Best CPU for video editing? AMD or Intel?

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I have a budget of $300 including the motherboard.
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Did you save some of that budget for ram, or have a seperate budget for ram? You'd want a gig or 2, and you may not be able to squeeze that in with a 300 dollar total budget. You probably need to go with a lower end AMD x2 and mobo to squeeze at least a gig of ram into that.
edit, oops. just noticed the original post date 😳 that'll teach me to not post while still sleepy :lol:
 
The price drops I was refering to are happening on the 22nd of this month and also the 6420 should be releasing from what I here. I would get that, the E6420 with 4mb of cache and OC to 3.2ghz! it will be around $185 most likely.

Best,

3Ball
 
The price drops I was refering to are happening on the 22nd of this month and also the 6420 should be releasing from what I here. I would get that, the E6420 with 4mb of cache and OC to 3.2ghz! it will be around $185 most likely.

Best,

3Ball
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The 6420 is out some people already have it their dirty* little hands!

* I have no evidence that their hands are dirty
 
Hey guys. I need some help. I have been searching around Google for some advice on which CPU is best for video editing, but every forum link it directed me to was out of date. I figured I need some updated advice.

I use Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition. It is only used for video editing nothing else. I had a dual P3 1.8 ghz total system but my motherboard died and couldn't find one( actually i found the STL2 but I couldnt find the correct power supply) So I decided to upgrade.

I am between the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ or the Intel Core 2 Duo E6300? I have a budget of $300 including the motherboard. Any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
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Don't forget that you are going to have to buy new ram, PSU and if you want to use a video card you will need to buy one of those as well. The only thing that you could reuse from you old system is disk drives (hard, floppy, CD/DVD), case, and whatever PCI cards you may have.

I think you need to raise your budget somehow.

One more thing; your old system is a dual 900mhz P3 and you can't look at it in the respect of being 1.8ghz. It just does not work that way. If I was to have 2 cars that top out at 150mph, that does not make a 300mph race team.
 
dwarshow, depends on the programs you will be using but if you are going to be doing serious video editing, go with the work station. A gaming comp will also work, but the w-s will be much better in the long run. Not sure what work station you are looking at, but something with a quad core, 4 gigs of memory, and a lot of storage are best. My working system has two RAID 0's, 600 gig each and 1 500 SATAII. System and program files are on one RAID. Working files are on the other, and the single is my scratch disk. I do nightly backups to an external 500 gig RAID 1.
Don't know what programs you will be using, but I would not concern your self with Windoze 64 bit.
As to the video card, a decent gaming card will do o.k., but certain programs will utilize the pro cards, like the Matrox and Nvidia pro cards.
 
if you haven't thought of this already.... the video card in your old P3 system won't work in the new mobo's if it's an AGP card. You would need to get one of the ASROCK mobo's if you don't have budget to get a PCIE vid card.
 
Hey guys. I need some help. I have been searching around Google for some advice on which CPU is best for video editing, but every forum link it directed me to was out of date. I figured I need some updated advice.

I use Adobe Premiere, After Effects, and Audition. It is only used for video editing nothing else. I had a dual P3 1.8 ghz total system but my motherboard died and couldn't find one( actually i found the STL2 but I couldnt find the correct power supply) So I decided to upgrade.

I am between the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ or the Intel Core 2 Duo E6300? I have a budget of $300 including the motherboard. Any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
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What matter more in editing is RAM and HDD speed. The CPU will play as fast as data is streamed from HDD to RAM then to HDD.. Because file are usually bigger that the whole memory of the system

So, I would have a look at the Asus M2A-VM HDMI. it is 89$ US, . Then, get at least 2 gigs of RAM, and I've seen 2 gigs for about 110$. And then, the best X2 CPU you can afford for this board. If you feel to spend more, here is some suggestion. Get 2 SATA HDD and RAID0 them. I've seen 160 GB drive for 50$. RAID0 will make going thru big video file abit faster. Add a nice 500w PSU. .

This board has integrated video that is the best out there. And HDMI support will be nice if you get a higher end display panel with HDCP.. And integrated sound and LAN will make you very happy. Even if it is AMD, it will serve you very well. Because you may not be able to reuse the video card from your old computer.. 2 gigs RAM will make the editing smoother, because some memory will be used by integrated video. don't reall need more than 64 megs for editing thou.. An you won't be able to reuse your RAM too, so you have to get new one..

You'll probably need a PSU too. your old one won't have the necessary wire to connect to the newer motherboard.

You should not care about "future upgradability" as some other stated. When this computer will be obsolete, then every that exist NOW that could be put on any motherboard will be obsolete too, so a complete rebuild will be necessary anyway. Just get nice component now, for now. Later, is later and no one know about whet will be available or not.
 
With all honesty Pat thanks a bunch. You totally put things into perspective. Now i have a $400 budget. Any suggestions?
 
What matters most for video editing is ram and cpu speed. For video editing, HD speed has very little if anything to do with the project. As long as the HD can feed or capture data at the needed rate, and just about every HD today can do easily, there is no problem.
The need for ram is obvious, video work eats up ram. The need for CPU speed is just as necessary. 15 to 20% increase in CPU speed may not seem like a lot, but when you are rendering a 20 minute video with titles, AE's etc., you can quickly end up with a door stop for a computer for well over an hour while it renders.
 
