i7 990X or i7980 vs i7 920 overclocked, anyone upgraded?

[Jeff Harper]

I have an i7 920 running at 3.4Ghz, but I edit 4 cam projects that are 720 60p. While rendering isn't too much of an issue, I would like to get significantly better timeline performance.

If you have upgraded from an overclocked i7 920 to a 980 or 990X, please share your experience with me. I'd like the ability to run my ram faster, and with the 920 at 3.4 I'm stuck at around 1280, and I think I could get faster with the 990X. Not so sure with the 980, but I think I'd be stuck with slower ram speeds with it as well.

Let me add that I'd just go for it, but as most of us know the 990x is $1K, a whole lot of money to throw down on a processor. The 980 is very good, costs less, but it has locked multipliers, which means, I think, that my ram would be locked to a few less than ideal speeds.

[Jeff Harper]

Never mind, I ordered the 980, $500 was not worth the difference. If anyone want to share their overclocking settings on the P6T v2 Deluxe, please feel free!! I've been looking everywhere, can't find 'em.

[John Woo]

Jeff, where did you buy your 980 and how much did you pay for it? I am presently on 920 also, looking at 980 or 990 before stocks dry up.

Can you share your timeline experience after upgrading?

Like you, rendering with 920 is ok but timeline performance for editing multicams and especially clips from native 5D2 is lagging a bit

[Jeff Harper]

I wanted 6 cores for improved preview performance, turns out I've read that Vegas only uses a single core for preview, which is unfortunate. Apparently it's all about processor speed, not cores. # of cores affects only rendering, I guess. I have not confirmed this but from what little I've found on the subject, it appears to be the case.

Newegg is where I buy everything for PC, no reason to look hardly anywhere else.

To speed up preview I've invested $$$ in the fastest drives money can buy and am running them on RAID 0 on a spanking new controller, no help.

The secret to utilizing the 980 will be oveclocking, since processor speed is so important. I'm already at 3.4 ghz, so I need to get up to 4 at least to make things worthwhile, I think.

[John Woo]

I did not know preview only uses 1 core. Need to research further

why did you not consider getting the sandy bridge and a new board? The rest of the components like HDD, PSU and RAMs can still be used.

[Jeff Harper]

The best way for me to help you understand is to encourage you to google a term such as "best processor for video editing". You can then make your own decision.

Sandy Bridge are fine chips, but for raw power, as it best work for video editing, the higher end i7 9XXX chips are acknowledged as best still.

The 980 is my choice because it has six cores, is fast, and reportedly can overclock to 4ghz with the stock fan, and it only costs $600. The 990x costs $1K, and has the ability to clock faster using more tweaking, but I don't think the gain in speed would worth $400. The decision is a personal one, in the end.

For best preview ability, I would guess the chip with the fastest speed you can find would be the best. For overall, and system stability, multitasking, etc the Gulftown six core are king, but not because I say it, but because the numbers do.

The next generation or round of chips to come out, from what I've read, are not supposed to include anything that will outperform the 990X by too much, so I feel it is safe to go ahead and make the purchase.

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Vegas only uses a single core for preview, which is unfortunate.

You only preview one frame at a time, no matter how short that time is.

[Jeff Harper]

John, I'm still trying to make out what the difference is.

I see a tad bit of improvement in preview, with four lines of 720p I could edit before, but with much motion in the frame it bogged down. Now it is smoother for sure.

Wow, my temps are 1/2 half compared to before, that is phenomenal, I just noticed. My temps were fine before, but I'm running 4.0ghz and rendering 720p with effects and my temps are at 41C, that is crazy cool.

I'm going to take it to 4.5ghz and see what happens, now THAT might make a really huge difference.

I

[Jeff Harper]

John, I cannot give a definitive answer about preview, but the processor renders VERY fast, that is for sure, it seems to be going at double the speed of before at my current 3.7ghz. I can't yet get a stable 4.0 OC.

It's rendering HD like it was SD, pretty amazing, I must say.

It's rendering 44 minutes of 720 60p video with pan and cropped photos, and color correction, and more, in 23 minutes.

[Adam Sturman]

I'm sorry guys, but I can confirm that adding more cores does NOT speed up previewing. I have a bunch of oc'd 920 boxes, and a few 6 core 980's. They all preview at about the same speed.

Rendering, however, is another issue.

You should be able to get your 980 to over 4ghz pretty easily if you have the right cooling... I don't want to turn this into an overclocking thread, but what mobo do you have, and what heatsink?

[Mike Kujbida]

Jeff, I'm contemplating a new computer so I'd be interested in your full machine specs too.

