Your video editing workstation needs to be able to process lots of information to make sure you are hitting optimal performance. Have the right CPU is critical to making sure you can hit the speeds you need.
One of the main processes your CPU will be used for is decoding footage. Video files are encoded into different Codecs to compress the file and save space on your workstation. In order for it to playback, these files need to be decoding into something your computer can understand.
If you are working with the following Codecs almost any CPU can easily handle them:
If you are working with effects you'll need a more powerful core to process all of the information in each frame. With each effect your processor will need to process each part of the visual effect individually as if they were each completely seperate things. For projects that are heavy in visual effects a high-clocked CPU is recommended. A few recommended high-clock CPUs are: