CCE Performace

[pug306d]

I have recently upgraded my PC to:

P4 2.53GHz
Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Mobo
TwinMOS DDR 400 Memory
2* 60gb Maxtor Plus9 7200rpm
Abit Siluro GeForce 4 440 MX 64MB

I have the hard drives in a RAID setup, my CPU overclocked to 3.04GHZ (160FSB) and I have adjusted my memory timings to CAS 2 but I'm still only seeing about 1.4 / 1.5 out of CCE is this right?! I used to have a AMD XP1800 and got about 1.2!

The CCE speeds above are for when I am using CCE to convert a Divx/Xvid to DVD. The Divx are 25FPS I do see a small increase in CCE's speed if the Divx is 23FPS. I use this script for most of my films

avisource("source.avi")
BicubicResize(720,576)
AddBorders(0,0,0,0)
ResampleAudio(44100)

Does the graphics card have any impact on speed in CCE? thats about the only thing I kept out of the XP1800.

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

[Milkman Dan]

Originally posted by pug306d
I have recently upgraded my PC to:

P4 2.53GHz
Gigabyte GA-8PE667 Mobo
TwinMOS DDR 400 Memory
2* 60gb Maxtor Plus9 7200rpm
Abit Siluro GeForce 4 440 MX 64MB

I have the hard drives in a RAID setup, my CPU overclocked to 3.04GHZ (160FSB) and I have adjusted my memory timings to CAS 2 but I'm still only seeing about 1.4 / 1.5 out of CCE is this right?! I used to have a AMD XP1800 and got about 1.2!

The CCE speeds above are for when I am using CCE to convert a Divx/Xvid to DVD. The Divx are 25FPS I do see a small increase in CCE's speed if the Divx is 23FPS. I use this script for most of my films

avisource("source.avi")
BicubicResize(720,576)
AddBorders(0,0,0,0)
ResampleAudio(44100)

Does the graphics card have any impact on speed in CCE? thats about the only thing I kept out of the XP1800.

Any advice appreciated

Thanks

The Pentium 4 is slower than the Athlon clock for clock. That, and I've heard that CCE doesn't scale as well with the P4 archetecture as it does with the Athlon. It code be anything from code size (fits in Athlon's L1 better...) to the way that the memory accesses work. Without the source, we'll probably never know.

On my nForce2 board, AthlonXP@1500MHz with PC2700, with a script like yours, I get 1.5-1.6. More like 1.3 if I'm coming from mpeg2source.

Anyway, hope this helps.

Edit: Forgot one thing. No, the graphics card doesn't matter at all to CCE, or any other encoder. Not yet anyway.

[pug306d]

There were 2 replys to this message and when I'm looking at it now there's only one? Anyway in response to the missing message with the FSB back at 133 it is slightly slower between 1.35 - 1.4?


Thanks Milkman Dan for your comments ;)

[oddyseus]

My friend I am sorry to admit, but we both r victims of Gigabyte. My system also a P4 1.8ghz with 512ddr 333mhz is at .73 max when encoding a d1 resolution vfapi d2v to m2v.

I am afraid that gigabyte isn't up to the task of harnessing the horsepower of a P4

[Ramirez]

Originally posted by pug306d
There were 2 replys to this message and when I'm looking at it now there's only one? Anyway in response to the missing message with the FSB back at 133 it is slightly slower between 1.35 - 1.4?
Well it was me,I never got your replay so I thought you've abandoned this tread,so I've deleted my post(I kinda hate that):devil: :D

I'm afraid that your mobo just isn't right material for encoding, I've seen some benches here and there, your mobo simply isn't great performer, yes this mobo indeed an Overclockers dream but it's just not enough when it comes to encoding, you really should look into some sort of dual channel solution IMHO if you want maximum performance out of your P4.

.P.S
Asus Rulz!!

[pug306d]

Hi thanks for the advice, what would you suggest? the new Asus P4 E7205 Deluxe mobo? The dual channel boards are rare at the moment.

I have always had Abit boards in the past and found them to be very good but thought I'd give the Gigagyte a go this time as it seemed a good board with all its features and does ok from the benchmarks I've seen.

What sort of speed would you expect from a dual channel mobo then?

