Good PC for x264 encoding - Page 2

nm · 23rd February 2010, 14:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esurnir

Actually placebo give a bit less than a percentage point improvement over veryslow according to Dark Shikari

Yea, sounds familiar. I got a 4 % difference (file size at the same SSIM) between placebo and slower on the last Star Trek trailer. Anime could get a bit larger gain, I guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xandercage

It looks like I can use with this combination 36 threads for encoding, but how many threads support build x264???

You may need to do some tweaking to keep those CPUs fully saturated. The thread pool patch could help, for example. With that much memory, you can easily run multiple encodes at once though.

mariush · 23rd February 2010, 14:27

Blue_MiSfit · 25th February 2010, 01:35

A Dell Precision T5500 workstation or a PowerEdge R710 server will get you a dual Xeon 5520 system with at least 8GB of RAM, and a fully supported system for about that cost...

~MiSfit

mariush · 25th February 2010, 02:23

I've been actually looking at Dell's site and tried to build a Txxx workstation using their online tools but it quickly got over 3000$... now if you're really interested (and as I understand your company buys in volume) you can get a sales agent which I believe can give you even 25% discounts on the price or a good deal.

I know that if you buy at least several systems you get your own agent with which you can talk through emails or phones and they give you quotes but for a single system I don't know what to say...

Anyway, if he's really serious about it, he should wait for AMD's 8 and 12 core chips... they're coming up in a month or so. The 8 core @ 1.7 ghz is only 260$ , with 8 core @ 1.9 ghz for about 450, and 12 core @ 2.26 ghz (I believe) at around 1600$ - of course there'll be cheaper 12 core chips at less than 1k at lower frequencies..

So you could get a 500-800$ motherboard with 4 sockets, 4 of these amd cpus at about 800$ each, 4 ddr3 modules per cpu ( they're quad channel cpus) and you have a sweet encoding machine. Imagine, 48 cores...

Two motherboards shown here... http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12395/...tex/index.html To be honest now that I look at them I don't see how you'd fit 4 sockets and all those dimm slots on a motherboard, even if it's extended atx or ssi or whatever standard rackable cases use nowadays

Caroliano · 2nd March 2010, 14:45

I'm not sure if so many threads will not significantly impact the quality of the encode. Maybe you can loss more quality than you gain going from very slow to placebo.

So far, the best sugestion is from stax76. With 5k euros you can buy 75 terabytes in HDs. This is sufficient for maybe 2k blu-ray isos, with no quality loss due transcoding. Or you can do an ~10 times faster encode that ends up with the same quality but ~20% bigger filesize, and have space for much more blu-rays.

And as already said, placebo is placebo. In some test encodes that I run on anime, it is less than 0.04db of difference compared with --preset veryslow, with --tune psnr, and more than 3 times slower. If I'm bottlenecked by avisynth, I run 2 encodes at the same time. If you don't have any encodes to do in the pipeline, you can donate your spare CPU cycles to BOINC or folding@home, or simply save a bit on your power bill.

xandercage · 10th March 2010, 11:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caroliano

I'm not sure if so many threads will not significantly impact the quality of the encode. Maybe you can loss more quality than you gain going from very slow to placebo.

Yes this is realy good question too. How many threads can I set up for x264 encoding.
In megui I can use only 16.

Can someone confirm maximum of threads???
And is it right to many cores threds by encoding, can hurt on quality?

kemuri-_9 · 10th March 2010, 14:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by xandercage

Can someone confirm maximum of threads???

libx264 has a hardcoded thread limit of 128 encoding threads.
(the lookahead thread is separate of this so there can be 129 threads overall).

xandercage · 17th March 2010, 06:35

What do you experts think about this
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...reg_R1002_USEN

With two xeons e5520 or with better xeons...., like 5550 or 5570 12GB memory.

Blue_MiSfit · 17th March 2010, 07:06

Dell just put up the 6 core Xeon CPUs as an option for the PowerEdge R710. I'm ordering a few very soon

~MiSfit

mariush · 17th March 2010, 16:31

AMD will release the 8 and 12 core processors on the 29th. Hold on a bit, maybe you'll be able to get 4 socket, 4 x 8 core cpu system cheap.

xandercage · 17th March 2010, 18:52

I m waiting now.
What do you thing about this Workstation

Mobo
http://www.evga.com/articles/00537/

2xCPU xeon X5680
http://phonestechnology.blogspot.com...be-intels.html

Memory 48 GB

mariush · 17th March 2010, 19:36

That motherboard requires special case, with 9 extension slots... Those processors will be around 900$ each...

