Duo core vs HT
 

I have an Intel 2.8Ghz HT 512MB DDR400 and bought recently an HP Pavilion 3.4Ghz Intel D processor 2GB DDR2(FSB800 Mhz). Both PCs run on XPSP2pro. When I tested the PC's with the same MPEG2 encoder and a 3 minute DV avi file, I got a result which was just the reverse from what I expected to get: the new 3.4 Ghz PC took 50% MORE time than my old 2.8Ghz to convert the same .avi file! Can somebody help me to explain/solve this problem? The Pavilion has single, but pretty fast 7200rpm 300GB SATA drive (and a removable Personal Media USB2 160GB drive). Programs (encoder), .avi file, and the target MPEG2 folder are all on that single drive. My old PC has 3 physical drives instead, one holding the program, one containing the .avi file, and one for the target folder. Could this single drive situation on my Pavilion cause that problem. Thanks for any advise.

Taking a best guess, (I have a dual xeon Dell and a dual-dual core Opeteron system), but your bandwidth, the Front-side-buss may be of the same design. That is, in the dual xeon I have two chips that must share the same hardware. This system is no faster than a single chip 3GHz. Yet in the opteron, it's a dedicated pipe for each chip. So, I get nearly twice the performance in terms of rendering and compression. So, you may have a bigger, faster car, but it's still stuck in the same city streets with the same speed limits. If you get my drift.

Chipsets are not the sole determining factor in design for a fast PC and video.

MultiThreading important in rendering
 

Most of the more advanced editing and encoding software is designed to use multiple cores and multi threading to assure full CPU utilization. Try repeating the experiment with the TaskManager/Performance panel running. I would guess the better performing HT machine will reach 100% CPU utilization while the other won't. The HT machine having multiple drives helps too - moving my video work off my root 4 disc RAID5 to a 2 disc RAID0 got utilization from 65-70% up to 100% with no other changes.

Is the Pavilion a Duo Core ,or dual core Opteron. My understanding is that that the older "non-Duo Core" dual core Intels actually suffered when it came to video editing. The AMD duals were far superior because of that. I also understand the latest "Duo Core" Intels are outrunning the AMD duals.

Your heading mentions Duo Core, but you're not really clear in the body of your post...

Second, some of the software also takes advantage of video card 3D processors, and memory. Premeire is Pro 2.0, as I understand it, does so extensively. Is it possible that your older system has a better video card.

What program are you using ??

Thanks for the replies. The duo core processor is an Intel Pentium D type 945 and the video card in the duo core PC is the GeForce 7600GS.