Best upgade for video encoding?

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I'm currently encoding lots of videos as I attempt to move all my DVD's onto a NAS conected to the TV.

It's a time consuming process on my Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 gig (overclocked to about 2.5gig), with 2 gig of Ram.

What would have the biggest effect on speeding up this process?

More RAM, Faster CPU, or SSD?
 
Core i9 6 gig of 1600 speed ddr 3 if you have the money for it or the not cheap hexa core monster from intel. If not the q6600 is a good suggestion :)
 
Seems i undersold my overclocking. I've just romotely logged into my PC at home and run SiSoft Sandra. My current spec is:

Core 2 Duo E2168 1.8 Gig O/C'd to 3.2gig (still worth the q6600 upgrade?)

2x 1 Gig Ram : Golden Empire CL4-4-4 DDR2 800
 
video encoding uses lots of cores so an i7 970 would be ideal, or a phenom II 1055t

Whilst it would be ideal, I doubt he's going to drop the money on what is basically a new rig just to encode his DVD collection.


As said, get the best (/most cost effective) quad your motherboard will take then see how much of an overclock you can get from it.
 
There needs to be a cirtain ratio between the CPU and RAM, becuase when video encoding they are co-dependent. I used to do it on my Phenom 9650 X4 at stock along with 4Gb DDR2 800 RAM, never a problem! I used Adobe Video Encoder on 1080p and never encounterd a single problem when doing clips about 10 mins long. It struggled with rendering and previews in AE though.

With my new rig in my sig I can render full HD clips in AE that incorporate 3D effects amoung others without a hitch. The previews are still slow, but I am putting that down to my horrible HDD!
 
Whoop!

I've won a Q6600 on Ebay for £69 !!!

I think it was so cheap due to the end time of the auction. 4.30pm on a Friday? no-one is watching their ebay account then.

I bidded for another one earlier in the week and it went for £92 i think. So i'm very happy. Fingers crossed it'll arrive!
 
Congratulations, great price for a great chip.

What motherboard have you got, out of interest? Also, what cooler did you use to overclock your current dual core?
 
The crazy thing is the processor i have at the moment is still cheaper than the Quad i just bought! Have hardware prices gone up a lot?

Heres my old invoice from 3 years ago!!! :

LaCie Black 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive (301285K) £53.99 1 £53.99
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency Dual Channel (GX22GB6400UDC) £31.99 1 £31.99
Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £64.99 1 £64.99
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £41.99 1 £41.99
Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99 1 £27.99
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM (Grade A OEM - 3 Months Warranty)

Order Total: £446.37
 
I wouldn't say prices have gone up (except for RAM, that has gone up a lot), its just that old kit never drops to very low prices most of the time, it just becomes end of life and newer products offer comparable performance for lower cost.

As for the CPU price, that E2160 was a reasonably low-end CPU when it was released (£42 is not a lot for a CPU), but the Q6600 (which came out a similar time) was one of the most expensive available. Prices eventually dropped and everyone got one - hence why there are so many second-hand ones. Another reason for the Q6600 price is supply and demand, people know they perform well and are prepared to pay what they are worth (for example, a Q6600 is better than many of the current Athlon II X4 chips).
 
Yeah i was pursuaded to get the CPU over other options becuase of its overclockability. Glad that turned out to be true!

I'm also very glad to here that the Q6600 is still considered a decent enough chip. :)
 
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