AMD system suggestion please...

[Polarbear]

Hello,

Please offer suggestion for my situation, all you hardware guru's. I have not dealt with computer system / hardware in quite a while. Thanx in advance.

Currently have an AMD 2000+, used primarily for encoding DVD -> Divx5. The mobo supports up to 2600+. Here is the question:

Should I upgrade simply my CPU from AMD 2000+ to 2600+ and would I see much of a speed increase in primarily, Divx encoding? OR, should I go with the alternative of either getting a barebone dual AMD system or one of those superfast (I have no clue how fast they go now) single CPU AMD barebone or even a barebone Intel? (I do not need the harddrive, DVD drive, CD-R drive, or monitor.) Once again, the system will be used pretty much solely for Divx encoding (FPS), and yes, price IS a consideration, thus why I leaned toward AMD. And no overclocking will be considered, since next to price, reliability is the immediate next concern.

If someone suggested dual AMD MP's, since they seem to be fairly cheap, comparatively speaking for the performance, please suggest a dual AMD mobo that is realiable.

Thanx again to everyone that read through this, either able to offer a helping hand or not.

-Polarbear

[avih]

if u decide to upgrade, i'd like to buy your board + cpu (+ ram?), i could use an upgrade ;)

[symonjfox]

I'd wait for Athlon 64 ...

for me has no sense to upgrade your machine 2000+ just for a 2600+. Yes, dual proc. maybe increase something but remember that 2 X 2600 doesn't mean 5200 ... but less (there are memory and disks latency, and the processors must comunicate each other to perform the work together, the software MUST be OPTIMIZED for this, else you'll get 50% occupation).

Or buy an Opteron now if you can ... but, I remember ... I'd wait.
PS: I've an Athlon 1700+ and I encode Xvid @ 8 fps ... I'd like to upgrade me,too

[Solo]

This review should help you decide.
http://www.hardwarereview.net/Reviews/AMD%20Athlon%20MP2600/AMD%20Athlon%20MP2600.htm
If you only want fastest divx encoding then go dual cpu.
If you want more flexible system (i.e) gaming as well then single.
Above article shows the following: (Not exact figures, but reading from the graph).
Using DivX 5.02 + avisynth + VirtualDub (couple of filters).
Single AMD 3200+ = p1 (ave 45 fps) p2 (ave 72 fps) = 58.5 ave fps
(i.e) 82 min for 90 min movie.
Single AMD 3000+ = p1 (ave 38 fps) p2 (ave 55 fps) = 46.5 ave fps
(i.e) 100 min for 90 min movie.
DUAL AMD 2600MP = p1 (ave 62 fps) p2 (ave 80 fps) = 71 ave fps !!!!!
(i.e) 64 min for 90 min movie !!!!!
I'd say the figures speak for themselves (for divx encoding at least).
Motherboards (not many options though) Include:
Gigabyte GA-7DPXDW
MSI K7D Master
Tyan Tiger MPX (S2466N-4M)
ASUS A7M266-D
Chaintec (Model???)
These dual CPU boards are based on AMD chipset though so you cannot
take advantage of the nForce2 chipset that the single CPU boards have.
Also these boards seem to be limited to using 266 mhz RAM and you need
a bigger PSU to give them that extra juice for CPU's.
Hope this helps you.

[avih]

it could be just me, but i have Chaintec board (7AJA2) and it's giving me too much troubles. my next board will NOT be chaintec for sure.

[Solo]

Personally I'd go for the ASUS A7N8X with fast single CPU
and some DDR400 RAM.
Strange - all the reviews I've read on the new Chaintec boards
rate them very highly.

[avih]

well, i have an old chaintech board (2+ years) http://www.chaintechusa.com/products/socketa/7aja2.htm . i get pci problems when capturing (VIA chipset), and i've trashed 3 HDDs and 2 cd-writers since i've started using this board (some under warranty). changed power supply to try to solve this stuff. didn't help. and lately, i get BSOD at least once in a day or 2, on XP-pro! that means i need an upgrade asap ;) but then again, something could be really messed up with my configuration, or i could have a faulty board.

on the plus side though, the onboard 5.1 sound is nice, and the bios is very configurable. OC, voltages, etc.

