CPU for my daughters PC

[RumbleBee]

Hey folks,

My daughter is getting more and more into recording both games (minecraft) and handycam recordings of her arty things such as clay modelling. A few video recordings later using the trial of Sony Vegas Studio she is fed up with the rendering speed. for a 10 min video it's taking between 1 to 2 hours. I've watched a few guide video's on rendering to 720p for Youtube but I can't seem to speed things up. This is just as slow using Live Movie Maker.

Don't want her to feel discouraged so thinking a better CPU might help. She's currently using my old gaming rig from many years ago with one of the original Intel Core Duo's from about 2006 ish.

Hardware she currently has
Old 1st gen Core Duo
Ati 1950
4gb Ram
Windows 7

I realise a motherboard upgrade will be needed too. Just wondering where to start on a low budget. Cheaper the better but would like to see a huge difference. She likes the occasional game besides minecraft, so ideally it should be able to play anything recently, but I assume a GPU upgrade will take care of this another day. Namely when I upgrade my current card.

Can't put an exact figure on the budget for both the CPU and Motherboard, but thinking under £170.

 

[Hyburnate]

Treat her to an i3 and an motherboard for Christmas?

 

[cmndr_andi]

For that budget, your best bet is probably this CPU, this board and this RAM. However, if you can stretch to a quad core i5 2300/2400, then the overall performance will be a lot better.

For the graphics you could either reuse the existing card, or use the HD 2000 graphics which is built into the CPU. Also, this mobo/CPU combination supports quick sync - so if she moves onto more advanced software (like Adobe Premier elements) then this technology can be used to really boost encoding performance.

 

[RumbleBee]

Thanks for the replies. Most appreciated.

I'll see if I can find some benchmarks between the i3 and i5

 

[cmndr_andi]

Here is a review which compares the i3 2100 and i5 2400 in a range of applications - including video editing apps. This page shows the performance of these CPUs in Sony Vegas (a widely used video editing app).

 

[RumbleBee]

Thanks for the excellent benchmarking link. This will be the first time I've ever purchased PC hardware without games in mind so it's certainly an interesting read when video encoding is the priority rather than frames per second at particular resolutions.

 

[muon]

What's the board? It might take a Q6600.

Core Duo was never released as a desktop platform afaik. You must be talking about the original C2D chips, conroe or allendale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Overview

 

[RumbleBee]

What's the board? It might take a Q6600.

Core Duo was never released as a desktop platform afaik. You must be talking about the original C2D chips, conroe or allendale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Overview

Yes is is a Conroe that she currently has. I always thought this was a duo chip, but thanks for pointing it out. I'll check the exact motherboard and see if it's compatible with the Q6600

 

[jennidc]

Have you considered Llano - quad core cpu with good built in GPU?

 

[jennidc]

Sorry just reread your budget - tri core llano would fit

 

[jennidc]

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Llano A6-3500 2.40GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor £56.66
1 x MSI A75MA-G55 AMD Hudson D3 (Socket FM1) DDR3 Llano MIcro-ATX Motherboard £54.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £22.49
Total : £172.37 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 

[jennidc]

or for just over (although if you could stretch to a 6770 it would be much better)


YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus ATI Radeon HD 6670 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £54.16
1 x AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £34.99
1 x Asus M5A78L-M LX AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £31.32
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £22.49
Total : £171.55 (includes shipping : FREE).

 

[jennidc]

For i3 :
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £91.66
1 x MSI H61M-E33 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £39.16
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £22.49
Total : £183.97 (includes shipping : FREE).

 

[we1shcake]

id say a phenom x6 would be good as editing software will usually use the extra 2 cores making it near i5 2500k performance, in multithreaded apps for less money, id also reccomend 8gb of ram which can be bought for under £40

 

[RumbleBee]

Thanks all. I'll take a look at those specs and checkout some comparisons

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks all. I'll take a look at those specs and checkout some comparisons

AMD Bulldozer is being released next week so it might mean some price cuts on existing AMD and Intel CPUs over the next few weeks.

 

[GTO656]

Yeh just wait another few weeks if u hav the patience too.

 

[RumbleBee]

yes I'll be upgrading her PC in a couple of weeks so I'll definitely take the new CPU into account. The suggestions so far look great. Nice to know there are plenty of options with a fairly low budget.

 

[Logicalbaiter]

i3 is you best bet

 

[HangTime]

Overlocked Q6600 (if possible) might be a nice cheap and relatively hassle free option, i.e. just slot it in no need to worry about swapping out the mobo, buying different RAM, potentially reinstalling windows etc (potentially an issue with a child's PC as you can never be sure exactly how they have it setup). Push it past 3ghz and it should be very competitive vs an i3 for video encoding due to having double the cores.

edit: if you do end up buying new I'd definitely go something with more than 2 cores, as mentioned a phenon X6 with 8GB DDR3 might be a good starting point.