Does Premiere CS5 Support 8 Cores?

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

To begin, all of the current Nehalem & Westmere based 4 & 6 core Intel CPUs are Triple Channel. Furthermore, almost all PC based motherboards, both single & dual socket, have ram slots in multiples of 3. My HP Z800 has a total of 12 ram slots, 6 for each CPU.

Actually, make that all of the current Nehalem- and Westmere-based 4- and 6-core Intel CPUs for Socket LGA1366 have triple-channel memory controllers. There are a few Nehalem-based 4-core Intel CPUs that have only dual-channel memory controllers (those are the Socket LGA1156 Lynnfield i5-750 and i7-8xx series CPUs plus the related Xeon 3400-series CPUs).

[Craig Coston]

Randall,

I'm pretty sure Steve ruled out the 1156 platform because video editors quite frankly don't use them because you can get more RAM on the 1366 AND have the option of dropping in a 6 core. Arguing semantics of technologies we shy away from takes away from the direction we try to go with conversations, and that is real world performance for video editors.

As far as Harm's first statement that you quoted, I'm on the same page as him. If you can take a RAM-bottlenecked system though and outperform his machine in PPBM I'll maybe start thinking otherwise.

[Steve Kalle]

Actually, Randall called the LGA-1156 'Lynnfield', which is correct; therefore it is not Nehalem.

Craig & Harm, I completely disagree that 8GB seriously chokes a dual-quad PC. I have a dual-6 core HP Z800, and I initially installed only 8GB while waiting for 24GB to be delivered. I don't know how reliable the PPBM5 was a few weeks ago when I had 8GB installed but in some tests, I easily beat Harm's numbers.

Crap, that reminds me, I meant to run the new PPBM5 but the power was out for the last few hours and finally came back on 20 mins ago. If anyone is very interested, I can test my pc with 8GB and 24GB to see if there is a difference.

However, in no way am I suggesting to use only 8GB of ram with a dual-quad or dual-hexacore PC. With 24GB of ram, Premiere CS5 has used 16GB so it certainly benefits from having more.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

Actually, Randall is both correct and incorrect. He called the LGA-1156 'Lynnfield', which is correct; therefore it is not Nehalem.

Lynnfield may have a Nehalem architecture, but it's not a full Nehalem chip like the Bloomfield/Gainestown/Gulftown chips. Therefore, I should have clarified my previous post: All of the full Nehalem chips have triple-channel memory controllers. In addition, there has never been a true Nehalem CPU with fewer than four cores.

[Craig Coston]

Originally Posted by Steve Kalle

I have a dual-6 core HP Z800.

Oh... well then! I was talking about us mere mortals that don't have access to such extravagant technology =p That's like whipping out the bazooka in a friendly target practice contest. Can't wait to see the PPBM5 benchmarks on that. I'm actually curious to see how my system came in compared to others.

[Steve Kalle]

Craig,

Unfortunately, someone else has a similar HP with faster Xeons who ran the new PPBM CS5. I have dual X5660 @2.66GHz and his are X5670 @2.93GHz, and he has a FX4800 and I have a FX3800.

From the PPBM5 numbers, it appears that Premiere benefits more from CPU speed than # of cores. I think the main reason for this is that neither the H264 nor the MPEG2 tests come anywhere close to utilizing 100% of my 24 'cores'.

If the dual Xeon EVGA motherboard was available 2 months ago, I probably would have gone that route because it allows overclocking of the Xeon CPUs. Thus, I could take the X5660 hexacore CPUs and easily push them to 3.6GHz and possibly up to 4.0GHz.

Btw, my dual-6 core HP Z800 was slightly more than the base dual-quad Mac Pro. Z800=$3600 + $800 (FX3800) + $1100 (24GB ECC Registered Ram).

[Andrew Clark]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

...So in other words, running 8GB or 16GB of RAM in a system that expects 6GB, 12GB or 24GB would actually result in degraded overall system performance. And in the case of running CS5 on a system with a Bloomfield, Gainestown or Gulftown CPU, 6GB per socket is okay but 12GB or more per socket is better.

Ok, so having a 2009 MacPro w/dual 2.26 CPU's (with 4 RAM slots per CPU) would perform *optimally* better with 12gb or 24gb rather than 8gb or 16gb?

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Andrew Clark

Ok, so having a 2009 MacPro w/dual 2.26 CPU's (with 4 RAM slots per CPU) would perform *optimally* better with 12gb or 24gb rather than 8gb or 16gb?

