I have a several years old P4 HT 2.8 GHz Win XP Professional, 1 GB of
RAM system that hosts Vegas 7.0.

Maybe I've just grown accustomed to its pace, but this thing is just
SLOW when it comes to rendering. I am not even doing HD and it is
about 4x real time for 720 x 480 MPEG-1.

Seems like the latest batch of CPUs are all multi core but on the
average the clock speeds are lower?

I haven't found anything that compares e.g. an older P4 HT CPU with
the new breed on something important, say , hmmmmm video rendering in
Vegas?

What platform would one get to maximize performance, and yes the $$$
is also a consideration.

Thanks!

DL

Gary wrote:

Go quad core and you won't regret it :-)
Fortunately the prices have dropped a lot in the past year since I
bought mine.
There are also rumours of another price drop on these chips towards the
end of April so, if you're considering it, check around.

It depends on the complexity of the project but, for a straight DV
render (no or very limited FX), my typical render time is 1/2 the
project length (i.e. 30 min. for a 60 min. video).
Here's another comparison. A 10 min. video I did at work that was VERY
heavy on FX took 3 hr. to render on a P4 3.4 GHz HT.
My quad core did it in 27 min.

For a real-world test comparison, check out the times on the
"NEW Rendertest-HDV.veg" thread on the Sony Vegas forum at
http://tinyurl.com/2ejzhy
I checked and there were a few users there with systems comparable to yours.

Mike

Gary wrote:
The bottom chart, shows some benchmarks. They don't say what version of
Vegas they're using, but whatever it is, it gets a benefit from a quad
core processor.

http://www.hothardware.com/articles/...QX6850/?page=6

The newest processors have more than a 1.5x speedup due to instruction
parallelism. Another term for that is IPC or instructions per cycle. A
2.8Ghz Core2 processor, is equivalent to a 4.2GHz+ P4 processor. So
don't let the clock rate fool you. (If you can find a benchmark which
includes enough generations of processors, it is easier to see that.)

A Q6600 is a quad core, running at 2.4GHz. It would give 2.4/3.0 = 80% of
the QX6850. With a bit of overclocking, to 3GHz, you get the same performance
as the other processor, but for less money. So if you know for sure, that
a program can take advantage of multiple cores, then a Q6600 is the best
compromise solution. While it might be nice to be able to afford a $1060
processor, most people are content to buy something a bit more reasonable.

Core2 Quad 2.4GHz $264.99
http://processorfinder.intel.com/det...px?sSpec=SLACR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115017

Core2 Quad 3.0Ghz $1059.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115034

So even if you choose not to overclock the Q6600, and run it at 2.4GHz,
it is equivalent to a P4 at 3.6GHz or a bit more. And there are four
of them.

To give an example of how the low clock rate doesn't hurt them, try this
benchmark. To give your P4 processor a head start, I selected a Pentium D
processor (dual core) running at 3.6GHz. I selected an E6600 which is a
Core2 dual running at 2.4GHz. The newer 2.4Ghz processor finished in 1:58 or
118 seconds. The 3.6GHz Pentium D finished in 2:36 or 156 seconds. So even
when the Pentium D was 50% faster, it still lost to the newer processor.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_20...77&char t=431

When you select the Q6600, that is a quad core at 2.4GHz. The G0 stepping
has a TDP (thermal design power) of 95W, which could be in the same rough
power dissipation area as an older processor. It still needs a decent
cooler, especially if overclocked.

And you can find a motherboard to run a processor like that, for $67.
Or if you want, pay hundreds for a fancier motherboard (little LCD display,
useless remote control etc).

HTH,
Paul

"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message news:fpv869$fvb$1@aioe.org...

These 2 processors are not even in the same class and it is
misrepresentation of results to place them side by side and compare based on
the clock speed alone.
The 3.0 chip is an extreme 45nm chip. It has a 1333Mhz FSB not a 1066, has
a larger cache, and is a 45nm chip compared to a 65nm.

There is MUCH more to the extra cost than just .6Ghz of speed that can be
made up by overclocking.

Thx for the info and references. I am going to keep mein eye on some
Q6600 based systems.

Does the OS matter? I am on XP Pro currently. I use Vista at work
and well, general impression is that it's slower than XP, big
surprise, but of course that's apples vs. oranges because it's not the
same system.

Thx,

DL

"Gary" wrote in...
I see no significant reason to switch to Vista.
All the differential seems negative to me.
Be sure all your hardware pieces have stable
Vista drivers before considering the switch.

Gary wrote:
I had the option of getting Vista when I bought my new machine last
year. I chose to stick with XP Pro.
Better the devil you do know than the one you don't.
Having said that, I know of several Vegas users running Vista (some of
them the 64-bit version) with no problems.
You pay your money and you take your chances :-)

Mike

Gary wrote:

Forgot to add that Sony does have a Windows Vista Users forum at
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...asp?ForumID=41
If you want to see what any potential problems are with Vegas and this OS.

Mike

Thanks for the info. Now if anyone had said "you won't get the
advantages of the super-pumped program instruction queue normalizer
inverted veeblefetzer acceleration unless you use it with Vista", I
might have been persuaded. I will most likely stick with XP Pro
though I may change my desktop theme, just for a small sense of new-
ness.