[Jeff Harper]

Adam, thanks for chiming in. Stock i7 980 fan, and a Sabertooth X58. My temps are fine, I think.. around 65F at up to 4.2 while rendering. it's the correct/getting enough voltage, or whatever that is tripping me up. I don't know how to overclock, I am using settings that worked for my i7 920 that I got off the web 4 or 5 years ago, and then adjusting here and there, and I can't find a similar guide for the 980 with everything spelled out, and I've spend days looking. My temps now are around 65-70 at 3.7, the same as before when at 4 and 4.2 when I render HD which takes the unit to about 75% load, which is pretty darned good, I think. Actually the load is changing constantly during render from 48% to up around 90%, and peaking at 100% at times. At idle temps are in high 30s, low 40s.

The cooler that comes with the 980 is very good, people are commonly using it for up to 4 and even beyond, or so they claim. If you have the chip you know that I suppose. My temps rendering full HD, etc never topped low 70s at 4.2, which was phenomenal, but halfway through a render it would freeze. I'm afraid to start increasing voltages, etc so I found that I am stable at 3.7. I do know about the stress tests, but just wanted to get up and running ASAP due to my backlog, and already spent days looking for this crap, so I'm staying where I'm at unless a guide comes along.

Mike, I had a P6T vs Deluxe, not a bad board, and I would have kept it for the upgrade, but I got dust on the contacts where the CPU goes on the MOBO, and I bent a couple of them trying to get the dust out, so I ditched it to be safe.

I'm happy with the inexpensive, 8 SATA, 2 Estata connector, USB 3.0 Sabertooth X58 board. It's inexpensive, works great for overclocking, and has firewire too, which I still need now and then. It's a very popular board, so there is a lot of support for it, which is partly why I chose it.

My 12GB ram is some cheap GSkill DDR3 ram, works very well, it's very old, like my old board, and I've got it at 1567 with my overclock. GSkill is a best buy for RAM, in my book. I had Dominator, a better product, but I got some dead sticks, and said forget it and went with GSKILL and have been happy for years with it.

That's all to my system. I've got a great cheap case, but I don't recommend it because it has no dust filters, and it gets very dirty fast. Holds 10 drives though, it's a coolermaster HAF90, or something like that.

You didn't ask about hard drives, but if you want fast, I got the new Adaptec 6805E SAS raid hardware contoller for like $280, and I stuck a couple of Cheetah 600GB 15K SAS drives in RAID 0, and it does fly for a scratch drive. It's the coolest part of my system. They are the fastest drives on the planet, depending on who you talk to.

When the new windows comes out I'm going to use the controller for my OS also, and I cannot wait. SSD I'm not completely sold on, though I know they beat the Cheetah in some ways, but for longevity and consistency, the Cheetahs are king, at least that's what I'd like to believe.

[Jeff Harper]

I think what is coolest between the drives and the processor, is when I open a 4 camera project, everything appears on the timeline instantly, there is no lag, etc. It's just there, like it's no big deal.

A project that resides on my storage drives, which are 2tb drives, it can take a minute for thumbnails to appear and stuff. That has sped up a bit with the newer processor, but the slower drives still bog the process down. It's not a huge deal, but the difference is quite noticeable. So, a faster drive helps, and a faster processor helps, but when I have faster of both it's huge. No weak links. I just wish all my drives were as fast as the SAS drives.

[Chris Harding]

Hey Jeff

I have an i7 2600 3.5GHz and compared to the old DuoCare 2.2GHz rendering an MTS file (say a 5 minute clip) takes close to 15 minutes on the DuoCore and under 2 minutes on the i7....with simple clips it pretty much renders in about 1/3rd of real time!!!

Now I was previously shooting in 720 50P at 24 mbps (we are PAL here) and I found that in preview the 2nd monitor display drops from full frame down to half within a few seconds (even with a single track). Now the same shoot at the same bitrate done at 1080i stays in full res the entire clip regardless of length.

I have a feeling that double frame rate preview in Vegas is pretty tough on the processor ... as 99% of my stuff goes down to SD DVD anyway, I just shoot in 1080 and get magic previews...of course I am supposing that you are working with your GH2 footage still which is only 720 and if it's also hacked you are running at a much higher bit rate! You might still have an issue with 720 even at 4.0GHz!!!

Chris

[Jeff Harper]

Chris, you've hit upon it, I guess, my 60p footage is the culprit. I get by fine with 4 cameras, and right now I'm editing four cameras and it is smooth as silk, but I'm using Cineform for edtiting, I haven't tried it with the original clips, but I think I'll switch over to the HD clips for awhile and see how it does. I use Gearshift to switch back and forth instantly (very cool, I think).