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AMD Barton -> Intel ??

Pippy007

Pippy007

Pippy007

Associate
Joined
12 Aug 2007
Posts
15
Hi guys, my PC getting a little slow these days and I am considering an upgrade. It still runs fine and does everything I need it too but would like to do some video editing soon (any recommendations for cheap or free easy to use software btw?) and I think my CPU is gonna struggle :o

My current CPU is:

AMD Athlon/Barton CPU 1.83Ghz (2500+)
166 MHz FSB
1833MHz
Purchased in 2003 I think?

I was thinking about the Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Bloomfield) as that should be able to cope with the editing from what I have read ;)

But I was thinking that maybe I should wait till after CES in January as Intel are bringing out their new range of i3, i5, i7 CPU's. What I have seen says that there is a big improvement from current specs but also I think there is a motherboard change?

Not sure what to do and don't follow the latest goings on in the CPU world these days and wanted some advise from you guru's!

Thank you for your time and Merry Xmas to all... :)

Pip
 
The Barton would have been quite poor at video editing when new, so not ideal now either :p

The i5 or i7 would be very quick with plenty of ram. I don't know much much difference the new chips will bring, but depends on budget as well.
 
I have a Barton XP2600+ which I upgraded to i7 back in November of last year. I think video editting is probably out the question with it.

In terms of upgrading, all really depends on budget. Intel's Sandy Bridge is expected in Jan 2011 and this will essentially be a refresh of their low-mid range cpus (i3 and i5). The i7 refresh isn't expected to be until Q3 2011. So if your budget will stretch to i7 then great go for that, particularly as RAM and X58 motherboard prices are dropping fairly quickly. If your looking at an i5 system then just hang on for a couple of months.

Using my Barton setup as a server/downloading rig nowdays and following a reinstallation of XP feels quite nice to be fair.
 
shadow_boxer said:
In terms of upgrading, all really depends on budget. Intel's Sandy Bridge is expected in Jan 2011 and this will essentially be a refresh of their low-mid range cpus (i3 and i5). The i7 refresh isn't expected to be until Q3 2011. So if your budget will stretch to i7 then great go for that, particularly as RAM and X58 motherboard prices are dropping fairly quickly. If your looking at an i5 system then just hang on for a couple of months.
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It is true that it is the "mainstream" level that is being updated in January, but this does include i7 CPUs too. New Sandy Bridge architecture i7 (4 core/8 thread) CPUs like the i7 2600K will be released then and these will be faster clock-for-clock than existing i7s (including the i7 950) and come clocked higher at stock (the 2600K is a 3.4GHz chip).

In autumn we should be seeing the "enthusiast" level parts - which will include hex and octa cores - but these are expected to be rather expensive. Considering the OP's current system I wouldn't recommend waiting this long.
 
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If video editing is the pc main use i would suggest buying the fastest large HDD you can afford over processor, from my experience everyone spends more time loading and unloading film data than processing it ;)
 
cmndr_andi said:
It is true that it is the "mainstream" level that is being updated in January, but this does include i7 CPUs too. New Sandy Bridge architecture i7 (4 core/8 thread) CPUs like the i7 2600K will be released then and these will be faster clock-for-clock than existing i7s (including the i7 950) and come clocked higher at stock (the 2600K is a 3.4GHz chip).

In autumn we should be seeing the "enthusiast" level parts - which will include hex and octa cores - but these are expected to be rather expensive. Considering the OP's current system I wouldn't recommend waiting this long.
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Ah really, I thought it was just i3/i5 coming now then i7 later. Cheers.
 
cmndr_andi said:
New Sandy Bridge architecture i7 (4 core/8 thread) CPUs like the i7 2600K will be released then and these will be faster clock-for-clock than existing i7s (including the i7 950) and come clocked higher at stock (the 2600K is a 3.4GHz chip).
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That CPU sounds good to me, has anyone heard possible prices for these or if the new motherboards are going to come with a premium?

I also heard that with these chips that the BIOS may disappear as well (long overdue) and give a quicker me a quicker starting PC as well... :cool:
 
Pippy007 said:
That CPU sounds good to me, has anyone heard possible prices for these or if the new motherboards are going to come with a premium?
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These new chips (and motherboard) are replacing the current generation mainstream intel parts, so the prices are expected to be reasonable and track with the launch prices of the i3, i5 and i7 (800 series) CPUs.

This appears to be CPU price list for these upcoming CPUs (prices are in USD for bulk orders), to put this in perspective the i5 750 was released at $196 and cost ~£160 at retail in the UK. Since the exchange rate is very similar to back then, this should give you a decent idea what these CPUs will cost.

