AMD Barton -> Intel ??

[Pippy007]

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

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

 

[Pippy007]

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).

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...

 

[Pippy007]

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.

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

 

[Pippy007]

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.

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