Camtasia Video Rendering On Intel Core i7-875K

This is what a one hour video being rendered to Web MP4 video looks like on our new Core i7-875K based system:

In the above screenshot the Camtasia process is running at 64% across all cores four cores plus HyperThreading.

The above CPU usage shows that Camtasia is quite capable of utilizing all of the cores and threads the Core i7-875K has to offer to run its rendering process.

Note that Intel TurboBoost shows that currently the CPU is running at 3.2GHz to try and keep up with everything.

Meanwhile, the system is still quite usable.

Start time for the process was 16:15Hrs (4:15PM) and is about half done. So, it looks as though the entire 1 hour video that was captured at about 1400x900 will take about 30 minutes to render.

Here we are a while later with the finished product being rendered at about 16:42Hrs.

The original Camtasia capture was just shy of 1 GB in size and resides on our storage server. So, the above rendering was being done by processing the original on the network with the finished product being dropped into a local temp folder on this machine.

If we have time, we may run the render again with the project source files on the local machine to see how much of a difference there is. The storage subsystem is using the on board Intel software RAID controller to run a RAID 0 stripe across to 80 GB X25-M Intel SSDs.

For folks that make a living where CPU intensive tasks are part of the process, the Core i7-875K may make a great compromise instead of an Intel Core i7 Extreme series CPU setup especially for those just starting out.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel DX38BT to DP55KG Caveat – Activate Again

Our main office system decided to die this morning. It has been behaving a little on the strange side with network related communications becoming somewhat spotty. The Outlook connection seemed to receive the quickest impact from whatever was going flaky.

We had ordered in an Intel DP55KG, Intel i7-875K, and a CoolerMaster v8 CPU cooler early last month for the purpose of swapping out the system’s DX38BT, QX9650 C2 Extreme, and Zalman CPU cooler. There never seemed to be enough time to do the swap.

Well, this morning’s death made the swap a necessity.

The component swap went painlessly. After running the Intel PROSet driver update, a chipset update, and a few “New Hardware Found” dialogues and reboots the system came up flawlessly. The dual 80GB X25-M SSDs in a RAID 0 stripe were picked up by the newer version on board software RAID without an issue too.

Windows 7 did not ask to be re-activated as we are running Windows 7 Enterprise x64 throughout our organization.

But, Office 2010 Professional Plus (Open Value) and Adobe Design Suite Premium CS3 both requested to be activated again:

This hardware swap experience sure contrasts to how things were five, ten, or more years ago. In years past we would be hard pressed to save the OS and applications if we needed to change out the motherboard.

We have come a long way indeed.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Associate Members - Demo Advantage = Get your Extreme On!

For those who are a part of the Intel Reseller Program at the Associate level or higher, the following two products (single purchase per quarter) are available through the Demo Advantage Purchase Program:

• Intel® Desktop Board DX58SO
• Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition

What does that mean?

Well, given the current exchange rate for the Canadian dollar to the United States dollar, it means close to 50% off our cost via distribution.

The setup will make a nice demo rig for those who need high horsepower setups for their own business.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists

*All Mac on SBS posts are posted on our in-house iMac via the Safari Web browser.