[Solo]

Hi avih
I also currently have a board based on VIA Apollo KT133A/686B chipset
the Gigabyte GA-7ZH-H. Your right, this VIA chipset sucks. I couldn't install a SoundBlaster Live card on this board and after
much distress and research I found out it won't work with the 686B
southbridge under XP. Even with the latest drivers. So got rid of card and settled for Winfast Sound Card based on the CMedia 8738 6ch chipset as well. I only use it for spdif output to dd amp. Didn't work at first but, the AC3 FAQ in these forums got it going (i.e. "wave out" NOT "direct sound out"). It does give a great AC3
throughput. Anyway hope you get that upgrade soon. I still have my
1.4 ghz AMD Thunderbird. Best thing I ever did was switch from
Celeron to AMD !!! Yeh baby.

[Ramirez]

Very strange, I have exact the same mobo at my work and since ages I have Sound blaster live installed on it, I haven't had a single problem to get it working under winxp pro, furthermore we used to sell hundreds of these to our clients and we have not recorded a single complain of our costumers regarding this mobos, I'm not talking about various implementation of this chipset,but this specific one by gigabyte GA-7ZXH, which is IMHO is far far away from being a crap,very good and reliable mobo.

[Solo]

Well I did find the following in my research and even the official
documentation that came with the soundcard warned against using
it with 686B southbridge.
Other than that I love the Gigabyte boards though.
There is a patch for people with older VIA chips to increase
stabiltiy. (i.e.) "PCI Latency" patch for VIA chipsets.
Read more here:
http://adsl.cutw.net/dlink-dsl200-via.html
and patch from here
http://www.georgebreese.com/net/software/
avih - you might want to try this patch.
My PC used to become VERY unstable while ripping DVD's from my
8x LD DVD-ROM and the sound would go all funky if listening to an MP3
at the same time. The above patch seemed to help the problem!
Since then I upgrade to a 400WATT Antec PSU and 16x LG DVD-ROM and
after reinstalling XP the system runs perfect (no patch).

[avih]

@solo:
thanks, i'll give it a try.

cheers.

[ppera2]

If you have MB with SDR, buying DDR will increase encoding speed with same CPU at least 15%.
Other thing is work with 2 Hard drive - one for source and other for target. It will increase speed, and lifetime of drives (much less head movement).

[Solo]

I'm going to get myself one the Soltek nForce2 Ultra400 boards.
It's only just become available here by me and is 50% less than
any other board with RAID. Half the price of the ASUS A7N8X and in
some benchmarks even out-performs it.
Some reviews.
http://www.soltek.com.tw/English/product/75frn-rl.htm
http://www.maximumoc.com/reviews/solteksl-75frn.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20...1boards-12.html
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/moth...cle.php/2204281
http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Soltek/75FRNR/page9.htm
http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dTyp...dId=447&dPage=8
http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/moth...ews/1244_1.html
http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/soltek-75frnl
http://www.cdrlabs.com/articles/index.php?...cleid=21&page=1
http://www.bleedinedge.com/reviews/soltek_sl-75frn2-rl/soltek_sl-75frn2-rl_pg1.html

Anyone else got one ?

[benf2]

I am running an Athlon xp2100 on a msi kt4ultra motherboard with 1gig of p2700ddr ram and 2 ide 133 hard drives in a raid 0 configuration. I too am trying to decide what to do. Do i buy a athlon 2700 now that the prices droped and take advantage of the bus speed increase to match that of the ram or build a new system...either go dual amds or a single 2.8ghz pentium with the new azus board....hmmm:confused:

[itstime98]

Go a dual athlonXP system, not MP. But check to see if dual XP's can be still used in a 2CPU system. Go to the forum on the site, http://www.2cpu.com to get your answers. I have a Tyan Tiger MPX system with 2 AthlonXP’s +1700 and they encode DivX very quickly because of the SMP optimisations. 2CPU’s can be slower in some situations like playing games but I don’t know whether you would notice, I don’t play games so don’t know.

[Sirber]

Will running DDR333 @ 400 boost my encoding speed? My case is well ventilated.

[pnl]

I used to be an ASUS fan. Seems they have quality issues now. I tried flashing the motherboard, A7V8X, and now it won't post. The flash went successfully, but now it doesn't like the processor, a 1800+. A lot of people encountered similar problems on this board and on the A7N8X. I tried resetting the CMOS, taking all the parts out and putting them back in, but no luck. Saw a post where an ASUS rep said that the board is certified to use only the newer Thoroughbred core (mine is Palomino) which I think is b.s. because it was working perfectly right before. I'm waiting to receive a 2500+ to see if this will remedy the situation, if not I'm going to try to RMA the board.

