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Old November 23rd, 2011, 06:53 PM
Jj4cL Jj4cL is offline
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Computer Upgrade Questions

Hi all. While I've been building my own computers for quite a while now, the last build for me was my current P4 3ghz with 3gigs memory on an Abit MB.

The only intensive thing I do on my PC is video editing. Converting VHS tapes to digital via firewire and a Canopus 300 ADVC, and then doing some minor tweaking in Adobe Premiere Elements.

It's getting a bit much waiting for these DV-AVIs to transcode to mpeg, so I've been thinking about upgrading my computer.

I have a few specific questions, and I wonder if anyone experienced with some or all of these questions would help me understand.

1. I use a few older programs, one in particular is the old Ulead DVD Workshop, which I doubt would run under Win7. So, first question.... If I install the Professional version of Win7 and use XP mode, is this a trouble free, vanilla and definite solution? Or does this module come with it's own set of headaches?

2. I do very little if any multitasking so, while I was considering a 95watt i5 chip with quad cores, I'm really beginning to lean towards the i3 chip with the 3000 video gpu.

3. This is important to me. If I decide to stay with XP Pro 32 bit, and I install 8gigs of memory, can I use the other 4 gigs of memory for a ramdrive to use as a swap file location since I understand 32bit Windows can't use more than 4gigs of memory. I'm thinking this is way too small a swapfile size even if it could work.

4. Lastly, with compatibility as a concern for going with a 64bit operating system, what are your thoughts in general. I mean, I don't even know if the Canopus software will run under Win7 and I really don't want to reinvent the wheel just to pick up 2 or 3 minutes in encoding time if XP will do the trick.

5. One more question. In the real world, how much faster really is DDR3 1600 than DDR3 1333? I mean, I'm not trying to squeeze out nano seconds in encoding time.

Thank you very much in advance.

Last edited by Jj4cL; November 23rd, 2011 at 08:00 PM.
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Old November 25th, 2011, 05:23 PM
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MaDef MaDef is offline
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I'm not a big Intel fan, and don't do a whole lot of video editing. but I'll give this one a shot.

1. Dvd workshop is pretty old, and will need tweaking (adding a d3drm.dll file, along with directx9) and running in compatibility mode.

2. While you may not do alot of multi-tasking, alot of software these days take advantage of multithreading (ie: using more than one core). so it's a toss up. However alongside that is the L3 cache (more is generally better) on the cpu's, the i5 has 6mb while the i3 has 3-4mb.
3. It's a waste to even do this, 32bit windows will not see anything over 4gigs. (and actually reports only 3.25g-3.75g). You would do better to put the swap/page file on another drive and set it as static.

4. My thoughts on 32bit vs 64bit is that it's a no brainer, You're getting a 64bit processor, may as well go with a 64bit OS. (that way you'll be able to use that extra 4gigs of ram).
The Canopus site lists all flavors of windows 7 as supported, however you may need to update the Canopus software to the 64bit version. (not sure as downloads are available only for registered users)

5. Not much generally, you'll only see the difference in benchmark software, but, (there's always a but), since video editing relies heavily on memory and cpu, you may see a difference depending on how much of it you do.
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