I'm seriously thinking of getting at least a dual socket G34 + 2 x 8 core amd's... The only issue is the lower frequency and maybe the lack of some SSE functions (though I'm not sure they'd be used by x264 for example).

This motherboard will be 350-500$...

Quote:

4S Magny cours (by Supermicro)

If that isn't enough, you can step up to the H8QG6-F, a 4 socket Magny-Cours machine. It has 6G SAS, LSI SAS controllers, dual LAN and remote KVM capabilities. You also can stuff in up to 512G of ram if you don't want to bother loading from those pesky HDs. Both Magny-Cours machines use the AMD SR5690 chips or variants of it.

I think this will probably be around 600-800$... though i found it listed on a site at 1700$ bundled with a case so who knows...

The processors are cheaper... the 8 core i mean... at 300$ it's a steal... and they have only 80W tdp compared to 130w on Intel..

8-core models

* 6124 HE, 1.8GHz, 65W ACP, $529
* 6128 HE, 2.0GHz, 65W ACP, $599
* 6128, 2.0GHz, 80W ACP, $309
* 6134, 2.3GHz, 80W ACP, $599
* 6136 2.4GHz, 80W ACP, $849

12-core models

* 6164 HE, 1.7GHz, 67W ACP, $879
* 6168, 1.9GHz, 80W ACP, $849
* 6172, 2.1GHz, 80W ACP, $1,149
* 6174, 2.2GHz, 80W ACP, $1,349
* 6176 SE, 2.3GHz, 105W ACP, $1,599

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/...evealed-early/
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/03/...oxes-pictured/

kolak · 17th March 2010, 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by kemuri-_9

libx264 has a hardcoded thread limit of 128 encoding threads.
(the lookahead thread is separate of this so there can be 129 threads overall).

http://www.2cpu.com/contentteller.ph...age=118,7.html

x264 doesn't seam to scale very well on new Xeon setup with 12 cores compared to 8 one.

Andrew

xandercage · 17th March 2010, 23:22

good qustion is with Operation system use for x264 encoding??

If I choose server motherboard wiht servers cpu s whitch OS I have to use?

kolak · 17th March 2010, 23:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by xandercage

good qustion is with Operation system use for x264 encoding??

If I choose server motherboard wiht servers cpu s whitch OS I have to use?

Does it really matter for x264?
I would go for 64bit Win 7

Andrew

xandercage · 18th March 2010, 06:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by kolak

Does it really matter for x264?
I would go for 64bit Win 7

Andrew

Me too, but does all server mother board support 64bit win 7???

I guess no.

orion44 · 18th March 2010, 11:24

Is it true that the higher you set x264 options, it increases
compression, but then the visual quality and image detail suffer?

orion44 · 18th March 2010, 11:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by nm

Why would you want to use insane encoding settings? x264's "placebo" preset gives perhaps 5-10% better quality/bitrate than "slower" while taking 300% more CPU time. Is a <10 % difference in file sizes really that significant for you?

If I had EUR 5k to waste on a personal encoding project, I'd put 1/5 of the money on a cheap Core i7 system and invest the rest to more productive purposes, like paying some developer to make x264 5% faster or keeping the beer flowing.

I have a AMD Sempron 2800+ with 1 GB of RAM
and I'm happy with x264 default settings

nm · 18th March 2010, 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by orion44

Is it true that the higher you set x264 options, it increases
compression, but then the visual quality and image detail suffer?

Generally no. Some parameters may have such an effect on CRF, but then you can compensate by using a lower CRF value. Slower presets will give you better quality per bitrate.

However, as you have noticed, it doesn't make much sense to use insanely slow settings for everyday encoding tasks. "Medium" and "slow" presets are quite good already and the small improvements from slowest presets come at great cost in encoding speed.

mariush · 18th March 2010, 14:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by xandercage

good qustion is with Operation system use for x264 encoding??

If I choose server motherboard wiht servers cpu s whitch OS I have to use?

Windows 7 Home Premium works with ONE cpu socket (number of cores doesn't matter).

Windows 7 Ultimate works with TWO cpu sockets.

You can use Windows 7 on server motherboards and processors but you may not find drivers for integrated audio or video or sometimes even the drive controller.

If you want Windows, it's best to use Windows 2003 or Windows 2008.

Windows 2003 feels like XP in classic mode and even accepts XP drivers.Just keep in mind Web edition works with 8GB max, Standard with 32 GB max and Enterprise with up to 2TB (though at about 2500$ who would buy it i wonder...)