Thanks

[Ramirez]

What would you suggest? The new Asus P4 E7205 Deluxe mobo?

No,not recommended,this chipset only allows synchronous operation between the CPU FSB and the memory,(only DDR-266 Supported),in order to use DDR-333 with this mobo you'll have to raise FSB to 166 MHz,isn't worth it IMHO.Instead I'd recommend you to have a look at this mobo -Asus P4SDX- (http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4sdx/overview.htm) Review. (http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/20030312/sis655-07.html)
Another worth looking mobo from asus might be this one -AsusP4T533-C (http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4t533/overview.htm) Great mobo and truly top performer.(kinda costly but worth it IMHO) Review. (http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/20020624/i850e-07.html)

Good luck :)

[Milkman Dan]

What chipset does that Gigabyte board use? The Via one?

Down with Via...

Anyway, I'd hold off on getting a dual-channel P4 board until Canterwood/Springfield comes out, which isn't too awful long.

Speed with VFAPI is going to be considerably slower than with pure YUY2 Avisynth, because of the colorspace conversions. In fact, if you enable the log file in CCE, it will show you the percentage of time it spends on the encoders and the color space algo. Useful information.

[pug306d]

My current Gigabyte uses the 845PE chipset, I am also not a fan of via chipsets as I have had some bad experiences in the past with them on AMD setup's.

Never tried SIS chipsets but I dont really want to use RAMBUS memory due to its high price and its a dying breed these days.

I'd prefer not to upgrade my CPU again so soon, what chip set's are expected to support the new canterwood CPU's? will the Granite Bay chipset support it do you think?

[Milkman Dan]

Originally posted by pug306d
My current Gigabyte uses the 845PE chipset, I am also not a fan of via chipsets as I have had some bad experiences in the past with them on AMD setup's.

Never tried SIS chipsets but I dont really want to use RAMBUS memory due to its high price and its a dying breed these days.

I'd prefer not to upgrade my CPU again so soon, what chip set's are expected to support the new canterwood CPU's? will the Granite Bay chipset support it do you think?


Sorry, I should have been clearer. Springfield and Canterwood are dual channel chipsets for P4 that are due out in late spring. Canterwood should also use a newer ICH (ICH-5) that supports Serial ATA natively.

The 845PE should be the best chipset for a P4 owner right now, more or less, so I'm surprised at the comments that the board doesn't take advantage of the CPU. Someone care to explain or link to these benchmarks that should the Gigabyte board being more than 2-3% slower?

[Ramirez]

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

The 845PE should be the best chipset for a P4 owner right now, more or less, so I'm surprised at the comments that the board doesn't take advantage of the CPU. Someone care to explain or link to these benchmarks that should the Gigabyte board being more than 2-3% slower?
Ask and you shall receive... Roundup: Seven Intel 845PE Based Mainboards (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/i845pe-roundup_2.html)

Believe me; none of the gigabyte's mobos are made with performance in mind.AFAIK performance was never a top priority for Gigabyte,they rather make their mobos stable and reliable and only then speedy,and they are rock stable even when based on the crapiest Via's chipsets.

Besides that the whole idea behind this chipset is wrong IMHO, it's rather waste of time and money to put such as bandwidth hungry processor as P4 on a single channel memory based mobo like i845pe, poor memory throughput makes it virtually impossible to achieve any reasonable level of performance like you would with any good quality dual channel mobo.

[Milkman Dan]

Originally posted by Ramirez
Ask and you shall receive... Roundup: Seven Intel 845PE Based Mainboards (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/i845pe-roundup_2.html)

Believe me; none of the gigabyte's mobos are made with performance in mind.AFAIK performance was never a top priority for Gigabyte,they rather make their mobos stable and reliable and only then speedy,and they are rock stable even when based on the crapiest Via's chipsets.

Besides that the whole idea behind this chipset is wrong IMHO, it's rather waste of time and money to put such as bandwidth hungry processor as P4 on a single channel memory based mobo like i845pe, poor memory throughput makes it virtually impossible to achieve any reasonable level of performance like you would with any good quality dual channel mobo.

This is true. However, I would rather pay less for a DDR solution than an overpriced RDRAM one. You can take a 10% hit on performance (real life, not synthetic) stepping down from RDRAM, but really, it isn't going to matter most of the time.