One thing I will say, if you don't plan to use the CPU in applications that are heavily multithreaded (eg. video encoding, rendering) but instead things like games you would be better off going with an i5 2500K. This has the same core as the i7s, just with 2MB of L3 cache disabled and hyperthreading turned off. For gaming this should be an excellent CPU and a good deal cheaper than the i7 2600K.
 
cmndr_andi said:
One thing I will say, if you don't plan to use the CPU in applications that are heavily multithreaded (eg. video encoding, rendering) but instead things like games you would be better off going with an i5 2500K. This has the same core as the i7s, just with 2MB of L3 cache disabled and hyperthreading turned off. For gaming this should be an excellent CPU and a good deal cheaper than the i7 2600K.
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This is exactly why I am upgrading, my gaming days are over (on PC anyway). I have a beautiful 7 month old baby boy and I want to start using the PC to edit video and send to relatives without boring them all with every single frame that I record (there are lots!)

Think I will wait too to see the difference of the 2 2600 CPU's but according to my figures and those preliminary prices, we looking at £250 - £260 for the 2600k CPU?

I have always found the sweet spot to be between £220-£230 for the CPU

All I need now is some decent free video editing software if anyone got any idea's on that?

Thanks all
 
Ah yes, ofcourse - video editing :)

Those numbers for the CPU price sound about right to me. It is a fair bit of money, for sure. If you don't plan on overclocking then you could go for the 2600(non-K), but imho the ~8% price increase for the 2600K is probably worth it - since these chips seem to overclock very well (this guy got his sample to 5GHz on air). CPU heavy applications like video editing should make good use of this extra CPU power. Also, if you are not particularly confident overclocking, you could buy an OCUK pre-overclocked bundle (if OCUK stay true to form them will offer these from launch day).

The next step down in price seems to be the i5 2500K, this should be a bit under your "sweet spot" and no doubt a very fast CPU and like the i7 shown above - should overclock nicely. However, looking at this performance preview the hyperthreading offered by the i7 chips does seem to benefit performance in video editing.
 
barton 2500+ was a big fail i had one and the 2600 or even the 2400 were well better would be a massive upgrade. that cpu is about 10 year old now

also wait a lttle while longer prices should drop soonish
 
What software are you going to use BTW??

An Athlon II X4 640 or Phenom II X6 1055T would do a decent job in a budget video editing rig.

For example an £88 Athlon II X4 645 is only around 25% to 30% slower than a £217 Core i7 860 in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5,Handbrake and Mainconcept:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/chart...compare,2428.html?prod[4715]=on&prod[4482]=on

In this review the Athlon II X4 640 is around 25% to 30% slower than a Core i7 930 in x264 video encoding:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1297/8/

AMD motherboards which have SATA3.0 and USB3.0 can be had for between £65 to £90 and many have an IGP which is comparable to an HD2400 or HD3450 graphics card.
 
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Depends what you're doing really. With heavy editing, you're gonna spend proportionately more time doing the actual editing than encoding so a decent HDD and a lot of RAM is important. If you're just re-encoding stuff with no or little actual editing then a fast CPU is key to get the fastest encodes possible.
 
DragonQ is right, I do the occasional bit of transcoding video and there's very little hard disk thrashing. Thumbs up to the OP for still making do with a Barton though, those CPUs were legendary! :) I used to have an [email protected] as my main rig, and it's STILL going quite happily back home in Cyprus (even in the blistering Summer heat which would have caused a Pentium 4 to MELT!:D)
 
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DragonQ said:
Depends what you're doing really. With heavy editing, you're gonna spend proportionately more time doing the actual editing than encoding so a decent HDD and a lot of RAM is important. If you're just re-encoding stuff with no or little actual editing then a fast CPU is key to get the fastest encodes possible.
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I shall be getting myself a new motherboard (not sure on that as yet, a new CPU and one of the 3 x 4GB Kit's so methinks 12GB should be ok for memory and at some point I can always get another 3 x 4GB Kit
 
koooowweeee said:
barton 2500+ was a big fail i had one and the 2600 or even the 2400 were well better would be a massive upgrade. that cpu is about 10 year old now
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February 10, 2003 to December 2004. Thunderbird (T-Bird) would be 10 - 11 years old. Even my old 3200+ struggles watching 720 clips on Youtube. Pauses a lot.
 
V F said:
February 10, 2003 to December 2004. Thunderbird (T-Bird) would be 10 - 11 years old. Even my old 3200+ struggles watching 720 clips on Youtube. Pauses a lot.
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2002 - present :D Athlon XP-m overclocked to 2.2ghz in a shuttle paired with a DXVA AGP card and I still have silky smooth youtube / bbc news and MKVs at 720p & 1080p - cpu usage 5-10%

However stopped using it due to Boxee/XBMC not be hardware accelerated....

They are now !!! Must take it for a spin again
 
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