hi, i have few upcoming video projects which will need HD editing and stuff. i was thinking of upgrading the processor from my dual core to quad core as i was playing with hd editing in adobe premiere and it was quite slow, so i decided to upgrade my processor which might fasten things up, at least dats wat i think. would my upgrade help me achieve smooth editing and do i also need to upgrade my ram too.

Current Stats:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+
Corsair 4GB XMS2 DDR2 800Mhz
Adobe Premiere CS4, After Effects CS4

Future Stats
AMD Phenom II X4 3.0Ghz

An upgrade to a Phenom might improve video rendering performance, as well as making your NLE feel a bit snappier. But although it is pin-compatible with your existing motherboard (and thus can run with your system's existing DDR2 memory), it needs a Socket AM3 motherboard and DDR3 memory in order to perform at its best. And even with DDR3 memory, a Phenom II upgrade won't perform all that much better than a last-generation Intel Core2 Quad processor on a DDR2 motherboard and DDR2 memory - at least not for the price that you'd be paying for the whole processor/motherboard/memory upgrade.

Thus, if you need a new motherboard and new memory in addition to the Phenom II processor in order to maximize its performance potential, you might as well spend a little more money for an upgrade to an Intel i7 platform. Adding more memory to your existing setup is becoming more and more economically unfeasible because DDR2 memory prices have been increasing substantially over the last two months while DDR3 memory prices have remained relatively flat over the same period.

Bottom line: I would not recommend such a processor upgrade if the rest of the major components in your system (for example, an old or low-end graphics card, an outdated hard drive, slower memory) were going to drag down the performance of that just-upgraded system. The performance improvement would not be worth the price that you paid for that processor upgrade. However, if your system's memory is of good quality and relatively speedy and the rest of your system's major components are up to current performance standards, then a simple Phenom II processor upgrade may be worth it.

I agree completely. The OP should use his current system for other tasks and get a decent i7 system for editing and forget about AMD. AMD is too far behind the capabilities of an i7 to be considered a feasible option.

well right now i just have the money for amd processor upgrade. so i think i should do the processor upgrade now and later on buy an am3 board with ddr3 ram when i get some more money. shifting to intel aint an option now cause that requires lots of money as there is big difference btw intel i7 and amd prices !!

well right now i just have the money for amd processor upgrade. so i think i should do the processor upgrade now and later on buy an am3 board with ddr3 ram when i get some more money. shifting to intel aint an option now cause that requires lots of money as there is big difference btw intel i7 and amd prices !!

If you are in another (or I shall say developing) country, then all bets are off. If the cheapest "recommended" Intel platform costs so much more money than the most expensive AMD upgrade in your country, then I don't know what to say. Even with the processor upgrade, your present system might still not have enough horsepower to do much if any HD editing. In this case, then, if your system's other components are relatively aged, then stick with standard-definition-only editing on that system. Or, if the rest of your system's components are reasonably up to date, then you might be able to get away with editing HDV (or AVCHD that had been transcoded to an intermediate codec such as Cineform).

Only thing I can say: Wasted money to go that AMD route.

The argument is something like: I can't afford a car now, so I will start with the rear tires, and somewhere in the future I will add the front tires.

Good luck with that argument.

Only thing I can say: Wasted money to go that AMD route.

The argument is something like: I can't afford a car now, so I will start with the rear tires, and somewhere in the future I will add the front tires.

Good luck with that argument.

I agree mostly. After all, if a user cannot afford the cheapest recommended Intel platform, and it would take many years or even decades to save up enough money for such a system, then that person might as well give up the ghost and stick to basic computer tasks only (such as Web surfing and word processing). It's simply no use "upgrading" to something which delivers only a minimal performance improvement over his current system. (That's especially true of a person who lives in a country whose currency is nearly worthless compared to the exchange rates of the more developed nations.)

hmmm, the last 2 responses weren't positive at all. anyways i am ordering products from England where the AMD processor is on 130£ while i7 processor starts from 230£ and then a cheap i7 board is around 130£ and put some 120£ for the ddr3, so in total dats a lot of money to just get an i7 platform while amd will provide u the nearest performance to i7 with lot less cheap price. i dont want to argue about AMD vs INTEL but Mr. Harm Millaard seems to be an anti AMD guy !! anyways as by me saying when i get some money later, i didn't meant years, i meant in upcoming 3-4 months as here not every body is super rich or at least here students don't have thousands to spend on tech stuff's if u consider the prices are thrice here then USA. anyways i hope u got my point and i had no intention of disrespecting anyone.

Actually, the fastest AMD processor still performs significantly slower than even the slowest i7 platform for HD video editing and rendering. In fact, it performs no better than a middle-of-the-road Intel Core2 Quad in such a task. And as I mentioned, the Phenom II really needs super-expensive memory just to even perform that well. Otherwise, when handicapped by only DDR2 memory, the Phenom II doesn't really perform all that much better than a lower-end Intel Core2 series processor or the fastest of the previous-generation AMD processors for HD (in fact, the performance improvement would not be worth anywhere near the price that you'd be paying for the processor "upgrade").

