O.T. Upgrade CPU

[Danny Fye]

I am thinking about upgrading from an i-920 2.66 to an i7-3770k CPU with a new motherboard.

How much performance difference can I expect with Vegas in time-line play-back and mpeg render time(s) for DVD without using a GPU?

A lot of tight money to be spent on something that might be a great improvement or is it just an ok improvement?

Thanks,

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com - Videos - CCM.

[Kim Olsson]

I would say its not worth it if you dont wanna waste your hard earned money. The performance gain could be by guessing, about 15-20%. It also depends id you have overclocked your system or not. If you OC you system to let say around 4ghz... The performance difference should be minimum.

I have the i7 3770K ivy bridge OC'ed to 4.2ghz and its blazing fast doing everything in notime.
For performance geeks, the upgrade is a must.. But for the regular people, it is a nono..

Better wait for some next gen CPU with faster technology. The latest generation of cpu's has been focused to be energy efficient rather then increaseing the performance.

The cost for upgradeing is around $400-$500 for the cpu and motherboard. I should look up SSD for better disk performance and upgrading the RAM some. And if you havent overclocked, do it now for insant performance gain. From 2.66ghz to 4ghz would sureley give you a 30% boost in timeline playback and Rendering. But before you OC, get a new cpu cooler.

A good graphiccard is also great for timeline playback performance.
My GTX 670 boost the playback preview alot. Maybe like 40%.

But still no luck with gpu rendering. it wont rendering with the gpu even that vegas finds the card in the drop menu and the cudas.
Guess the compability for my card isnt really there yet.

[Danny Fye]

"But before you OC, get a new cpu cooler."

That funny looking thing with a fan on it that they included with my CPU is a cooler? LOL!

I need a cooler period! At least I have a Cooler Master H.A.F. full tower with 8" fans. A big monster but I like the extra room it gives me.

Anyway I did a Google search for overclocking the 920 and am not sure which site provides the 'real' information I need to overclock this CPU. Do you have a good link? What do you recommend for a really good CPU cooler?

I have 24 gig of 1333 type ram if I remember the number correctly. It is Crucial ballistix.

Seems like from the chart on PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End the 3770k would be quite a bit more powerful but according to another site it would only be approx 30% faster. I currently do not overclock.

My goal is to run Vegas without using the GPU at all so as to not have to deal with all of these guessing games on getting and keeping my system working right. Also not to have to deal with the latest upgrade mess.

Problem is, my budget says I can only afford so much.

Note: There is an ASRock motherboard I was looking at that has 5 SATA-2 connectors and 3 SATA-3 connectors. And I use a lot of drives. Still might be cheaper to get another controller? I do not need raid.

How much do I pour into this now getting old computer?

Thanks much for the reply.

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com - Videos - CCM.

[Danny Fye]

WOW!!!

I downloaded CoreTemp to see what is going on. Note: There is a big link to download it that also downloads junk-ware. Use the little 'more downloads' and the stand alone link for your operating system (32 or 64 bit) and download CoreTemp without the junk!

The stock cooler that everyone says is not enough is terrible! I do a two minute video render to mpeg 2 pass and it starts off in turbo mode but quickly gets too hot and slows down to an under-clock frequency.

No wonder renders get slower as they progress.

Room temp is 74 and it is a big room.

I will be shopping for a new cooler.

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com - Videos - CCM.

[Leslie Wand]

interestingly enough i have a similar set up to yours and was also asking myself pretty much the same question(s).

a. i haven't experienced any cooling problems with the stock cooler on long renders - but i do blow out the dust build up pretty regularly.

b. i settled for a gfx550ti card early on. can't complain. most of my work is hdv, do best/full isn't a problem and i do have a bm intensity pro card as well.

c. i've never really worried about best / full or render times that much. after 40+ years in tv i know what i'm looking at even in preview / draft, just as i know what it'll look like rendered. and as for rendering - well i do sleep occasionally, even if the pc doesn't ;-)

d. i think with the current mess regarding cpu / cards, etc i'm more than happy to wait till some clearer picture resolves itself - as also scs's implementation of gpu rendering...

e. i'll only really consider upgrading my system (gpu) when i can be assured of a MAJOR (40%>) overall increase in power / time. i much prefer (well, nowadays) spending my money on good living rather than the never ending cycle of hardware / software upgrades.

of course, any upgrade will be paid for by my clients demands rather than my own idiosyncrasies....

