Pentium 3.4GHz or Pentium D 2.8 dual core for video render SPEED?

[Gary Kleiner]

John,

I’m an AMD fan myself.

See THIS THREAD about my AMD 64 2x $4800+

[John Carter]

John,
I recently wrestled with a similar question. Opted for the dual core, Pentium D 830 and the ASUS P5WD2 premium board. I’m happy with it. Can’t give you any numbers, but rendering is lots faster than my old P4 1.8 ghz. Make sure you put enough RAM in it. I have 1 gig and it’s not enough.

BTW I purchased my components from ZipZoomFly. Found their prices lower, plus you get free 2nd day FedEx. Always had good service from them.

Good luck,
John

[Gus Little]

I’ve built 3 of the dual core pentiums in the last 2 months. All of them have been the 830 chip (3.0 ghz) which seems to be at a decent price point. I can only compare it to my main editing machine, as far as benchmarking goes, but the dualcore is 50 to 100 percent faster than my P4 3.0 machine on every kind of render I’ve thrown at it, from dv avi to mpeg2 to wmv hd and hdv. I’m duly impressed as I’ve rarely seen 75% improvement in any hardware purchase I’ve ever made.

Also, and I assume you know this, the 820 and 830 are priced very competetively, rare for intel, I think it’s their best deal going.