Yes. Since these are triple-channel Gainestown CPUs, only three of the four RAM slots should be filled for optimal performance. The inclusion of only four RAM slots per CPU is a sign of cost-cutting in these nominally triple-channel platforms. If you fill up all four RAM slots per CPU, the performance might plummet to below that of an older Core 2 Quad.

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Randall Leong

If you fill up all four RAM slots per CPU, the performance might plummet to below that of an older Core 2 Quad.

I wouldn't go anywhere near that far. However, if you are referring to just memory performance, then I do agree, but just not with CPU performance. Tomshardware.com tested various ram setups, and there wasn't much of a performance hit, maybe 2-5% slower. Intel finally moved the Memory Controller to the cpu, which greatly helps all ram setups from single to triple channel.

Randall, I should apologize for getting too picky about semantics and Nehalem/Lynnfield, and because I was partly wrong. Nehalem is actually a 'Microarchitecture', not a code-name for a series of CPUs, which Lynnfield is.

[Natan Pakman]

I'm planning a new computer to work with Premiere, and have a situation to consult about.

One option is to buy an Intel i7 930, and get an associated motherboard, although every one I find on newegg that supports this processor only supports 2 6.0gb/sec sata drives.

The other option is to get an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T or the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, whose motherboards in a similar price range support 5 6.0gb/sec sata drives.

1. What is the deal with these Intel-supporting motherboards only having ports to 2 6.0/gb/sec sata drives? Have people come across this problem?

2. Is 16 Gigs of Ram enough to run either of the two above-mentioned AMD processors? All but one AMD motherboard support a max of 16 gigs of ram.

3. How much ram adequately supports the Intel i7 930?

[Steve Kalle]

Natan,

1) Unless you plan on using $500-1000 Solid State Drives (SSD), then there is no need for 6Gb Sata because only a few very expensive SSDs can actually read or write faster than Sata 3Gb. Not even the fastest 15,000 rpm drives can come close to Sata 3Gb. In terms of onboard Sata & Raid, Intel is still the best.

2) I highly recommend Intel so no comment.

3) 12GB of 1333MHz or 1600MHz at a minimum. Preferably, you want 1600MHz so you have plenty of room to overclock the i7 CPU, whether it be the i7 930 now or hexacore i7 later on (i7 970 hexacore is being released within the next few weeks for $800ish). For ram, I prefer Corsair and G.Skill. I do NOT like OCZ as they tend to have more problems which sorta relates to why they tend to be cheaper. Let me tell you that a single stick of bad ram can appear as a small problem at first and then lead to major problems including file corruption. I know as this happened to me last year with OCZ ram in my custom i7 PC.

Another consideration is whether you use After Effects, Encore and/or Dynamic Link a lot because they will gladly eat your ram up. If you do, look into getting 24GB of ram. Or you can get 12GB by using 3x4GB sticks now so you can add more ram later.

When you get your PC up and running, the first thing you need to do is run MemTest86+ - download here: Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool and run this test overnight.

FYI, there is another memtest site that should be avoided because the owner rips people off by SELLING a FREE program.

[Harm Millaard]

Originally Posted by Natan Pakman

The other option is to get an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T or the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, whose motherboards in a similar price range support 5 6.0gb/sec sata drives.

That is not an option, unless you are willingly looking at a system about 2 or 3 times slower than an Intel system.

[Steve Kalle]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

That is not an option, unless you are willingly looking at a system about 2 or 3 times slower than an Intel system.

Harm, c'mon. The 6 core AMD is not 2 times slower than the i7 930. With both at stock speed, the AMD is finally able to keep up and actually overtake the 930 in some tests. However, the i7 has more headroom for overclocking; thus, it will be faster. Below is a test from tomshardware.com using the Mainconcept H264 encoder (I can't recall if they use Premiere Pro or the actual Mainconcept program for this test).

Many people here respect you (including me) and come to you for advice. This sounds like a 'fanboy' comment, and it does not help anyone.

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Harm Millaard

That is not an option, unless you are willingly looking at a system about 2 or 3 times slower than an Intel system.

If you are comparing the two CPUs with an equal number of cores, then yes, some tasks will take nearly 2 times slower on an AMD Phenom II processor than on an Intel i7 processor. And if a Phenom II x4 965 is about as fast as an average Intel Core 2 Quad in CS5, then don't expect the x6 1090T BE to be any faster than a stock-speed i7-930 in CS5.

And yes, the H.264 encoding tests use the actual MainConcept Reference AVC encoder. The Adobe front end favors Intel CPUs over AMD CPUs, however.

[Natan Pakman]

Steve, I don't understand your comment about 6Gb Sata drives. Are 6Gb Sata drives not faster than 3Gb ones? And why?