As such, with your present motherboard, memory and other components, I would not really recommend this processor "upgrade". In fact, I would not spend even one-third of the £133 price on a processor upgrade for your present system at this time. And even in the UK, prices for computer components are still relatively high. £133 there is the equivalent of nearly $200 USD. (And that £133 price is not even for a top-of-the-line Phenom II - it is for only the 945 with a locked HTT, whereas the highest of the line is the 965 BE with an easily unlockable HTT.) And that's currently a little too high for this processor "upgrade". Similarly, Intel i7 processors also cost significantly more in the UK than they do in the USA (£230 is the equivalent of nearly $350 USD). In other words, the UK prices of computer components average about 20 to 25 percent higher than what those same components sell for here in the USA. (However, the USA electrical system is different from what is used in your country, which is why most US resellers will not ship anything outside of the Continental US.)

In this case, you definitely get what you pay for.

well lets forget wat i can get with i7 processor, wont i get some performance advantage then my current athlon x2 processor on which i cant even preview hd video smoothly in premiere !!

You might get some - but nowhere near as much of an improvement as what you would expect for the price that you'd be paying for this "upgrade". In other words, even that £133 price is way higher than the amount of performance improvement (which IMHO would be worth only about £20 if you're keeping everything else in your present system). And if you can't even preview HD video with your present configuration, the CPU is only half the problem. You might have a seriously outdated or very-low-end graphics card, or you might be relying solely on the motherboard's onboard graphics, as well.

and wat if i buy am3 board and ddr3 after a couple of months? i will buy a new system next year Q1 when i come to US. i just need some smooth editing work right now, doesn't matter if the rendering time isn't improved a lot.

also right now i have a radeon x1950 512mb card which is old stuff now, i can try to buy a Radeon HD5670 with the processor. wat do u think ?

make it HD 5750 !! i hope now i can get a smooth editing experience !!

Currently, system performance is dictated by:

1. CPU
2. Memory
3. Disk setup
4. OS
5. Services and processes
6. ...
7. ...
8. ...
9 Video card

I feel you are making the wrong decisions, led by your available budget.

Upgrading your CPU will probably gain you some performance increase, but it will be marginal and price/performance wise, a lousy investment.

Upgrading your video card will cost you and the performance gain will be negligent.

The fastest AMD systems I have seen are still around three times slower than a properly configured i7.

If you want to make any investments, do so in your disk setup. That will carry over to your next system, whether that is AMD or Intel. You can always use the storage capacity and the disk speed. For the rest start saving for a new system.

Thanks for that list, Harm. If upgrading that CPU to even the fastest Intel i7 still results in a failure to even preview HD videos, then something else is wrong with that user's system.

And to the OP:

If you upgrade your CPU now to that Phenom II x4 945 and you still cannot even preview HD videos in CS4, then don't place the blame on us. We're only trying to prevent you from making a costly ($200) mistake which might end up leaving you being unable to make any upgrading at all whatsoever for years (given the average income in your country).

Also, there is a possibility that buggy drivers and excessive background services might be the cause of you being unable to even preview HD content. Or, you might have an old or improperly configured hard drive in your system. (For example, an improperly configured hard drive in a modern system relies solely on the default generic Microsoft IDE driver, which cripples the maximum throughput of the drive's interface, especially in writes. I learned that through my experiments with my system's eSATA ports and an external eSATA hard drive.)

I've just double-checked a huge processor roundup of tests with various different processors in After Effects CS4, and in that test the Phenom II x4 945, even on an AM3 motherboard with DDR3 memory, still fell behind the slowest of the Intel Core 2 Quad processors, the Q6600. As for your current processor, it is slower in that test than the earliest of the Core 2 Duo processors.

And if the x4 945 you're considering cannot beat the lowly Q6600 in Premiere CS4 even if the 945 is on an AM3 motherboard with DDR3 memory, then it would have been even more crippled on an AM2(+) motherboard like yours. In fact, to this day not all AM2 or AM2+ motherboards have updated BIOSes which add support of the processor that you're considering. Furthermore, if you are unlucky enough to have such a motherboard whose most recent BIOS version still doesn't support the Phenom II processors, you're out of luck. (On such an unsupported motherboard, the Phenom II will run at a molasses-slow default speed of 800MHz.)

This is exactly why I agree with Harm Millaard when it comes to upgrading your CPU. Why settle for a given maximum level of performance when just a few dollars more buys you so much more performance? (This is especially true in countries where prices on computer components are relatively low, such as here in the US.) Or, put it this way, I'd pick a lower-end i7 over a high-end Phenom II if a motherboard and memory upgrade is required in addition to the processor.

