CPU processor performance

Z

zag

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All,

Does anyone know of any lookup table that can be used to determine relative processor performance ? In the old days it was easy - a 386 was faster than a 286, a 486 was faster again and a Pentium (note the 5 reference) was the business. Then you could say that a 666Mhz one was twice as fast (more or less) than a 333Mhz one. It started getting weird when the Celeron came along - it used to be a Pentium but Intel broke some bits so they could market it lower without impacting their own sales.

These days you have to have a degree in physics to understand the terminology and know where you stand. I don't have a degree in physics so I'm lost. I'm trying to work out whether my PC is up to the task of video editing and if it's not then whether it is worth upgrading bits and retaining the machine or just getting a new one. I can edit stuff, but it's not exactly fast.

At the moment my desktop has a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ 2.30GHz - does anyone know where this is on the performance scale ? Is it in the bottom 20% of current CPUs or somewhere in the middle ? I know it's not at the top . . .

Any help appreciated.

z
 
I don't think it's that far from the top, but for something as intensive as video editing, there are several further components to consider.

How much RAM do you have?

How much memory is on your video card and what make and model is it?

How many hard disks do you have, what make and model are they, and if more than one, is your data mirrored or striped across them, or are they two separate disks?

What operating system are you using? I don't intend this to be a Mac vs. Linux vs. Windows vs. whatever thread, but it can make a difference. The fact that MacOS X is unlikely to be running on your AMD system (to offset the more pedantic amongst us) is also irrelevant to the point I'm making in this paragraph, which is that the O/S is significant.

All of the above can make a difference. The most important thing to include in your reply would be how much memory you have.

Hope this helps.
 
Processor speed or performance is just one part of system performance. You need to look at overall system performance which really means looking at appropriate benchmark results.
 
Take a look at tomshardware.co.uk cpu interactive performance charts to get an idea of how good your processor is:
[broken link removed]
You can choose the benchmark, and add/remove CPU's from the list to see how they compare, there are lots of video encoding benchmarks, etc.
 
As already stated, you have to look overall - no point having a top processor with only 1GB ram. I use a DuoCore E6600 chip with 4GB ram and use Photoshop CS2 for photo editing (alot of editing!) the machine flys, even though Windows isn't using all 4GB of ram.
 
Another urban legend that refuses to die ! (I'm assuming we are not talking about Windos 98)
Click to expand...
Set me straight if I'm wrong....going through MyComputer, About, it tells me XP is only using about 2GB of the 4 available. I know there's patches out there that will let XP use all 4GB, but is Windows XP limited to what amount of RAM it can use? (sorry for going off thread topic).
 
See . Google for more details on other Windows variants (e.g. XP Home, specific SPs etc.).
 
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