Core 2 Duo or Quad Core?

M

Mark Von Lanken

Well-known member
We edit with Edius and love it. Stable and Real Time. With my current setup I have to transcode AVCHD before editing. When producing a Same Day Edit, transcoding takes a lot of time, and time is of the essance. I have a couple of laptops for SDEs. They are Core 2 Duo's, 2.0 Ghz. I have looked at the only i7 laptop I could find, but I just don't want to spend $3000+ on a laptop.

If I go with a laptop that has a Core 2 Duo 2.93 Ghz processor how much faster will it be at transcoding clips than my current 2.0 processor? What about a Quad Core 2.33? The Quad Core should transcode more clips at a time, but with a slower clock speed, will I be hurt in the editing speed?

I'm looking for a faster mobile editing solution without breaking the bank. Any suggestions on a machine that will transcode AVCHD clips faster than my current machines? Thanks.
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An Intel quad core machine is so much faster than a core duo that I would not even consider buying a non Quad machine.

You should be able to get a nice Q9000 based laptop with a nice video card for only about $1,500 that will be far faster and cheaper than a T9800 based laptop.

Don't get a Core 2 Duo. That would be an awful purchase for video editing.
 
I found this:

I think sometimes and depending on what program, the higher Ghz the better - unless you have a program that will truly use all 8 cores of the i7. I really liked the performance of the Quad Core 3.2Ghz



Extreme%20Gamer%20CPU%20Graph%20version%2002.png
 
if you want to edit native, go 2-core with fastest speed you can afford.

otherwise, if you're transcoding, i'm not sure there's a clear victor. sure my quad core oc-ed to 3.2ghz can handle 4 clips at a time, but will it finish before a 2-core running at 4ghz or higher?

i think the quad is only really helpful when you want to be able to do other things on your computer at the same time, otherwise, from my experience, i think a blazing fast latest generation core2 would be the fastest at handling avchd in realtime.

even so, you're probably not going to get perfect stutter-free editing with effects and cc going on. of course 720 runs better than 1080. i certainly haven't been happy enough with my video workstation to edit natively....it just lags too much to be able to scrub and see my fx and cc in realtime. i transcode everything and have found that it doesn't usually take that long; maybe 1.5hrs for 1hr of footage? i've always been able to find a way to take 1.5hrs off to do something else, but i realize your sdes might not have even that much flexibility.
 
Where are you finding quad-core laptops? I've been on the lookout for one for about a year and it seems Intel isn't ready to grace us with them just yet.
 
Here are some CPU mobile and desktop benchmarks running video related tasks. While these benchmarks aren't equivalent ( which is too bad ), I strongly suspect that the cheapest desktop i7 CPU would easily overpower any non i7 mobile CPU. ( at a much lower price )

Pinnacle Studio 11 Plus (Encoding and Transitions Rendering to MPEG-2/DVD)
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/mobile-cpu-charts/Pinnacle-Studio-11-Plus,478.html

Premiere Pro CS3 HDTV
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/Premiere-Pro-CS3-HDTV,833.html
 
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Thanks to everyone for the advice, input and comparison charts. They were really helpful.

Allen,
In addition to the Alienware, Dell and HP make Quad Core Laptops. Sager actually makes a laptop with the i7, but runs well over $3500 when moderately equipped. I guess as an added bonus, you could heat you house in the winter with it. I have found quad core laptops in the $2100-2700 range.
 
I love my new i7 (2.66Ghz version) it cuts in more than half the rendering times and I can view in real time and edit in near real ime avchd.
 
Gaming benchmarks aren't a good measure at all, for choosing a CPU to encode video. For video encoding (with most codecs), a quad core is just way more advantageous (compared to a dual core), than it is for gaming. A lot of games simply don't make use of more than 2 cores, while most modern codecs do.
 
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