Multi-core support?

Daniel Smith · February 2, 2009

Hi.

I was rendering out some video through Avid (MC 3) and noticed that it was only utilizing one of the cores from a dual core processor.

Just wondering if it's worth getting one of these new i7 processors if editing software isn't going to use all of the power anytime soon?

Or is this something NLE software makers are working on?

cheers.

Dan.

James Martin · February 2, 2009

I was under the impression that Media Composer had gone multi-thread, but I could be wrong.

There has to be a reason many avid certified systems are dual processor (effective 8 core).

What is possibly of interest to you though is that several other programs (such as Procoder/Carbon Coder) ARE optimised for multiple cores. This may/may not affect your decision. i7 is quite a step up though from a simple Core 2 Duo, it's more a gaming platform than anything.

Daniel Smith · February 3, 2009

I was under the impression that Media Composer had gone multi-thread, but I could be wrong.

There has to be a reason many avid certified systems are dual processor (effective 8 core).

What is possibly of interest to you though is that several other programs (such as Procoder/Carbon Coder) ARE optimised for multiple cores. This may/may not affect your decision. i7 is quite a step up though from a simple Core 2 Duo, it's more a gaming platform than anything.

Hmm.. last time I was rendering out video and checked task manager it looked asthough only one thread was being used.

I just want to build a new PC with a budget of about a grand (£) but specialise it for CPU and ram power. But don't want to get a new i7 if Avids not even going to use it to its full extent.

If you had about a grand to spend, give or take a few hundred, what would you go for?

Edited February 3, 2009 by Daniel Ashley-Smith

Walter Graff · February 3, 2009

MC3 is supposed to be optimized for Multicore but I'm told that doesn't mean it uses it. All depends in configuration and settings. And even then multicore processing doesn't necessarily mean better.

David Ghast · March 23, 2009

You have to understand that an editor is in fact a collection of different programs. Some processes utilize the GPU, others the CPU, and sometimes with more than one core.

I believe AE supports multicore by spawning seperate instances of itself, which is an example of how these programs, which werent made with mutlicores in mind, are rigged to adapt. Some functions of MC probably do work with mutlicore, you just didnt notice, but then again, were talking about avid, and well, it is what it is.