Dual Xeons - What do you think?

[David Cervenka]

I'm currently running Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects 6.5 Pro on a single proc P4 2.4Ghz with 1 gig ram and I'm looking to improve my render times.

Since I already have the case, drives, dvd, etc I'm looking just to upgrade the Mobo, procs, and memory with the following;

Mobo: Asus NCCH-DL Dual Xeon/875P/64Bit/FSB800/GBE/ATX
Procs: (2) Intel XEON 3.0D GHz 800MHz FC-MPGA4 604pin 1MB
RAM: 2 Gig PC3200 DDR400 Mhz


If you're running a dual proc set up or have some first hand experience with a similar setup I would like to hear about it, especially with your render times. By going with a dual proc will PPRO and AE take advantage to give me 2x faster render times?

[Lars Siden]

Hello David,

I'd read some on dual cpu:s before buying. Some starting points:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030811/index.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040528/index.html

I've had two dual CPU machines - never been really pleased with the performance boost.

Today I've settled for 2 machines - one machine acting as fileserver and file-cruncher ( ie. I render from machine 1 to machine 2 which in its turn starts to convert from AVI->MPEG etc )

// Lazze

[Glenn Chan]

Alternate ways to improve performance:
A- Get a hardware acceleration card for Premiere like the RTX100. Check motherboard compatibility though... these cards can be really picky.
B- Get a card with good openGL acceleration for After Effects previews (these card accelerate certain things like re-sizing multiple layers). Look at the workstation line cards like the ATI Fires and the Nvidia Quadros, not the gaming stuff.

[Rhett Allen]

You can never go wrong by choosing a Dual Xeon over a single P4 any day. It won't give you a sudden 2X increase in everything but you would be amazed by the pleasures it will bring in the long run.
I usually run on Dual Processor machines and when I move from a Dual to a single, I can really feel the difference in efficiency. Everything just seems quicker and easier, and more and more software is being written for multi-processors support.
I was also checking the specs of some of the leading editing programs and they prefer Duals, especially with this new HDV fad coming up. So, if you CAN have a Dual Xeon, why would you NOT have one would be the more reasonable question?

[Pete Wilie]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rhett Allen : <snip> So, if you CAN have a Dual Xeon, why would you NOT have one would be the more reasonable question? </snip>-->>>

Cost, mainly.

Any idea what the cost/performance trade is between a higher speed single CPU vs lower speed dual CPUs?

For example:
Single P4 3.6 GHz HT
vs
Dual Xeon 3.0D

[Zack Birlew]

The real thing to be pleased about with dual CPU's is that you'll have TWO CPU's! Think about it, that one Pentium 4 3.6ghz is cranking out data from a large pool at a faster pace, but the dual CPU's will be cranking out the same data but at twice the rate with a slightly slower pace (the top Xeons avaliable are 3.2ghz). Obviously, the dual CPU's would empty the pool before the single CPU did. The case would be entirely different if Pentium 4's were at 4-4.5ghz with caches that equaled the Xeons, but that isn't going to happen at all. Intel has basically canned the 4ghz Pentium 4 until a much later time, if at all. Dual cores will be when the single CPU vs. Dual CPU battle will need to be decided. For now, the best option for video editors is dual CPU's. Xeons are preferred, but Opterons will work too.

In general, this is a terrible time to buy computers or cameras. All the video trade shows are going to start coming in the spring to introduce new technologies and equipment stuff and computer technology has basically been put on hold until 2006, when 64-bit computing and dual cores will be the big thing. For now, if you really need a system, go with either an AMD Socket 939-based system, Intel LGA775-based system, or a dual CPU-based system of your choice and get the fastest processors you can. DDR2 doesn't matter right now in system choice (DDR1 performs just about the same), beware because current systems will not be compatible with dual cores in the future, HT doesn't help out that much (as I've learned from editing my home videos this past week), and SLI won't be truly big until the next generation of videocards comes out (beyond Geforce 6800 Ultra and ATI Radeon X800PE).

[David Cervenka]

Wow! Great feedback and resource links! thanks!


Lars Siden - Interesting. Which dual proc setup did you have before? I know that some of the dual older p3s were easily blown away by the p4s.


Jack - "the top Xeons available are 3.2 Ghz)"
Actually they have 3.6's now (Intel XEON 3.6 GHz 800MHz FC-MPGA4 604pin 1MB)

Good point about the tradeshows, I'm in no hurry so maybe I'll wait another month.

[John Hartney]

I've been using dual intel processor boards for video editing for 5 years... all home rolled. You're doubling the bandwidth to the processor, a big deal.

The Adobe programs are optimized for multithreading.

