seen a benchmark indicating two 1.2GHz T-Birds can beat two 1.7GHz Pentium 4s. I do not think I have seen a benchmark indicating one 1.2GHz T-Bird can beat one 1.7GHz Pentium 4 either.

Two 1.2GHz T-Birds will likely [hypothesis] outperform a single 1.7GHz Pentium 4 in SMP-enabled application. However, the same dual 1.2GHz T-Birds will likely [hypothesis] be outperformed by a single 1.7GHz Pentium 4 in non-SMP applications. This includes most games and applications.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

AMD_Man · Oct 10, 2001

I believe he's talking about the Athlon MPs.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the ULTIMATE PC processor

Matisaro · Oct 10, 2001

Yes I was, dual athlon MP's 1.2ghz beat dual 1.7p4's in most benchmarks.(I do not recall which hardware site did the review however sorry it was several months ago). And I would imagine a single athlon mp would roughly equal a p41.7 in most apps.(the palomino core advantage).

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

Kelledin · Oct 10, 2001

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1483" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1483</A>
<A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?article_id=45000199" target="_new">http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/read.php?article_id=45000199</A>

It's worth noting that 1.4GHz AthlonMPs seem to be out on PriceWatch.

It's also worth noting <A HREF="http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/list_news.php?category=CPU" target="_new">here</A> (scroll all the way to the bottom) that dual AthlonMP 1.2's apparently perform on par with dual P4 Xeon 1.7's, even in SSE2-optimized software. Surprise, surprise...

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."

kusek · Oct 10, 2001

Those Sysmark scores for the MP are probably wrong too just like on the XP.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1543&p=5" target="_new">anandtech XP review</A>

Dual PIII or AMD 1.4 or P4 1.7

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