Windows 2008 Standard is cheaper now, at around 400$ but I believe it has the same limitation of 32 GB of memory.

25th February 2010, 01:35	#23 \| Link
Blue_MiSfit Derek Prestegard IRL Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,989	A Dell Precision T5500 workstation or a PowerEdge R710 server will get you a dual Xeon 5520 system with at least 8GB of RAM, and a fully supported system for about that cost... ~MiSfit __________________ These are all my personal statements, not those of my employer :)

25th February 2010, 02:23	#24 \| Link
mariush Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 589	I've been actually looking at Dell's site and tried to build a Txxx workstation using their online tools but it quickly got over 3000$... now if you're really interested (and as I understand your company buys in volume) you can get a sales agent which I believe can give you even 25% discounts on the price or a good deal. I know that if you buy at least several systems you get your own agent with which you can talk through emails or phones and they give you quotes but for a single system I don't know what to say... Anyway, if he's really serious about it, he should wait for AMD's 8 and 12 core chips... they're coming up in a month or so. The 8 core @ 1.7 ghz is only 260$ , with 8 core @ 1.9 ghz for about 450, and 12 core @ 2.26 ghz (I believe) at around 1600$ - of course there'll be cheaper 12 core chips at less than 1k at lower frequencies.. So you could get a 500-800$ motherboard with 4 sockets, 4 of these amd cpus at about 800$ each, 4 ddr3 modules per cpu ( they're quad channel cpus) and you have a sweet encoding machine. Imagine, 48 cores... Two motherboards shown here... http://www.tweaktown.com/news/12395/...tex/index.html To be honest now that I look at them I don't see how you'd fit 4 sockets and all those dimm slots on a motherboard, even if it's extended atx or ssi or whatever standard rackable cases use nowadays Last edited by mariush; 25th February 2010 at 02:32.

17th March 2010, 07:06	#29 \| Link
Blue_MiSfit Derek Prestegard IRL Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,989	Dell just put up the 6 core Xeon CPUs as an option for the PowerEdge R710. I'm ordering a few very soon ~MiSfit __________________ These are all my personal statements, not those of my employer :)

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

23rd February 2010, 14:27	#22 \| Link
mariush Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 589	385$ 1 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131373 770$ 2 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117185 382$ 2 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148259 160$ 1 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119160 240$ 1 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139007 046$ 2 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835114090 160$ 1 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136296 100$ 1 x http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136284 2243$ 2 x 2.26 quad, 12 GB DDR3... cooler fans might be the only problem with the build above

2nd March 2010, 14:45	#25 \| Link
Caroliano Registered User Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: São Paulo, Brazil Posts: 392	I'm not sure if so many threads will not significantly impact the quality of the encode. Maybe you can loss more quality than you gain going from very slow to placebo. So far, the best sugestion is from stax76. With 5k euros you can buy 75 terabytes in HDs. This is sufficient for maybe 2k blu-ray isos, with no quality loss due transcoding. Or you can do an ~10 times faster encode that ends up with the same quality but ~20% bigger filesize, and have space for much more blu-rays. And as already said, placebo is placebo. In some test encodes that I run on anime, it is less than 0.04db of difference compared with --preset veryslow, with --tune psnr, and more than 3 times slower. If I'm bottlenecked by avisynth, I run 2 encodes at the same time. If you don't have any encodes to do in the pipeline, you can donate your spare CPU cycles to BOINC or folding@home, or simply save a bit on your power bill.

17th March 2010, 06:35	#28 \| Link
xandercage Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 37	What do you experts think about this http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en...reg_R1002_USEN With two xeons e5520 or with better xeons...., like 5550 or 5570 12GB memory.

17th March 2010, 16:31	#30 \| Link
mariush Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 589	AMD will release the 8 and 12 core processors on the 29th. Hold on a bit, maybe you'll be able to get 4 socket, 4 x 8 core cpu system cheap.

17th March 2010, 18:52	#31 \| Link
xandercage Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 37	I m waiting now. What do you thing about this Workstation Mobo http://www.evga.com/articles/00537/ 2xCPU xeon X5680 http://phonestechnology.blogspot.com...be-intels.html Memory 48 GB

17th March 2010, 23:22	#34 \| Link
xandercage Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 37	good qustion is with Operation system use for x264 encoding?? If I choose server motherboard wiht servers cpu s whitch OS I have to use?

18th March 2010, 11:24	#37 \| Link
orion44 None Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: The Background Posts: 307	Is it true that the higher you set x264 options, it increases compression, but then the visual quality and image detail suffer?