Good website for encoding benchmarks?

[sebazvideo]

I'm thinking about upgrading my computer to either an i7 and I would like to know, other than Tom's Hardware, if there's a good website to see benchmarks for encoding to h.264, even better if there were some specific to x264, but at least to h.264 to get a good idea, since cutting back on encoding time to x264 would be my main purpose for upgrading, and ideally I want to cut my encoding time in half, or as close as possible to that, without spending a ridiculous amount of money.

Also, is it possible to put two i7 CPUs in a dual CPU motherboard with compatible socket, or Xeons have to be used for dual configurations always?

Thanks

[Audionut]

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=2

[7ekno]

The AMD x6 does pretty good, and of the 3 I have built, all have clocked over 4GHz stable ...

Tek

[poisondeathray]

Also, is it possible to put two i7 CPUs in a dual CPU motherboard with compatible socket, or Xeons have to be used for dual configurations always?



No.

You need DP xeons which have a 2nd QPI link. Note there are single socket xeon variants as well, and they don't work in DP configuration, so don't get the wrong model

There is only 1 dual socket workstation board that has overclocking features, the EVGA SR-2

[CpT]

I would checkout anandtech's cpu reviews. They usually toss in x264 results.
http://www.anandtech.com/tag/cpus

If you're gonna overclock grab a I7 930 and a decent mobo.
Every 930 I've seen hits 4.0Ghz+ with moderate cooling and very little effort.
The xeons are great but are generally more expensive.

The new amd 6 core chips are cheap as hell but clock for clock they can't beat a quad core I7.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/6
/Would love to see a dual socket mobo for these chips ;)

[sebazvideo]

I would checkout anandtech's cpu reviews. They usually toss in x264 results.
http://www.anandtech.com/tag/cpus

If you're gonna overclock grab a I7 930 and a decent mobo.
Every 930 I've seen hits 4.0Ghz+ with moderate cooling and very little effort.
The xeons are great but are generally more expensive.


Thanks, Anandtech's benchmarks look better, the TechArp ones are laid out as a jpeg so I can 't even search for my current CPU or any other CPU I might want to compare it to easily, I have to scroll and look for it.

Ideally I don't want to overclock, unless it gives me absolute stability. My current motherboard is an Intel D975XBX2, which apparently is difficult to overclock, does anybody here have any clue on that? I realize is not an Intel motherboards forum, but any tip or URL would be appreciated.

[mariush]

I would checkout anandtech's cpu reviews. They usually toss in x264 results.
http://www.anandtech.com/tag/cpus

If you're gonna overclock grab a I7 930 and a decent mobo.
Every 930 I've seen hits 4.0Ghz+ with moderate cooling and very little effort.
The xeons are great but are generally more expensive.

The new amd 6 core chips are cheap as hell but clock for clock they can't beat a quad core I7.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3674/amds-sixcore-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-1055t-reviewed/6
/Would love to see a dual socket mobo for these chips ;)

I can only see the 1055T at 2.8 Ghz on newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103851) at 204$.

For 299$ you can get 2.0 - 2.1Ghz 8 core server processor on the G34 socket - newegg had them but took them out and they only list the 2.3 ghz 8 core at 530$

The 12 core 1.9 ghz is 770$ - still cheap compared to the six core intel extreme, though I admit the intel can be overclocked heavily and has hyperthreading.

I personally was quoted by a company here in Europe 1050$ (21% vat included) for 2 of those 2.1ghz 8 core processors and the asus server motherboard with 2 processors sockets (http://ncix.com/products/?sku=53258&vpn=KGPE-D16%28ASMB4-IKVM%29&manufacture=ASUS) which is about 450$ on newegg.

If i didn't have already a good system that's enough for my needs, I would have jumped on it. as it now, i would have had to get another case (as the board is extended atx) and ddr 3 so costs would be a bit high just to get probably 50% better speed at encoding when I do encoding once a week.

