question! [AMD64 vs P4]

LovEnPeaCE · Post by **LovEnPeaCE** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:16 pm

ok guys, i need to know if an amd 64 is better for video editing than a p4.....i don't want any crap saying well personally, no flaming, and no gayness, i just want the facts.....can anybody help me?

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:32 pm

Which Athlon 64 or Opteron, and which P4?

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 10:41 pm

Okay, I admit I should have been a little more helpful.

The benchmarks I've seen have Intel chips <i>generally</i> doing better than comparable AMD chips at video and audio <i>encoding,</i> but it would really depend on which specific chips you want compared.

Plus, there's so many other factors to be considered (RAM, HD, etc.).

madmag9999 · Post by **madmag9999** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 11:31 pm

the amd64 with a 64bit os and a 64 bit program will out preform the p4 but the factors Scintilia metiond are very importan becouse a 2800 64 bit chip and a 3.2ghz p4 might do nearly the same. and the hdd ram and other stuff are also important factors, for video editing id sugets 1gig ram+ and a 7200rpm 8mb cache hard drive.

LovEnPeaCE · Post by **LovEnPeaCE** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 6:29 pm

well the prescott p4, and both athlon 64's (fx and nonfx), excluding the opteron, the ram would be as you said, at least 1 gb(dual channel on p4, same on fx, single channel on plain 64)

madmag9999 · Post by **madmag9999** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:15 pm

the fx will pwn the p4. and last time i heard the prescott had major heat problems. id go with the amd 64 fx if u have the cash non fx if u dont. but i wouldnt buy intel.

LovEnPeaCE · Post by **LovEnPeaCE** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:19 pm

yaya the prescott did have heat problems, but thats mostly for losers who use the stock cooling :-p besides, with proper cooling/airflow, it shouldnt be that much of a problem unless you really want to keep your temperatures really low

LovEnPeaCE · Post by **LovEnPeaCE** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:20 pm

keep in mind, that we're talking about video encoding/rendering here, as in really BIG files

madmag9999 · Post by **madmag9999** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:47 pm

yea i know. and even w/o stock cooling the prescot will run hot and the hotter it runs the worse it preforms so unless ur gona water cool it i wouldnt suggest it.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:58 pm

I'll try to answer this objectively, but keep in mind I work for AMD.

As Scintilla added, P4's generally do *slightly* better in encoding audio and video. I will admit that much. At the same time, the margin is very slim and in the most recents ones I saw, it was nearly identical (for a slightly "slower" Athlon).

Now that's one side of the picture, but I think it really comes down to one thing...the future. Getting a P4 may seem good since it's slightly better, but the next generation of computing will be 64-bit and we will be running 64-bit software. It's not as far off as you may think. In fact, 64-bit Windows is already done from what I hear (I won't get into WHY it's not released yet :-/).

With that said, buying a 32-bit P4 is kind of dumb. You're buying something that will effectively be obsolete in less than two years. Intel themselves are already going the X86-64-bit route (followers :-/), so it's not like they haven't said that 32-bit is the past.

So although the P4 may do slightly better at the moment, come a year or two, you'll be unable to run 64-bit applications. As madmag said, you're trying to compare a 64-bit processor to a 32-bit processor while running 32-bit software. We don't know how the Athlon-64 will perform with 64-bit native software, but if Linux (which has been 64 bit for a long time) benchamrks are any indication, it points to positive gains.

In any case, I suggest going for the *cheaper*, yet more future-looking Athlon-64 instead of the prescott that may run slightly better, but is more expensive...that much gain and no future isn't worth it imo.