[Kim Olsson]

For manual overclocking, you have to read a guide so you dont destroy your system. Or you can google for someone elses OC configuration which are simular to what you want
With the new motherboards like the one I have (p8z77), you just simply press a button and choose to which speed you want to overclock to. The clock speed of 3770K is orginal 3,5GHZ, but I did overclock it to 4,2GHZ. I have a idle temperature of 22 degrees celsius, and 50-60 degrees celsius when rendering.
I do use Corsair H100 to maintain this kind of temperature
Thats the charm with the new motherboards. The have a new bios interface which is very easy to OC without Any skills. You can even OC from windows if you install asus software (my mb is asus of course). Just choose Overclock "fast" or "extreme" or choose your own clock speed..

Of course 3770K is faster natural because it has higher clockspeed then i920.
From 2,66 compared to 3,5. That only will make the 3770K about that faster.
But I remind you also that I never owned the i920 by myself. So I dont know the architekt of that cpu 100%

For RAM amount, 24GB is enough. The clock speed of the RAM is pretty low. Today you can buy RAM with the speed of 2400MHz. But I dont know what kind of performance that will cause. Absolutley not 2x faster performance. Anyway the best you can invest for faster PC is of course a new CPU with a better cooler. But remember the price for a 3770K, motherboard, corsair H100, is in the range of $600. Well here in Sweden anyway..
If you want to spend your money on your system, spend them on the brain (CPU). You will proberly notice a big different. I was just holding you back because I though you was on a tight budget.

I dont know how much for a controller, but for a decent motherboard you pay about $150. And that makes your system also more futureproof and may even get you a boost in performance. (Faster computer)

And Leslie, no doubt the workflow (preview playback, timeline handling) is faster with GPU set to ON. When set to "OFF", it gets alot jerky and slower. With my GTX 670 anyway.. No big different if you just havin 1-3 videotracks with little fx. But with alot of videotracks, pictures, fx, trackmotion, filters and so on, you can see how big the different is with the GPU acceleration is set to "ON". Hard to measure it with procentage. But between 20-50% to be assumeing..

[Danny Fye]

Thanks Kim Olsson for the information and help.

“Of course 3770K is faster natural because it has higher clockspeed then i920.
From 2,66 compared to 3,5. That only will make the 3770K about that faster.”

From what I have found there is more to being faster than just the clock speed. It is also how efficiently the CPU is as well. That is what they say…

My current motherboard has a card to add USB-3 and no more available slots for a controller. That is one reason why I am looking at the possibility of a new motherboard.

I read in reviews of the 3770k that it would get very hot very fast if over clocked but more recent reviews where Intel fixed that. Hmmmm, I wonder what Intel did?

There are a lot of web sites with over clocking information for the i7-920. I noticed that the way to do it can vary from one version of the i7-920 to another. Long story so I will not try to explain all of that right now.

I did find one site that pretty much covered it all including a way to do it without the need to change voltages.

Intel Core i7-920 Overclocking Guide - X-bit labs

No matter what, I must replace the current cooler that came with the CPU! It is not enough for video editing!!!

So I ordered the ACFZ13 from the egg,

Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING ACFZ13 92mm High Performance CPU Cooler for Intel and AMD

along with the CAN-60ML

Newegg.com - Arctic Silver Arcticlean Thermal material Remover & Surface Purifier ACN-60ML (2-PC-SET) - Thermal Compound / Grease

to remove and clean off the old thermal stuff from the CPU.

I should get those on 10-22-2012.

I will see how well this does before I make any attempt to over clock if at all.

I have the Asus P6t-SE motherboard which is starting to get old in the way of technology. So there is no magic ‘one click’ for over clock for it that I would use.

I may end-up just getting a new system anyway and use the new cooler with it and then sell this one. I will have to do all of this one step at a time to find out what I will actually end-up doing.

Thanks again,

Danny Fye

www.dannyfye.com - Videos - CCM.