Just a post to tell everyone how impressed I'm at on my buddies new PC. He just up-graded to a ASUS (should have remembered the model number) 64 bit MB with the new Pentium 3.2 64 bit CPU. He has the newer 16 MB cache SATA ll (?) hard drive, and 2 (although going to 4) gig's of DDR2 RAM.

In short, my "top of the line" Pentium 4, 3.4 with 2 gig RAM and Seagate SATA hard Drives (1.2 terabites) takes just over 1 hour to render a 1.2 hour MPEG-2 movie to AVI (full frame) - his will do it in 28 minutes!!! (Although I swear it was faster as we ate a doughnut and downed a coffee and it was completed!) Boy, I was impressed! Anyone know when Adobe will come out with a 64 bit program???

Probably after there's a 64bit OS out that doesn't fall over when you try to install a soundcard driver ;)

im curious as to the configuration details of the unit, as well as which apps ur using, coz i can easily transcode at over twice realtime on a lowly p4 2.4gh non HT with 1gb ram...

For the testing purposes we diliberately applied many transistions, and filters to "try" and slow down my computer. Normally, converting an MPEG to AVI doesn't take that long (on mine). As we were only doing a "Wow, let's check out how much faster" test, we didn't list everything we did (we were to eager to see results!) He was using a beta version of Windows XP 64. And the PCI Express ATIX800 (? - I think) video card. Just watching the "Render percent" window while doing it was quite fast, at least 60 %. Sorry, I'm more of a video editor than a computer tech, all I know is, "I want a 64 bit now!" :)

Oops, by the way, as for the sound card, it is onboard. Sounds great and has many features built into the installed software. I'll try to get more details on what is put together on his computer.

Wow, those are some improvements. What editing software does he use?

A 157% increase in speed is hard for me to believe.

It would be really cool though, and I would really need to keep myself away from my credit cards.

OK, here is his system:
(I just copied his reply from me asking what exactly he has)

INTEL PENTIUM 4 640 3.2GHZ LGA775 800FSB PRESCOTT 2MB CACHE 90NM EM64T HT PROCESSOR

ASUS P5AD2-E DELUXE MOTHERBOARD ATX LGA775 925XE DDR2 PCI-E16 2PCI-E 3PCI SATA RAID SOUND GBLAN 1394

2 x SAMSUNG 512MB DDR2 MEMORY PC2-4200 240PIN DIMM

Just ordered 2GB kit, so I'll have a total 3 GB RAM

SAPPHIRE RADEON X800 PRO VIDEO CARD PCI-E 256MB DDR, DVI

2 x WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR SE 200GB HARD DRIVE SATA 7200RPM 8MB CACHE

Running RAID 0 - Stripping

1 x MAXTOR MAXLINE III 250GB 7200RPM SATA 9.3MS 16MB

ANTEC P160 ALUMINUM CASE 4X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5INT FRONT USB FIREWIRE AUDIO

DELL UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor with Height Adjustable Stand

Image Aspect Ratio: 16:10

Image Brightness: 300 cd/m²

Image Contrast Ratio: 600:1

Max Resolution: 1680x1050 Pixels

LOGITECH X-530 5.1 SPEAKER SYSTEM BLACK 70W RMS 140W W/FDD2

Didn't ask how much, but he said "A lot!" haha

Don't you think there's something wrong with the benchmark you ran? The speed difference is way too huge to be explained by 64-bit.

2- Your friend's computer might be a few percent faster in benchmarks with just 2 sticks of RAM (probably the 2 1GB sticks). Adding all four sticks may lower memory bandwidth. Four identical sticks may be even faster than just two sticks.
Of course, install the RAM into the right color-coded slots.

That information holds true for the old 865/875 chipset motherboards. Your friend has a newer 9xx chipset, which may be different.

Something definitely doesn't sound right here, so we'd need a lot more details to even begin to explain why you're seeing such a big difference in performance. Also, did you mean to say that you're encoding MPEG2 to AVI, or is it the other way around? If you said what you meant, why would you be encoding MPEG2 to AVI in the first place? (Just wondering.)

Hey Kev,
Part of the reason was to push the envelope (make the CPU crunch numbers) and place a load on it. But what started it was my ATI card records my TV progams in MPEG (just the way I have it set-up for conserving space). So when I want to edit it, Adobe renders it first (can't edit MPG).

"It just seemed the best way to test the performance difference between the two"

But not a typical task an PC aimed to editing have to do.

(Didn't quite answer your uestion Kev, sorry)
I was "de-coding" MPEG-2 to AVI (produces huge files) for editing. To "en-code" AVI to MPEG-2 is what you are doing when you want to create a DVD.

Ah, I see. Still doesn't explain why there would be such a dramatic difference in performance, but at least you've confirmed what you're doing and why.

For what it's worth, the Canopus Edius software does a pretty decent job of editing MPEG2 files without transcoding. I think Ulead Media Studio Pro also has that capability.

I like the sound of this post. I have the motherboard and cpu on the way and this weekend I will be able to do some tests once I get it up and running. I just hope it's faster then my machine now and I'm sure it will be.

Chad

Excellent Chan! Help me out man, "I was just trying to tell everyone how impressed I was!" :)