What Type of CPU Do You Use For Digital Media Editing?

[Jason Dunn]

We were talking a lot about CPUs yesterday, both Intel and AMD, so I was curious about this: what type of CPU do you use on your main digital media editing machine? By "main" I mean the computer that you use do to the majority of your digital photo, video, and audio editing.

[entropy1980]

That's a tough one.... I have an Athlon64 3000+ which I do about 40-50% of my work on and then the rest I use my Powerbook (G4) for. To certain extent I think it's a wash some things certain processors benchmark better in and other they suck to me it come down to there are some programs (Muvee) that only work on my PC so use it for that, and others (Final Cut, DVD Studio Pro) that only run on my Mac so it makes it pretty cut and dry what I use which for.

[Jason Dunn]

Yeah, I know there would be borderline cases, but trying to do every combination:

AMD + Intel
Intel + PowerPC
Power PC + AMD
VIA + AMD
VIA + Intel
etc.

...would just be too painful. :-)

[David Prahl]

VIA ??? Is that a joke? :twisted:

I'm running a hyperthreading P4 at 2.6 Ghz right now. Homebuilt, modded, and staying cool! :rock on dude!:

[entropy1980]

Yeah, I know there would be borderline cases, but trying to do every combination:

AMD + Intel
Intel + PowerPC
Power PC + AMD
VIA + AMD
VIA + Intel
etc.

...would just be too painful. :-)

I wasn't complaining i know it would be a headache, I coted AMD cause I just love my Athlon64 it really is the best bang for the buck out there!

[James Fee]

I picked Intel even though I also use my PowerPC for digital editing. I married into an Intel family (my wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law) all work for Intel, and I wouldn't want them to think I wasn't supporting the stock. :lol:

[Doug Johnson]

I used to use Intel in my media PC until I discovered that the Pentium chips are absolutely awful when it comes to floating point operations, especially when it comes to very small numbers (such as when audio is very quiet or fades off into silence). In this particular situation it essentially has to reset it self over and over and over again, making performance absolutely unbearable. I had always wondered why when working with only a few tracks of audio I kept getting CPU dropouts. Poor floating point on the P4 was why.

So now I use an overclocked AMD Mobile XP2500 running at 2.2GHz (in a desktop PC) -- roughly equivalent to a 3.4 GHz P4. The AMD is a very very fast CPU. And no more choking on floating point. :D

Bottom line is, if the software you are working with is SSE2 optimized, go with the P4. If it uses traditional floating point, AMD is a much better bet.

[Suhit Gupta]

I have an Intel at work and a Dual Athlon at home. So I put down AMD because most of the digital media editing takes place at home.

Suhit

[The Yaz]

Again, it's not just the chip being used, but how the computer is built that makes a difference. I have a Compaq Presario laptop w/ AMD Athlon 4 1.2ghz, 256mb ram/256kb cache/64mb video. I also have a desktop built w/ PIII 750mhz, 256mb ram/512kb cache/64mb video.

I've found that using my Happauge PVR-USB on the desktop is more reliable than the laptop. It may be the larger cache or that the the programs from Happauge just work better on a Pentium, but I was frustrated when I kept running into problems when I tried to do video on my laptop.

Steve 8)

[Jason Dunn]

VIA ??? Is that a joke?

Nope. ;-)

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=15

They actually make decent CPUs in scenarios where you have less power and no noise - I believe they don't need CPU fans at all. In terms of multimedia-crunching power though, they really suck. :lol:

[Don Tolson]

...not wanting to show my age tooooo much, but I remember a time when the ONLY processor capable (it seemed) of handling video/graphics processing was from Motorola....

My, how times have changed....

[igroknful]

I use a home built Intel P4 2.6GHz with hyperthreading.

Rhonda