Any idea about updating system?
 

Hello
I have a Pentium Duo Core 2.4 and I believe it's one of the reason why I have problem rendering a 75' time line.
I'm thinking about updating my machine, either with a Q 9550 or with an I7 920. Has anybody had any experience with either one? Is is worth the $ 400+ extra to go the I7 road since I need new MB and Ram?
Thanks
Larry

I upgraded from a Q6600 to an i7 920 and it was worth every penny. I haven't heard of anyone being disppointed with it.

From what I have heard, you will love the i7 especially if working on HD. SD renders of 75 minute timelines are supposed to be in the 10-15 minute range. Yeah. That would take me 4-6hours (depending on 2 pass MPEG2 or not).

I went the Q 9550 way
 

I hear what you both said, but right now a 9550 was $ 229 and I just couldn't resist the easiness to just pop up a CPU and put another one there. I'll built a I 7 rig later
Thanks for your input
Larry

Last Fall I built a new rig with the Q9550. Works great for editing/rendering HD, but not as well as the i7920, I'm sure. The price on the Q9550 has dropped significantly, so if you don't want cutting edge components...

Steve

EDIT: just saw your last post while I wrote mine. Good luck!

What is minimum price would would have to pay to build an i7 920 box right now?

For me it was easy,
$ 284 for the I7 920 processor
$ 280 for the motherboard
$ $ 110 for 3x 2 GB of DDR3 RAM

Vs $ 229 ( no tax and free shipping ) for a Q 9550.

I compared the Benchmark between the A9550 and the I7 920 and frankly, not worth it.
Now, if you compare the I7 975 with the Q 9550 then, yes, it's a dramatic improvement. But we're now talking of a price of more than $ 1000 for the I7 975.
Upgrading to I7, YES, but as long as you're talking I7 975. I really don't see the point of going with the I7 920 vs Q 9550. If you're building a new system, sure, but I was not right now and I just can't justify paying 1000 grand for a processor right now
Larry

The i7 920 easily overclocks to 3.8 with stock cooling. Overclocking is the point of the i7 920, not it's base speed. You change five settings on the Asus P6T and you're done.

You're getting basically faster performance than the $1k processor at less than half the price.

I've had 60 minute projects render in 10-11 minutes, and the Q9550 cannot begin to touch that. It has 8 effective cores, the Q9550 has 4.

Wow
 

So basically Intel is selling a processor, the I7 975 at more than $ 1000 knowing that another processor, the 920 that goes for $284 can actually do the same thing? Why?
From what I've read on Anandtech and Tom's Hardware, the benchmark test between the Q9550 and the 920 are not that huge, but you're saying that actually we just need to buy the 920 and make it be a 975 and same 700 bucks? Wow! What's wrong with Intel?

Recently went from a Q9550 Quadcore to a i7 Core 920....
Render times are as follows:

Concert footage filmed with Canon HG10 and HG21 (AVCHD) 1Hr 40 Minutes..(Rendered to Mpeg 2 DVD, as well as Mpeg 2 Blu-ray Disc....

Q9550 2.8Ghz Quadcore, 8Gig DDR2, Vista 64Bit Vegas 8 Pro- Rendered in 2Hrs 15 Minutes

i7Core 920 2.67, 6Gig DDR3, Vista 64Bit, Vegas 8 Pro- Rendered in 1Hr 10 Minutes

Hard to argue with a doubling in render speed. I wonder what the differencial woudl be with my speedy P4 3GHz or my Athlon 64 X2. :-)

Larry, it is no secret as to the overclocking abilities of the 920. Intel knows it, everyone knows it. The boards made for the chips are also designed to take advantage of the OCing ability of the chip.

the 970 does not do the same thing. It overclocks to even higher speeds at lower temps. You cannot OC the 920 beyond 3.8 without stock cooling, the 970 you can easily hit 4.2, nearly impossible for the 920.

As far as benchmarks, you may have missed the video section of the benchmarks. That is where the 920 excels. In other areas it is not that much better.

The faster versions overclock even easier and have unlocked multipliers to allow for fine tuning.

This processor was the subject of a long thread many months ago and every single user that jumped on the 920 was floored by its improved efficiency for video.

Its not neccesary for everyone. I am a professional videographer/editor and I use one PC and only one, so speed is important to me, as I often have many jobs waiting to be edited. If I spot a mistake after rendering, for example, I can re-render in no time, that is where the speed helps.

Actually I've just found those video benchmarks, and yes it might be actually worth to upgrade soon for me. Anyway, I'm in the middle of editing a film, as soon as I'm done with it I'll build a new rig around the I7 processor.

Actually Larry, since you just invested in a new processor, you might consider looking into the next generation of processors, which I believe are coming out this coming winter. They might smoke the i7, as they are a whole new platform.

Something to think about, anyway.

- wow!! -
 

Your Q9550 setup basically the same as my current setup. That is an impressive rendering time. I may upgrade before the end of summer.