Quick Intel Question

naiku

naiku

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i was a hardcore pc gamer for around 10 years, gave it up for the 360 recently. long story short, ups breaks my pc during shipping, getting insurance money, building a new one.

I dont plan on gaming on the pc, i might later but i want a strong processor for video encoding.

Which should I get...
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 - 2.4Ghz 1066 FSB
OR
Intel Core 2 Duo ?????? - ??Ghz 1333 FSB

not sure which would preform better a Quadcore at a slow clock/frontside bus or a quicker Dualcore @ around 150-200$ price point. Max 1333FSB due to the mobo im getting. Also do i need to run a 64bit OS to take full advantage of more then 2 cores? things were easier 4years ago :/
Thanks in advance.
 
Quads will do better for video encoding, of course.

I'd also recommend dropping $150 on a graphics card. No reason not to game on the PC if you already have a good computer.
 
Yeah definitely the Q6600. Even with the stock cooler it can be overclocked to ridiculous levels. The 3 ghz maximum your motherboard supports should be easily attainable (I have mine at 3.4 right now with 1511 FSB).

You don't need a 64 bit OS to take advantage of multiple cores but you will to take advantage of 4 gb or more ram which you should want if video encoding is going to be a big thing for you. And don't get XP 64 bit version; it's generally considered to have terrible support as far as drivers go.
 
The quad-core, definitely. With any up to date software for a task like encoding the additional cores will mean far more than a minor difference in bus speed or main clock. Especially when these are directly equivalent cores.

RAM has become incredibly cheap and you need 64-bit to take advantage of that. I wouldn't put anything smaller than a 2 GB DIMM in a memory slot. It's a waste of a limited resource otherwise. Although, if someone offers you some 1 GB sticks really, really cheap to get started, it won't hurt much to yank them later in favor of denser units. The desktop I built for Vista that is now a Win7 testbed, just went from 4 GB to 6 GB, leaving me with a pair of PC6400 1 GB sticks in need of a home. I'll probably be able to sell them to a client at a bargain rate.

You don't need to spend a lot on a video card but don't forget the newest generation has big benefits for encoding. The low end versions can still have pretty good 3D performance while still delivering all of the video benefits. Low end and high end are moving targets as new generations redefine the range.
 
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