Is the A64 any good for CCE?

[Vertigo1]

I'm currently running an Athlon XP3200 and am contemplating upgrading to an A64, but was wondering how they compare for CCE encoding performance? Am I likely to see much, if any, improvement in performance if I go to an A64 3000 or 3200, or would I have to start looking at a 3700 before I'm going to get any real improvement?

Thanks for any advice :)

[coona]

You can start with reading this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66134). At the very end of this long thread there is a table sorting all results from this testing. It is not analyzed yet so evaluation is up to you.

Results are related to DDogg´s "torture encoding test". Encoding speeds of real mpeg source are higher...

[Vertigo1]

I did spot that thread after I posted, but can't see any table at the end of the thread :confused:

[erdoke]

Check this out:
Video Encoding CPU roundup (http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/intelamdcpuroundupvideo/) ;)

[Vertigo1]

Cheers erdoke, very useful indeed.

Based on those results, I think going the P4 route may be a better bet than A64 for the moment. Ok I don't get 64-bit but by the time XP appears for 64-bit and there's a decent amount of app support, it'll be time to upgrade again.

[Diable]

Are you doing SVCD or DVD encoding? If your re-encoding DVD's get a P4. My non-overclocked 3GHz P4 was much faster (3.2RT vs. 2.4RT) than my overclocked A64 (it was running at 2.2GHz or the same speed as a 3400+ A64)

If your doing SVCD encoding get a A64. Using DVD2SVCD the best I could get from the P4 was 1.4RT while the A64 was getting 2.11RT using bicubic resize.

[Amnon82]

I've also a P4 3.06 and I get RT 2.5 at DVDEncoding. SVCD is at RT 2.4.
I'm running on WinXP and Intel 865PE Chipset

[erdoke]

Generally speaking if the computer is not for video encoding all day and all week, it doesn't really matter what platform to choose.
If CCE takes 20 minutes longer on an A64 machine, it's not a big deal.
And vice versa, running SVCD or DivX/XviD encoding 20 minutes longer on a P4 configuration doesn't matter much either.
I'd used a Nortwood core 3,2@3,6 GHz P4 for a couple of months and since May I use an Opteron based workstation. CCE encoding takes a bit longer but other apps run faster on Opteron. I just feel better with the Opteron and the registered ECC memory, ECC L1/L2 cache, etc.:)

[Vertigo1]

Thanks for the replies guys, FYI I ended up getting a P4 3.2 in the end.

Now I'm wondering about the effects of HT and whether it's best to have it on or off for CCE encoding, as with it on the total CPU usage is only around 67%.

Out of interest what do you guys find?

[erdoke]

Originally posted by Vertigo1

Now I'm wondering about the effects of HT and whether it's best to have it on or off for CCE encoding, as with it on the total CPU usage is only around 67%.


Leave it ON. Though CCE versions up to 2.67 don't have a HT support, Windows makes it active with CCE.
67 % means that your two "processors" are loaded up to this level, so if you turn HT off, the maximum can be 50 % on that scale.

[KeyserSoze]

Guys,
did you actualy tried to use CCE 2.5 with a A64 to see the difference in speed between a P4 ;)