Question About Computer Specs at DVinfo.net

Kevin Lewis · May 22nd, 2009, 07:10 PM

Is there a big difference between and AMD Quad and an Intel Quad. I will be editing HD using Pinnicale. THe system has 4gigs of memory, however, the video card also feeds off of that same memory. And finally. Pinnicale suggests a 3.0 processor, can I assume that a quad with a 2.5 processor is better than a stand alone 3.0 processor?

Bruce Foreman · May 22nd, 2009, 10:23 PM

My son works for Dell and he told me (when I was shopping for a faster quad core than Q6600) that AMD is still trying to play "catch up" with Intel. I had an HP with the AMD dual core 5000+ that was no faster in rendering in Pinnacle Studio 11 than a two year older HP with an AMD dual core 4200+ chip.

At first I blamed the sluggish performance on Vista but even after I set Vista for performance over appearance (turned off the aero interface and all the "purty" stuff) it still did not outperform the older machine. Then I began to see similar complaints about the AMD processors not living up to claims for processing speeds.

Now Intel has stepped out even further ahead with the Core i7 processor and although AMD has come out with the Phenom processors, their speed still isn't up to the Intel Q96xx series.

The answer to your question depends on what you will be editing. If you may be going tapeless in the not too distant future pay very close attention to Pinnacle's system requirements for AVCHD, I didn't. They specify quad core at 2.66Ghz clock speed as a bare minimum for 1920x1080 17Mbps video. My 15 month old Dell Q6600 quad core runs at only 2.4Ghz and I had frequent problems until I changed the video card out to an Nvidia 8800GT 512MB. Then the main thing I had to deal with was very sluggish background rendering.

Just got a new Core i7 machine with 6GB RAM, and an ATI graphics card with 512MB and Vista 64bit OS. Studio 12 runs a lot more smoothly.

If you plan to stick with HDV on tape for now, I still recommend a fast quad core, Q96xx series at 2.8Ghz or 2.9Ghz minimum, if you can make yourself go for a new machine look at Dell's Intel Core i7 offerings. You will need it sooner or later IMO.

May 22nd, 2009, 07:10 PM	#1
Kevin Lewis Major Player Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Philadelphia, pa Posts: 705	Question About Computer Specs Is there a big difference between and AMD Quad and an Intel Quad. I will be editing HD using Pinnicale. THe system has 4gigs of memory, however, the video card also feeds off of that same memory. And finally. Pinnicale suggests a 3.0 processor, can I assume that a quad with a 2.5 processor is better than a stand alone 3.0 processor?

May 22nd, 2009, 10:23 PM	#2
Bruce Foreman Trustee Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: San Angelo Texas Posts: 1,518	My son works for Dell and he told me (when I was shopping for a faster quad core than Q6600) that AMD is still trying to play "catch up" with Intel. I had an HP with the AMD dual core 5000+ that was no faster in rendering in Pinnacle Studio 11 than a two year older HP with an AMD dual core 4200+ chip. At first I blamed the sluggish performance on Vista but even after I set Vista for performance over appearance (turned off the aero interface and all the "purty" stuff) it still did not outperform the older machine. Then I began to see similar complaints about the AMD processors not living up to claims for processing speeds. Now Intel has stepped out even further ahead with the Core i7 processor and although AMD has come out with the Phenom processors, their speed still isn't up to the Intel Q96xx series. The answer to your question depends on what you will be editing. If you may be going tapeless in the not too distant future pay very close attention to Pinnacle's system requirements for AVCHD, I didn't. They specify quad core at 2.66Ghz clock speed as a bare minimum for 1920x1080 17Mbps video. My 15 month old Dell Q6600 quad core runs at only 2.4Ghz and I had frequent problems until I changed the video card out to an Nvidia 8800GT 512MB. Then the main thing I had to deal with was very sluggish background rendering. Just got a new Core i7 machine with 6GB RAM, and an ATI graphics card with 512MB and Vista 64bit OS. Studio 12 runs a lot more smoothly. If you plan to stick with HDV on tape for now, I still recommend a fast quad core, Q96xx series at 2.8Ghz or 2.9Ghz minimum, if you can make yourself go for a new machine look at Dell's Intel Core i7 offerings. You will need it sooner or later IMO.