But I imagine that all the same, Canterwood is going to sell quite well.

[Ramirez]

Yes of course, like you I'd rather spent my hard earn cash on some Dual channel DDR mobo (undoubtedly made by Asus) :rolleyes: As for the Springdale and Canterwoods mobos to be a sells hit...hmm I'm afraid that there is not much chances for that to happen, not immediately anyway,too new and advanced stuff especially canterwoods, ECC DDR, Turbo Mode, SerialATA-150 hrhrrh yummy, it's gonna cost ya :D

[Milkman Dan]

Originally posted by Ramirez
Yes of course, like you I'd rather spent my hard earn cash on some Dual channel DDR mobo (undoubtedly made by Asus) :rolleyes: As for the Springdale and Canterwoods mobos to be a sells hit...hmm I'm afraid that there is not much chances for that to happen, not immediately anyway,too new and advanced stuff especially canterwoods, ECC DDR, Turbo Mode, SerialATA-150 hrhrrh yummy, it's gonna cost ya :D

Well, having read the linked review, I'm not conviced that the Gigabyte board is bad. While it consistantly ranked at the bottom, the actual difference between it and the lead board was at best a little over 1%, which would be well within the margin of error for those tests.

Anyway, advanced stuff never stopped overclockers and ethusiasts, and certainly no one on these boards. I doubt the price primium is really going to be all that bad.

[Ramirez]

Originally posted by Milkman Dan

Anyway, advanced stuff never stopped overclockers and ethusiasts, and certainly no one on these boards. I doubt the price primium is really going to be all that bad.
You seem slightly misunderstood my post (I was kinda in hurry when I wrote it)What I actually meant is that these chipsets are way too advanced to make a cheap Mobos based on it right from the start, its might take a while for prices to drop significantly,and even then they'll probably remain pretty high,Only time will tell the truth.

As for the i845pe mobo,I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole if I where in task of putting up an encoding machine,but hey that's just my personal opinion.

Peace.
Ramirez

[Milkman Dan]

Originally posted by Ramirez
You seem slightly misunderstood my most (I was kinda in hurry when I wrote it)What I actually meant is that these chipsets are way too advanced to make a cheap Mobos based on it right from the start, its might take a while for prices to drop significantly,and even then they'll probably remain pretty high,Only time will tell the truth.

As for the i845pe mobo,I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole if I where in task of putting up an encoding machine,but hey that's just my personal opinion.

Peace.
Ramirez

No, I understood that. I just didn't see why it mattered is all.

And again, RDRAM is too expensive an option for some people. I think the 845 is one of the best chipsets Intel has made.

[pug306d]

Well having been impressed with all the features on my Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra 2 I decided to take the advice given here and change it for gigabytes dual channel solution 8INXP.

I know what people have said about the gigabyte boards and stabilty + features is something I need such as the 4 IDE ports no Asus mobo offers this. The 2 boards are nearly identical apart from minor layout changes and the chipset, I removed my old mobo and out the new one in XP found some new devices rebooted and thats was it my raid was still working + my network card etc - really impressed with that!

With the 8PE667 Ultra 2 board and DDR266 memory @133 FSB I was getting about 1.2/1.3 in CCE with it @150FSB I got about 1.5 with DDR400 memory with a FSB @160 I was at about 1.5/1.6 in CCE. With the 8INXP dual channel mobo with DDR266 memory FSB @150 I'm getting 1.8/1.9 definetly a noticable difference in performance! The memory is running at DDR300 I have pushed the FSB to 160 but the system was unstable I think this is due to my memory though so may get some decent CAS2 low latency memory next.

one more thing with my 8PE 667 board the CPU temp never went above 52C when encoding now the CPU does reach higher temperatures (up to 57C) so I think the new board is working the CPU harder!

Does anyone know at what temp the P4 will slow down to prevent from over heating? Definetly a new cooler is on my wish list aswell but most of the reviews I've seen for P4 coolers only offer about a 2C difference over the standard cooler!

Thanks for your advice.

[Milkman Dan]

Nice performance increase there. The p4 is definitely taking advantage of the dual-channel memory.

I think the temp has to be much higher for the protection to kick in. But I don't know for sure.