With all honesty Pat thanks a bunch. You totally put things into perspective. Now i have a $400 budget. Any suggestions?
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x2 3600+ would be a great chip for you. RAID0 some HDDs if possible. Either 1 or 2gb of RAM (i've seen in some US vendors that you can get 2gb as cheap as $110!). A cheap motherboard will do you fine as you're not overclocking.

x2 3600+ $80.
2 x 160GB HDDs $110
2gb RAM $120
Motherboard with intergrated graphics ~$80?

That is slightly over budget BUT you will have a very capable video editing machine. You can just reuse your old Case/PSU and CD drive. If you have to get a new Case and PSU you can get a really cheap one such as this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811234002

Which is $40 for the case and a PSU.

Don't listen to the preachers on here saying "You need to spend $70 on your PSU or your computer will dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee", it's just a load of bullcrap. For the power requirements of your system a cheapo 400W PSU that came with the case is more than sufficient.
 
Don't listen to the preachers on here saying "You need to spend $70 on your PSU or your computer will dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee", it's just a load of bullcrap. For the power requirements of your system a cheapo 400W PSU that came with the case is more than sufficient.
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No, not a cheapo 400w. I've seen so many cheapo PSU coming with a case to fail or cause instability. I've seen cheap PSU killing HDD. He should get a seasonic, enermax, fortron or silverstone. While 400w will be enough for basic system, it will limit a bit the possibility to upgrade the video card if he ever need.
 
dwarshow, depends on the programs you will be using but if you are going to be doing serious video editing, go with the work station. A gaming comp will also work, but the w-s will be much better in the long run. Not sure what work station you are looking at, but something with a quad core, 4 gigs of memory, and a lot of storage are best. My working system has two RAID 0's, 600 gig each and 1 500 SATAII. System and program files are on one RAID. Working files are on the other, and the single is my scratch disk. I do nightly backups to an external 500 gig RAID 1.
Don't know what programs you will be using, but I would not concern your self with Windoze 64 bit.
As to the video card, a decent gaming card will do o.k., but certain programs will utilize the pro cards, like the Matrox and Nvidia pro cards.
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Thanks Mobo57. This is very helpful. I'm leaning toward the workstation with Xeon 5140. THere's the option for 18GB RAM, dual CPU, SAS HD, etc. I think in order to use more than 4GB RAM, you need 64bit OS, and I have no ideal about backward compatibility of apps.
 
What editing programs are you going to be using? There is only a few that have 64 bit versions, 3ds Max etc. I have both 32 and 64 on my system. the 32 bit side is faster. Adobe does not support running it's vid products on 64X. I tried, missed up my burner drivers, could not use them in 64.
With 4 gigs of memory, the only time I ever max the physical memory is when I create a complicated scene with a large layer with frame specific effects. Then it's not uncommon to see task manager showing a meg or two of physical memory available and page file at 7 or 8 gigs. Had one 30 second shot that took almost an 90 minutes to render, even with my 6600 running at 3.4 g. I also think that the Adobe products are memory hogs.
 
Don't listen to the preachers on here saying "You need to spend $70 on your PSU or your computer will dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee", it's just a load of bullcrap. For the power requirements of your system a cheapo 400W PSU that came with the case is more than sufficient.
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No, not a cheapo 400w. I've seen so many cheapo PSU coming with a case to fail or cause instability. I've seen cheap PSU killing HDD. He should get a seasonic, enermax, fortron or silverstone. While 400w will be enough for basic system, it will limit a bit the possibility to upgrade the video card if he ever need.

We obviously have conflicting experiences here. Every case and PSU combo i have used has always worked fine! The PSU has never died/caused instability and i've made around 30 PCs using Case + PSU combos.
 
For replying to the OP for the best CPU would be a Quad Core if you have tons of money otherwise i would go with a e4300 with a gigabyte P965 board DS3 and with a good cpu fans for overclocking it to 2.5-3ghz range. If you wait a bit you can get the e6300 or e4300 with 4mb cache for about the same price. If i was you i would wait for the 4Mb cpu because you are doing Video Editing.
 
Im sticking with the core 2 duo. Now i need to know the best motherboard. It's going to be either the E6300 or E6400. I don't know the best brand of ram out there but right now i have 2 667mhz 512 mb of crucial in mind. Also i have no idea what kind of power supply to buy, especially for the ds3 motherboard everybody seems to love.
 
Honestly it depend, if you going to have a DS3 board then dont go with a e6300 and forget the e6400. If you plan to overclocking with those processor there is like 2% risk go with the e4300 because its been made for overclocker and you can Oc it to 3ghz and more with the DS3 Board and it outperform a Quad Core Prossesor ( really good for video encoding ) If you dont going for overclocking then take the cheapest motherboard for 775 it will do the job fine. For the ram get a 677 for non-overclocking and 800 for overclocking, there is a lots of brand but corsair is pretty good for the price, the corsair 1gb at 59$ CAD beat my OCZ Platinum Series in the benchmark and there is like 40-60$ price range, so i suggest you go check the benchmark over the net before choosing a brand of price, doesn't mean the price is high mean its the best.
 
What about the e6420 chip? I like the sound of 4 mb cache.
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In gaming (which (i believe) is what most people looking into this kind of thing do) you will not notice any performance difference between the two. However if you buy an E4400 and put the FSB up to the same as the E6420 you would effectivly have an E6700 with 2MB cache for less than half the price.
 
Pat,
I read your post and wonder if you can help suggest a good motherboard for a AMD Quad core processor that I want to use for video editing work.
Thank you
Winston
my email is: replyme@comcast.net


 
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