[kastro68]

Did you try hot flashing?

You would need the bios of an identical mobo. Put good bios onto you mobo, boot, then pull it off and put your old bios back and then flash.

[Ramirez]

Hot flashing won't work here because the bios chip itself is none removable (it's actually soldered into the A7V8X mobo); IMHO Asus (and others) has made a really bad decision to implement that kinda dangerous design on a single bios mobo.

[pnl]

The bios is actually removable. I didn't have a bios chip available and I didn't want to risk breaking my friend's motherboard(different board but similar chip) cause then I would have to replace two motherboards instead of one. The 2500+ core didn't help any. I RMAed the board back to NewEgg since it was still under warranty. I'm just waiting for the replacement board now. Can't believe how much the price has dropped; A7V8X-X is only $69. Of course if I was going to get a board now, it would probably be nForce2 based.

[Ramirez]

You're right, in fact none of the Asus motherboards has a none removable BIOS,Dunno why I was under that impression(my apology Asus :D)

Btw: you couldn't possible break anything, it's only takes one paper clip and a gentle push in the corner of the BIOS socket to dig it out > abs risk free.
Nevermind it's too late now anyway, still you can always use this procedure for your next "Bad Flashing" accident.(Just kidding :))

[sh0dan]

@pnl: It should be possible to re-flash the A7N8X - I don't know if that helps you:

Q. I flashed with the wrong file. Or my flash was incomplete. Is there any way to recover?
A. If your floppy drive seeks on power up and then stops after a short period of time, you may have a chance to recover. The following information was obtained from Wim's Bios http://www.wimsbios.com/ FAQ's. Corrections on AWARD Bios by Terry McGuire.

Award: The boot-block BIOS will execute an AUTOEXEC.BAT file on a bootable diskette. Copy an Award flasher & the correct BIOS *.bin file on the floppy and execute it automatically by putting AWDFLASH *.bin /sn /py /cc /r in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The * would be the correct bios .bin file and there must be spaces between the slash marks. Put it in the floppy and turn on the computer when the floppy seeks it will load the correct bios and reboot by itself. When it finishes you have to remove the floppy and enter the CMOS SETUP and modify the CMOS for your configuration.

(From the nforcehq forum (http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3199)).

[pnl]

Yeah, I had tried that before I sent the board back, but it does not attempt to boot from any device upon startup. It just hangs when it tries to detect the cpu. I have already received the replacement board, seems they sent me the Deluxe version instead of the plain vanilla version. Everything works now.

[Solo]

I've just finished doing my upgrade so I'll give you guys some figures just incase
you were considering an upgrade.

TOOLS:
AviSynth 2.5
DVD2AVI 1.76
VitrualDubMod 1.5.1.1.a
DivX 5.05 Pro Codec

SOURCE:
Red Dragon (PAL) Time: 1.59.19 Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Frames: 178983

AVS SCRIPT:
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\MPEG2Dec3.dll")
mpeg2source("E:\PROJECTS\Red Dragon\Red Dragon.d2v")
crop(0,74,720,436)
LanczosResize(704,288)

SETTINGS:
DivX 5.05: Original 2-Pass, First+Second
Only Bidirectional encoding enabled.
Bitrate: 1240
Target= 2CD with AC3 sound.
VirtualDubMod = Fast Recompress

OLD SYSTEM:
AMD 1.4Ghz Thunderbird CPU
512MB PC133 Memory
Gigabyte
40+120 Gig 7200rmp Western Digital's

NEW SYSTEM:
AMD AthlonXP 2800+ BARTON CPU
512MB DDR400 Memory
SOLTEK SL-75FRN2-RL nForce2 Board
40+120 Gig 7200rmp Western Digital's

COMPARISON:
First Pass - Old System = 142 min New System = (Didn't do because so close to second)
Second Pass - Old System = 145 min New System = 79 min
About 66 minutes quicker on pass 2 which would be just over 2 hours quicker on two pass
with new system. Average of about 38 frames per second.

Needless to say I'm happy with my upgrade.

[erbuk]

Nice :) But personally I don't think its worth the money. Since it still takes three hours (should be someting like 5-6 with XviD) I would keep on running the compression during the night or when I'm at work. And then it doesn't matter if it takes three or six hours.

Better to use the money saved to buy more DVDs and DVDRs;)