Under these circumstances the only feasible upgrade for you, given your relatively meager budget, is to expand the total memory amount from 4GB to 8GB to compensate for you having only a dual-core system (for video editing purposes, a given dual-core processor with 8GB of memory roughly equals a quad-core processor of the same technology and clock speed with only 4GB of memory). Unfortunately, you might have to lower the memory speed from 800 to 667 when running all four modules together on an AMD platform such as yours. And prices for DDR2 memory have risen to the point where it is now as expensive as or more so than an equal amount of DDR3 memory. Plus, you will need to run a 64-bit operating system in order to use more than 3GB.

ok i have decided to save some money for couple of months and then order i7 processor and its board and ram etc from USA !!

Thanx to both u !! i really appreciate ur help !!

have you tried converting your HD to an intermediate format, before editing

I edit most of my HD (HD FX1E) video on my acer 8920 laptop (because i'm on the go),
i just added an extra drive to prevent drive head contention slowness.

editing with cineform is quite good performance ....

they offer a free trial and their NEO product is entry level for cost ... might be an option for you on your current spec ....

regards

Justin.

well i have sony sr11 which have avchd which works better in sony vegas then adobe premiere and can u plz elaborate on converting HD to an intermediate format !!

http://www.cineform.com/

NeoScene would be the product for you to evaluate ... $129.00

The skinny version is that Cineform converts your highly compressed Mpeg2 or Avchd native format into a larger but less compressed format, easier for the processor to deal with ... Hence, editing and render is faster, but its a two step process.

Still need an i7 with Neoscene if you want to use Premiere CS4 and not want to pull your hair out. I learned that the hard way. I figured I'd be able to edit on a Core2 Quad, but it was way too slow. Thanks to Harm I got up and running with an OC'd i7 that is blazing fast, though CS4 still kind of sucks. Can't wait for CS5.

Oh, and Neoscene can be found from numerous retailers for $99. Just search around.

Shahzad, waiting to build i7 is the ONLY way to go here. Trust Harm's opinion on this one. These guys aren't trying to bash AMD because they are Intel fanboys, they are trying to let you know what is true in the current realm of processors. AMD's glory days were years ago, and Intel has been WAY ahead of them since the Core2 launched. i7 is absolutely amazing.

Still need an i7 with Neoscene if you want to use Premiere CS4 and not want to pull your hair out. I learned that the hard way. I figured I'd be able to edit on a Core2 Quad, but it was way too slow. Thanks to Harm I got up and running with an OC'd i7 that is blazing fast, though CS4 still kind of sucks. Can't wait for CS5.

Oh, and Neoscene can be found from numerous retailers for $99. Just search around.

Shahzad, waiting to build i7 is the ONLY way to go here. Trust Harm's opinion on this one. These guys aren't trying to bash AMD because they are Intel fanboys, they are trying to let you know what is true in the current realm of processors. AMD's glory days were years ago, and Intel has been WAY ahead of them since the Core2 launched. i7 is absolutely amazing.

I have disagreed with you many times in the recent past (and even provided some misleading info, much of which I later corrected after reading further). But in this case, your findings fall exactly in line with mine. $200 (for the processor alone) is way too much money for the OP to spend for only a modest increase in performance from his current system, IMHO (especially if he is still going to be saddled with memory that is slow by current standards).

Now granted, I would have gone the AMD route if I didn't want to spend more than $300 total for the complete motherboard, processor and memory upgrade. (This is because Intel does not currently have a platform offering that's competitive in performance at such a low price point; in fact, most of what's currently offered by Intel at this price point are either fully-integrated, ultra-low-performance, non-upgradeable platforms or older platforms that are on the way out, and the least expensive Intel platform offering that delivers performance that's worth the upgrade is priced at least $100 more than the $300 AMD setup.) But why stop there when an extra $200 to $300 buys you so much more?

Try Neoscene first. It will greatly speed up your editing, but not your rendering. If this isn't enough, consider trying an Intel 40GB SSD for around $129 to put your operating and editing programs. Make sure you have a separate drive for media.

SSD's are still way too expensive and do not offer any advantage for editing. Especially when on a budget, don't waste your money on SSD's, because only the loading of a program is (somewhat) faster, not the editing itself. Personally, I prefer 2 1TB disks for around the same amount as a 40 GB SSD.

SSD's are still way too expensive and do not offer any advantage for editing. Especially when on a budget, don't waste your money on SSD's, because only the loading of a program is (somewhat) faster, not the editing itself. Personally, I prefer 2 1TB disks for around the same amount as a 40 GB SSD.

True today - if only because current SSDs are slower in average write transfer-rate performance than the fastest of the current consumer SATA hard drives.

What do you guys think about this mobile monster?
Qosmio X505-Q880 Laptops PQX33U-01J00H | Toshiba (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=460942)

It is a Toshiba, so I agree it is a monster.

Hi Harm,

Do you think it's worth $1900 for what it offers?

Thanks

The features it offers seem decent, but also have a look at Asus and Sager.

The reason is that here Toshiba has a pretty lousy reputation in terms of reliability.
Personally I would rather spend that amount on a workstation that offers at least triple the speed and performance and lose the luggability, before I ruin my back.

An alternative is this Sager, http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=258533&action=customize, but remember, you get what you pay for: