INTEL vs AMD - which is best for DVD backup?

[selmer]

Greetings PRO's ... I am building a new system, and the staff at the best computor shop in Seattle say for for dercyption of DVDs - INTEL is best (they love AMD for gaming and most other needs). He recommends a, $1100 system with ...

Intel 3gig proc
1 g ram (kingston)
asus x-300 video card
asus p-5gd1 mother board
XP home OS
200 gb serial ata 7200
good case (with expansion bays for 2 dvd players, etc)
(NO monitor, keyboard, speakers.)

Professionals, What do you think?

[anonymez]

there really isn't too much of a difference between intel and AMD, though AMD is known to perform better in games...

the cpu (these days) should have no effect whatsoever on decrypting speed, as that is more dependant on your hard disk and dvd drive. but dvd compression is almost entirely dependant on the CPU.


i recommend getting an amd-64 instead of an intel, especially because the 64-bit version of windows XP is nearly out. that way you are getting more bang for your buck, and it is around the same price

[selmer]

thank you - the salesperson said the same thing about AMD and gaming. He said it was something to do with te "codecs" of Intel that made the proc faster with decrypting, but I have used AMD with the last 3 systems I have built, so I was thinking of going AMD reguardless. 64 bit is a plus as well.

[Enchanter]

CPUs from either vendor will do perfectly fine for those tasks. I would personally go for an AMD64 system however, given the bad thermal performance of Intel's current 'Press-hot' core.

Regards.

[selmer]

thnks enchanter, I will keep the system the same except for the AMD proc.

[cynthia]

Don't know how the prices are in Seattle - but in Sweden the most priceworth hard disks today is the 250Gbs.

[selmer]

thanks cynthia for the 250 gb tip.

Also, I will also search the FAQ and past threads for any discussions if WIN 2K is better then WIN XP (I am comfortable with 2K, and wanted to hold off on a new OS till the next generation OS comes out unless I am being stupid (again.)

BTW ... great new photo.

[Grinch]

Hi,
I have two machines, ones a P4 3.06 HT 775 and the other is a AMD 64 3400 939. The P4 is faster for decryption and Shrinking but the AMD handles the burning better. It would not make good sense to build system with a Intel board now as they don't support the new P4s with daul-core. Also look for PCI Ex and SLI.
Use a Raid O (striping) with a pair of Serial ATA drives(80 gigs work good) for the system and a Serial ATA 250 for you movie files. 1 gig or more of Ram and your ready to go.
Start to finish you can build a machine with all the extras for $800.00 dollars or less.

[selmer]

THANK YOU for the good advise. looks my system may be getting bigger and badder. I will specifiy the AMD 64 (3400 sounds great for my limited needs.)

I think I will use with my WIN 2K, and just get one 7200 250g hard drive since my PC skilles are limited. (seems like running multiple hard drives has always beenr eserved for cumputor gurus and I am just not quite there yet. Hope I am not going to bottle neck my system with just one HD.) I did write down the "PCI ex, SLI, Raid 0" comments and I will try to get a crash education on these before bucking up.

I am figuring by re-using my old 2KI may get a system now for $700 - 800 which would be a happy thing.

[Grinch]

AMD 64's come in single-channel RAM on the Socket 754 versions. The daul channel RAM are the socket 939 boards. It makes sense to use 939 boards so that you have upgrade opportunities.
Most new boards have onboard SATA and RAID connecters onboard. Setting up a RAID O is easy and two small SATA drives are inexpensive. Use a 250 drive as a storage drive for movie files etc. That way if you have any problems with the system you can reformat the RAID drives and reinstall the OS without losing all your movie info.
2K is a solid OS, XP is built on it. Stay with the 2K.
Look at an ASUS A8V Board(2000FBS) socket 939. Use around a AMD 64 3400 CPU. Three SATA drives,1gig ram,video card, DVD RW, good case and some extras and your are still under $800.00. Their is still room in the budget for some lights,fans, and controllers if you wanted them.
Build it yourself! When it breaks you will be able to fix it!

[HDTiVo]

I recently bought a Dimension 4700 from Dell which has a 3.2GHz P4/HT (540). Most recently I was mainly using an AMD Sempron Mobile based laptopn @ 1.6GHz (2800+?)

The HT processor has been impressive in its ability to rapidly transcode videos (.tivo, mpeg2s to mp4s) and DVD Shrink.

Most important has been a dramatic increase in Disk I/O performance which is as much as 8X the laptop. These huge multi-gigabyte files benefit enormously from this.

Also very important has been the fact that when using a program like MyDVD the system remains usable and responsive, so I can run other tasks and interact; the laptop bogged down to unusability during MyDVD operations. I don't know if this is mainly attributable to HT or better disk I/O or what.

You may want to look into what Dell uses for Disk I/O on the 4700 because that's where so much of the performance is coming from.

[Grinch]

The P4s do seem to work best for decrypting and Shinking. The big speed difference is going from a 1.6 AMD to a 3.2 P4. Be careful with muti tasking when encodeing or more important burning. The system will work but you will get disc errors on you burns. Also notice the CPU load when encoding. The CPU will run flat out during the encoding process. Heat can become a hidden problem if not watched closely. It is best to close all programs and let the machine do the encoding, Shrinking, and burning without anything else running. I know, I found out the hard way.