AMD and multitasking

[archaeo]

Quick question for AMD users -

I do a lot of video encoding with CCE, and my current system (dual PIII 1 gHz xeons) has now seen better days - it overheated recently, and has been acting squirrelly since then. It's time for a new system :D

My question is this - while encoding I will sometimes multi-task at the computer, something that is not too CPU intensive, like browsing the internet, working in a Word document, etc.. I do like the ability to do something else while CCE is running. I was able to do this fairly well w/ my dualie, but am wondering if a AMD based system (I'm looking at a athlon64 xp 3800+) would be able to multi task efficiently in this environment? I have read some users stating that when encoding, the AMD has little extra to spare for other tasks. I could go back to a dual Pentium system again, but I like what I have read about the speed of the athlons w/ video stream encoding. The dual core athlons are not in my price range right now, so that is out. Any comments appreciated.

[Sirber]

I multi-task with my single core AMD 3000+. Just set the encoder at "Low Priority" so your browsing is not bothered by the encoding.

[archaeo]

I multi-task with my single core AMD 3000+. Just set the encoder at "Low Priority" so your browsing is not bothered by the encoding.

@Sirber,

Yeah, that's always an option. So, do you encode, and if so, have you noticed some slowdowns or bottlenecks on your AMD when you have your processor priority at normal?

[CWR03]

I multitask all the time with an Athlon XP 2000+, including gaming and encoding at the same time - with VirtualDubMod set to lowest priority there's still an occasional hiccup in the game video, and encoding grinds to a crawl in the background, but it's acceptable. This is with Half-Life² set at fairly high quality video settings.

[Nematocyst]

I don't understand why Vdub and its variants default to normal priority. Same with audio encoding tools. These things should default to < normal. I had to write a small script for BeLight to lower the encoder priority when the GUI starts since the program doesn't retain the setting in INI or registry.

Anything < normal would do. I tend to prefer audio encoding usurp video encoding, so I have VdubMod at idle, and lame running between idle and normal. It's one of the first things I must do when I set up a new encoding machine.

But anyway, I'm running an AMD Athlon XP and have no trouble at all multitasking. I removed my capture card, but I used to play starcraft and capture at the same time, and with 0 dropped frames. So it's clearly doable.

[Eretria-chan]

But there is a setting in vdub that allows you to set the default priority of all your encodes...
Also using amd here, and a lot of multitasking always. There seems to be no problems as long as you have lots of ram!

[archaeo]

Well this is good to hear, thanks for your feedback. At this point I think I'll be jumping over to Athlon, since my primary use is MPEG encoding, and the performance reviews for these chipsets seem to be, on average, better than pentium, dollar for dollar.

[Amnon82]

Use an AMD Athlon 64 or Athlon X2 64 CPU. X2 is a dualcore CPU. Use the patch of MS to get rid of the dualcore problem MS has.

I've an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ atm. Works great with CCE and has only 40 °C at 100% CPU usage.

[archaeo]

I've an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ atm. Works great with CCE and has only 40 °C at 100% CPU usage.

Amnon, what are your typical encoding speeds with this processor?
And 40C is excellent, as I'm finding that my PIII's are running right around 60C much of the time during encoding - the top end of the range.
As I mentioned, my chips overheated recently. I think it happened when something froze the processing at a very high level during an encode, probably at 100% for an extended period. I came back into the room hours later to that unforgiving smell of burning plastic. bad. very bad.

[theReal]

No matter what CPU you use you always have to care for good cooling. With some cheap crappy cooler (or with a cooler not well attached) you can also overheat an Athlon 64...

[rollers333]

Use an AMD Athlon 64 or Athlon X2 64 CPU. X2 is a dualcore CPU. Use the patch of MS to get rid of the dualcore problem MS has.

I've an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ atm. Works great with CCE and has only 40 °C at 100% CPU usage.

What motherboard do you have? Do you have stock heatsink and fan, or anything extra? I've been trying to decide between the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ or the 3.4 GHz P4 HT 650...

Any opinions of which would be better for DVDShrink?

[CWR03]

I don't know how much things have changed, but at one time an Intel was recommended over AMD for encoding. Now there are dual core processors, and from what I've read it makes these decisions much harder because one "core" would run encode while another would remain free for other functions. Perhaps someone has some more recent specs.

[foxyshadis]

That's how it would have worked a couple years ago, when most encoders were single-threaded, but these days all the big AVC/ASP encoders (and I'm sure many other formats) use multithreaded encoding.

If you're curious how two processors stack up to each other in encoding prowess, most hardware sites have archives of encoding benchmarks these days. The only thing besides raw power that might change it is Intel's very superior SSE2/3 speed.

Though I'm not sure how performance-wise those two stack up, the AMD will run significantly cooler even overclocked. You might take that into consideration.

[DVD_GR]

Quick question for AMD users -

I do a lot of video encoding with CCE, and my current system (dual PIII 1 gHz xeons) has now seen better days - it overheated recently, and has been acting squirrelly since then. It's time for a new system :D

My question is this - while encoding I will sometimes multi-task at the computer, something that is not too CPU intensive, like browsing the internet, working in a Word document, etc.. I do like the ability to do something else while CCE is running. I was able to do this fairly well w/ my dualie, but am wondering if a AMD based system (I'm looking at a athlon64 xp 3800+) would be able to multi task efficiently in this environment? I have read some users stating that when encoding, the AMD has little extra to spare for other tasks. I could go back to a dual Pentium system again, but I like what I have read about the speed of the athlons w/ video stream encoding. The dual core athlons are not in my price range right now, so that is out. Any comments appreciated.

regarding specially mpeg-2 encoding amd's architecture is far beyond intel....
In your position I would get and opteron dual core....
it has nothing to do with common dual cores,better IMC better design,more efficient and the most important part better oc...!

[cudaboy]

It boils down to price and prefrence. I used to be an intel person and building an AMD xp2500 system changed my mind. Once the system got a little dated i tried some of the new (at the time) Intel setups figuting the faster bus speed and ht tech would help, the systems were a little faster then what I currently had so for s&g's I overclocked my 2500 to 3200 and kept running. It was a night and day speed jump and cost me 0. So I have to give credit where its due in respect to processors. Im not much of a gamer but i've had no problems encoding and playing Generals O hour at the same time. The only real suggestion I was told when I build the system a fiew years back was get as much system memory I could afford. So I shelled out the $ and got 2 gig of pc3200.