These are the heads to consult:

http://www.2cpu.com/

[Lars Siden]

Hi,

I've had a dual Pentium Pro 200 setup, a Dual P3-800 and Dual Xeon 1.8(old version). I know that the new Xeons with bigger/different cache + 800mhz bus will do better than my old dual Xeon setup did.

My reasons for not going dual again are:

1. You get one expensive machine that you'll hesitate to replace when the new Pentium 5 5ghz chip hits the market

2. Heat - One 3ghz cpu gets hot , 2 get hotter - you'll end up with a noisy machine

3. I like the options of having 2 seperate machines - I can run different OS:s on the machines - if one is really hogged with work - I can work on the other one.

4. We're heading toward dual-core setups - what performance will that give us? Lets say a dual-dual-core setup? This is not long a way in the future ( dual core that is ) - maybe 6 months.

I'm not saying that I'm right - take it as a well educated guess.

// Lazze \\

[Rhett Allen]

<<<-- Originally posted by Pete Wilie : <<<-- Originally posted by Rhett Allen : <snip> So, if you CAN have a Dual Xeon, why would you NOT have one would be the more reasonable question? </snip>-->>>

Cost, mainly.

Any idea what the cost/performance trade is between a higher speed single CPU vs lower speed dual CPUs?

-->>>

"Do you know the difference between an RC-45 and a VFR is? A couple hundred thousand dollars worth of engine tuning. It costs a lot to go fast!"
- quoted from an old motorcycle buddy of mine

Yes the Dual Xeons are more expensive but there is more to life than just money. Like reliability and speed, which both cost money.
The Xeons are a much higher quality processor and are usually put in high quality systems with better quality componets. You have a more stable machine. Dual processors ARE more efficient. You can work better faster. Duals age well because of this and therefore are not typically replaced as often.
If you NEED a new computer than just get one because I can tell you this for certain. It will never get more affordable. There will always be something better just around the corner and if you are always waiting for the price to come down on the next big thing, believe me, as soon as you buy it, you will see something better for more money right next door. You can't win that way.

[George Ellis]

Premiere is not really dual friendly from what I read, so PP may not be all that much faster. Never expect anything better than 25% improvement even from the best multi-thread app. There are still things that have to wait for besides the processor, so 2 CPUs will not even be a 50% improvement on any task.

What duals do give you is real multi-tasking. I will be burn DVDs from ISO files, print either DVDs or liner jackets, check e-mail, web surf, and play solitare while I wait without any issues ;) Would not try that on my single CPU set.

[Lars Siden]

George,

--------------- Quote
What duals do give you is real multi-tasking. I will be burn DVDs from ISO files, print either DVDs or liner jackets, check e-mail, web surf, and play solitare while I wait without any issues ;) Would not try that on my single CPU set.
--------------- Quote

I do all those things without any hazzle on my Hyperthreaded P4@3.2ghz machine - key is having lots of internal memory so that you never have to swap!

// Lazze

[Glenn Chan]

For example:
Single P4 3.6 GHz HT
vs
Dual Xeon 3.0D

In Vegas video, the single processor system should outperform the dual xeons on rendertest.veg (the only Vegas benchmark available with a lot of data). In other Vegas projects (extremely simple renders that are probably real-time anyways), you may see the dual xeons pull just slightly ahead. On MPEG2 encoding, the dual xeons should be more than 50% faster. So as you can see, it all really depends on what you're doing.

Other NLEs like Final Cut will behave differently with duallies. Final Cut is about 70% faster with dual processors versus one. It depends how well the NLE is programmed for multiple processors.

I unfortunately don't have a dual Xeon machine to play with to get real world data.

Unfortunately the information above doesn't tell you much about whether or not to get dual processors for Premiere Pro. But you might seriously want to look into hardware acceleration cards, for which there is data available about the performance increase.

[Rhett Allen]

Here is a little benchmark comparison with a few different computers and processor configurations. Maybe it will help you get closer to a decision.

http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

[Alain Aguilar]

I'm currentelly testing a setup that includes
Power Edge Dell Server
Dual xeon 3 Ghz
4 GB SDRAM
2-Perc SCSI Controller
500 GB disk
Crappy ATI card (8 MB)
1Gig Nic


This server is configured with Win 2000 server, AF 6.5 and Magic Bullet. The rendering time for my 1 hour and half video is over 90 hours!!. mainly because of MB (Deinterlacing-Deartifacting-Broadcast colors and Look Suite)
MB has some kind of issue with processors above 3 GHz, but there is an update for it. So far the workflow seems really good and fast but the rendering could still be long and tediuos.