Will I noticed a difference if I upgrade from 2.93 4-core to 3.33 hex core?

[chiefroastbeef]

Hi guys,

I realize this topic has been beaten to death with a frozen horse leg, and I have read virtually every thread here that talks about the 4.1 CPU upgrade to 6-core 3.33

I have upgraded my GPU to a GTX 670, added ram amounting to 24gb, 128gb SSD boot drive, and 4TB raid 0(2tb x 2) disk array for work files. I love the system right now, it works super awesome.

I mostly Adobe CS6, Final Cut Studio, and Aperture.

I don't want to move onto FCPX yet, since I still love Final Cut Pro 7. However, rendering of filters/various plugins just take so darn long. Will an extra two cores and higher clock speed help me?

Will I notice much improvement? I know this is a broad question, but from those of you with the experience, can you tell me if the $586 upgrade is worth it?

Thank you for any input on this redundant topic.

 

[charlieegan3]

in a certain type of task yes, you will notice a difference.

 

[xav8tor]

Probably. My Geekbench 64 bit scores went from right at 10K to well over 16K going from the 3540 to 3690. How the added power translates into real world differences will depend on the apps you are using.

 

[derbothaus]

Final Cut 7 host app will love the extra MHz. The plugins and other aspects could love the extra cores. FCP7 is really just fairly slow at some things and you may not see the benefit all the time.

 

[chiefroastbeef]

Thank you all for the replies.

I especially like hearing that FCP 7 will find use with the extra cpu speed.

What is the reason why FCP 7 cannot use all the cores fully why rendering? It is because it isn't 64bit? When I render in FCP 7, the four cores that I have indicates that they are usually being used at 50-60%.

Eventually I will install FCPX, and when that happens, I will love that speed!

 

[derbothaus]

What is the reason why FCP 7 cannot use all the cores fully why rendering? It is because it isn't 64bit? When I render in FCP 7, the four cores that I have indicates that they are usually being used at 50-60%.

Eventually I will install FCPX, and when that happens, I will love that speed!

It is legacy codebase that is not very multi processor aware. It can "balance" load on processors but you will most likely never see FCP7 (the host app. Certain other aspects "in" FCP ARE multicore aware confusing things) using over 200% of available CPU. On your Quad you have at least 400% CPU available + any Hyperthreading. That's why you see it spread over 4 cores at just 50-60%. FCPX will use 100% of all available cores. 64-bit is not in the processor equation. 64-bit addressing has more to do with future scaling and memory availability.

 

[chiefroastbeef]

It is legacy codebase that is not very multi processor aware. It can "balance" load on processors but you will most likely never see FCP7 (the host app. Certain other aspects "in" FCP ARE multicore aware confusing things) using over 200% of available CPU. On your Quad you have at least 400% CPU available + any Hyperthreading. That's why you see it spread over 4 cores at just 50-60%. FCPX will use 100% of all available cores. 64-bit is not in the processor equation. 64-bit addressing has more to do with future scaling and memory availability.

Thank you derbothaus for that clear explanation!

Just to be more clear, will FCP 7 make use of the 2 additional cores? Or would it only use 4 cores? If FCP 7 can make use of the 2 extra cores and reduce rendering time, I'd consider it a decent CPU upgrade, if not, it isn't really worth it since my other apps are more than fast enough with 4 cores.

Yea, FCS apps like Compressor definitely makes use of CPU power, which is great.

Thank you for the input! I highly appreciate it!

 

[derbothaus]

Thank you derbothaus for that clear explanation!

Just to be more clear, will FCP 7 make use of the 2 additional cores? Or would it only use 4 cores? If FCP 7 can make use of the 2 extra cores and reduce rendering time, I'd consider it a decent CPU upgrade, if not, it isn't really worth it since my other apps are more than fast enough with 4 cores.

Yea, FCS apps like Compressor definitely makes use of CPU power, which is great.

Thank you for the input! I highly appreciate it!

It will be faster because of the extra 400MHz and turbo over-clock to 3.6GHz on 2 of the cores. Final Cut will not use any more cores than on the quad. It will use the same number, roughly, but they will be faster cores. Compressor will get both cores and clock speed boosts.

 

[chiefroastbeef]

It will be faster because of the extra 400MHz and turbo over-clock to 3.6GHz on 2 of the cores. Final Cut will not use any more cores than on the quad. It will use the same number, roughly, but they will be faster cores. Compressor will get both cores and clock speed boosts.

That is a very very clear explanation, thank you very much.

I will just need to make the decision now...

Thank you everyone for chipping in!