Good cheap cpu for dvd decoding

[gazzy]

Hi. I was wondering what was the best sub £100 cpu is for backing up my dvd's. Ive heard that intel chips are usually better than amd's for encoding, decrypting etc.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance

[Digitizer]

Weil I reckon a p4 nothwood 2800 About £110 from scan would be good I've used a load of them very stable hyper threading which helps when encoding ect .They don't seem to run as hot as Intels latest cores yea it's a tenner over what you wanted but I reckon it could be worth it. Some prefer Athlon 64s but for what you want I reckon the Nothwood may be a better choice.

[gazzy]

yeah its just too much really. £100 is like the absolute max.

Does anyone know what the socket 754 semprons are like? They look a good price and there are some decent boards out there.

[geezerone]

Semprons are meant to be 'budget' Athlon 64s but aren't budget priced. Intel are prob the quickest per GHZ for your stated task but better value are Athlon 64. Why not try 939 processor and Overclockers have good prices: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal..._939_cpus.html
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Socket_754.html

Hope this helps!

[icq3800846]

Of course the other thing is, what motherboard have you got already? If none, then the AMD ones tend to be a little cheaper if we're talking about current models, also they use the much more widely available DDR400 (Pc3200) memory, which is cheap as chips. (Sorry)

In any case, if it's a second system just to plod it's way through DVDs or movie editing, having the absolute fastest isn't a particular worry.

Cheapest P4 would be in an socket 478 package, probably on an 865 chipset.

[gazzy]

thanks for the advice guys. as for a motherboard i havent got one yet. Just waiting to see what the best chip for the price range and work from there.

As for using overclockers well ive given up using them, the customer service is appauling, they should take a leaf out of scan's book.

[geezerone]

You may like to try www.msquared.co.uk who I used to buy from and customer service was great. They price match and you can also phone and place order which seems out of date nowadays but a nice change none the less. So you might find the overclockers or a.n.other web site is lower and use it to your advantage.

[arthurleung]

Depends on what quality of backup you need. I found a P3-800 good enough to encode large DIVX files. (And something like a 4000+ if you want to encode x264 or xvid trying to get best quality with small filesize)

[peterb]

CPU cost is not the only criteria - you need to look at the comparative costs of the mobo and memory that is required to support the CPU. Take a system approach - set up an excel spreadsheet to compare the costs. At the end of the day I suspect ypu may find an Athlon solution a little cheaper, but spec for spec I doubt that there will be more than 50 quid in it. Remember that Athlon's speed ratings are different from Intel's...

[Scarlet Infidel]

What codec will you be encoding into?

For example:

If you intend to use mainly Xvid id recommend a venice 3000+ for abour £80-85 (youd need to buy a hsf too though)
If divx is your codec of choice then the fastest clock speed pentium 4 you can afford is best, saying that you probably wont get much speed for your money with intel anyway.

I was after the same thing 8 months ago and bought a 3ghz p4 for £100 off ebay and clocked it to 3.8ghz (it is great for divx) however i doubt you could get it any cheaper now and it would probably cost you £120+ at most places.

Edit: just looked around and id personally go for this 3200+ with a basic cooler (though this may lead you to high temps and/or noisey operation and not allow you to overclock).