[CpT]

Ideally I don't want to overclock, unless it gives me absolute stability. My current motherboard is an Intel D975XBX2, which apparently is difficult to overclock, does anybody here have any clue on that? I realize is not an Intel motherboards forum, but any tip or URL would be appreciated.

I've never used that board personally but there's tons of info on clocking it via google: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=overclocking+Intel+D975XBX2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=overclocking+Intel+D975XBX2&gs_rfai=&fp=119c5f3496e7bdc2

A little side note: I ran a q9550 @ 4.1-4.4ghz 24/7 for almost a year. Paired with a ud3p mobo and some ddr1200 it encoded great. The whole setup was extremely cheap too.

Then I upgraded and ran a 930 for about a month @ 4.4Ghz fully stable but someone offered me a 980x for a price I couldn't pass up so I grabbed it.
Yes the 980 is faster than the 930 while encoding but with both chips at 4.0Ghz+ the difference is big but not massive.

For 299$ you can get 2.0 - 2.1Ghz 8 core server processor on the G34 socket - newegg had them but took them out and they only list the 2.3 ghz 8 core at 530$

The 12 core 1.9 ghz is 770$ - still cheap compared to the six core intel extreme, though I admit the intel can be overclocked heavily and has hyperthreading.

I personally was quoted by a company here in Europe 1050$ (21% vat included) for 2 of those 2.1ghz 8 core processors and the asus server motherboard with 2 processors sockets (http://ncix.com/products/?sku=53258&vpn=KGPE-D16%28ASMB4-IKVM%29&manufacture=ASUS) which is about 450$ on newegg.
I didn't look at that mobo a lot, does it support the new 1055T?
My only concern is the processing power. 12 threads is great, but those 12 threads need to be powerful enough to make them worth having.

Admittedly I don't have a lot of experience with recent amd's running local workstations.
I've used a few quad phenoms in linux servers that ran ffmpeg, they were pretty gutless. However overclocking was not an option.

If I were to build a new rig for encoding I would shoot for something like below.
I7 930: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115225

ASUS P6X58D Premium V2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614

G.SKILL PI Series
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231335

Caviar Black WD1002FAEX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533
These drives are pretty fast, the only thing faster is the new 600gb raptors or sas drives. - have 2 WD1002FAEX drives in a raid 0 array 64k stripe for testing atm.
They avg 250MB/s read and write while short stroked @ 400gb. Max consistently at 264-265MB/s.
I just ordered 4 more for a second 4 disk raid 0 array. Still toying with stripe sizes though.

Then buy a decent cooler and psu.
Overclocking the 930 with the ASUS P6X58D is extremely simple and there's tons of info on it about the web.

[mariush]

I didn't look at that mobo a lot, does it support the new 1055T?
My only concern is the processing power. 12 threads is great, but those 12 threads need to be powerful enough to make them worth having.

Admittedly I don't have a lot of experience with recent amd's running local workstations.
I've used a few quad phenoms in linux servers that ran ffmpeg, they were pretty gutless. However overclocking was not an option.


No, that board only works with processors on socket G34, so 1055T will not work unless it's on socket G34.

The benefit of this G34 architecture is that it's quad ddr3 so it's higher memory bandwidth. Also, I believe they have more links than intel cpus which have 2 if i remember correctly) so in theory 4 processors will communicate faster and better between each other because each processor is connected directly to the others through dedicated links.

These G34 processors are also overclockable but motherboards for them are few and don't really have overclocking settings, if they did I'd bet they'll easily go up to 3 ghz with some good cooling.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2978/amd-s-12-core-magny-cours-opteron-6174-vs-intel-s-6-core-xeon/4

Anandtech did a review of the 12 core 2.2 Ghz and it's a bit slower than 2 x 6core xeon 5670 2.93 ghz (which is obvious considering the higher frequency) but when it comes to price x5670 is 1500$ each and the opteron 6172 12 core 2.1 ghz is 1039$. Not to mention the 8 core 2.3ghx 6134 is only 535$.