Optimum PC Configuration for BD Rebuilder

[techno1]

I need to upgrade my old motherboard. What makes a program like BD Rebuilder and it's associated processes more efficient?
Can BD Rebuilder take advantage of multi-core processors? Is L2 and L3 cache sizes important. How about ram? Is 4GB okay? Does DDR2 vs. DDR3 make a difference? I assume SATA drives @ 7200 RPM or faster are important. Any known fast config's would be appreciated. I lean toward AMD processors for bang for the buck.
-King Regards

[HWK]

AMD processor will be slower than Intel core i7. An average i7 can shave 20 to 30 percent time off the blu-ray even same clock rate. However with recent processor from AMD this is not always the case. For memory any will do fine. (Other may suggest something different) However hard drive is different story I have 3 10000 RPM drives. Here is drive layout.

1-OS and program
2-Blu-ray decryption files.
3-BD-rebuilder Output.

When read and write take on same drive it slows down over all process. This steps make sure it doesn't happen.

Just remember your processor is biggest factor and then hard drive when come to speed.
Mine is Intel core i7 980x ( six core) @ 4.3 GHZ, 24 GB Ram and nvidia quardo series video card.

Bd-Rebuilder will take advantage of all cores. On mine task manager it is using all 12 in second pass.

[Groucho2004]

I need to upgrade my old motherboard. What makes a program like BD Rebuilder and it's associated processes more efficient?
Can BD Rebuilder take advantage of multi-core processors? Is L2 and L3 cache sizes important. How about ram? Is 4GB okay? Does DDR2 vs. DDR3 make a difference? I assume SATA drives @ 7200 RPM or faster are important. Any known fast config's would be appreciated. I lean toward AMD processors for bang for the buck.
-King Regards

Listing by priority:

1. Processor
By far the most influential for encoding speed. You should consider at least a quad core. A very good bang for your buck are the new AMD 6 core processors. Check out some benchmarks here:
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=2

2. RAM
There will be very little difference between DDR2 and DDR3. 4 GB should be enough unless you run several encodes in parallel. Beyond that you'll have to go 64 bit.

3. Hard drive
You should be fine with decent SATA drives @7200.

[jdobbs]

Agreed. Discs help a little, memory a little less (I'd recommend a minimum of 4GB, though), but by far the processor is the driver. From what I've seen in reports the i7 is the champ in terms of speed, but the Phenom II X6 may overtake it. I'm personally running an AM2+ motherboard with 4GB of DDR2-400 memory (because I'm not rich like some others), my output drive is a standard 1TB SATA and the inputs are all (3) 1TB USB2 connected. My processor is an AMD Phenom II X4 945 that is overclocked at 3.3Ghz. I typically get ~24-30fps on pass one and 14-20fps on pass two when encoding in high quality mode and Idle priority. In the first pass the cores are all used, but not maxed out -- in pass two they are all four at 98-100% thoughout the encode.

Many processors are tested with X264 at extremeoverclocking.com so I thought I'd take a look, here's the AMD Phenom II X6 1090 compared to an i7 920:

http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/processors/AMD_Phenom_II_X6_1090T_10.html

I think a fair comparison to an i7 975 might show the i7 as close, but of course at 4x the cost.

Here's an i7 X264 benchmark:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=654&pgno=9

Since X264 does all the heavy lifting for BD Rebuilder, these benchmarks are probably the best predictor of your performance.

[Edit] Hmmm... after looking at Groucho2004's link and a couple of other sites, I've come to the conclusion that I'm being overly conservative on my overclocking -- so I've boosted to 3.5Ghz and will test that for a while. I'm running an encode and it looks pretty good so far.

[techno1]

The Tech ARP charts are great! I looked up some motherboard/cpu combos on frys an egg and there seems to be a pretty clear price break on the higher end AMD vs. Intel. There is an AMD X6 1055T combo (60+fps) for just over $300 compared to an Intel i7 980x (90fps with overclocking) for $1,100 (chip only). That's 3-4 times the price for a 30% increase in performance. Otherwise the fps are close with non-overclocking. I'll upgrade next week and report back. But until then, I'm limping along at 6.9 fps. Thanks again for all the input!

[jdobbs]

The Tech ARP charts are great! I looked up some motherboard/cpu combos on frys an egg and there seems to be a pretty clear price break on the higher end AMD vs. Intel. There is an AMD X6 1055T combo (60+fps) for just over $300 compared to an Intel i7 980x (90fps with overclocking) for $1,100 (chip only). That's 3-4 times the price for a 30% increase in performance. Otherwise the fps are close with non-overclocking. I'll upgrade next week and report back. But until then, I'm limping along at 6.9 fps. Thanks again for all the input!Both Amazon and Newegg have the 1055T for $199 and the 1090T for $295. I'd probably be all-over one of those, but my motherboard can't handle a 125w processor and I'm not ready to toss out money for a motherboard too.

[techno1]

Fry's has the 1055T and BioStar TA890GXB HD MB combo for $289. Add 4GB DDR3 for $110. I'll start there.

[jdobbs]

Fry's has the 1055T and BioStar TA890GXB HD MB combo for $289. Add 4GB DDR3 for $110. I'll start there.Ahh... I must have been sleeping and didn't notice your "combo" note -- that sounds like a great deal.

[techno1]

The Tech ARP charts are great! I looked up some motherboard/cpu combos on frys an egg and there seems to be a pretty clear price break on the higher end AMD vs. Intel. There is an AMD X6 1055T combo (60+fps) for just over $300 compared to an Intel i7 980x (90fps with overclocking) for $1,100 (chip only). That's 3-4 times the price for a 30% increase in performance. Otherwise the fps are close with non-overclocking. I'll upgrade next week and report back. But until then, I'm limping along at 6.9 fps. Thanks again for all the input!

Okay, I upgraded my system with the following:

AMD X6 1055T
MSI 890GXM-G65
Corsair DDR3 4GB PC1333 Twin

Same old hard drives, (2) 5400RPM. I set the MB for 10% increase of FSB. Still very stable.

Results for x264.exe r1342
--------------------------
encoded 1442 frames, 74.48 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 74.61 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 74.61 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 74.30 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.67 fps, 3969.87 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.50 fps, 3957.77 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.51 fps, 3970.16 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.59 fps, 3967.92 kb/s


System Details
--------------
Name AMD K10
Codename
Specification AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor
Core Stepping
Stock frequency 3300 MHz
Core Speed 3080.2 MHz
FID range 5.0x - 16.5x

Northbridge AMD 785GX rev. 00
Southbridge ATI SB750 rev. 40

CAS# latency (CL) 9.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 9
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 9
Cycle Time (tRAS) 24
Command Rate (CR) 1T
Memory Frequency 733.4 MHz (3:10)
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 3328 MBytes
Channels Dual, (Unganged)

Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 6
Number of threads 6 (max 6)
L2 cache 6 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64
Package Socket AM2+ (940)
Package Type 0x1

Temperature 0 39°C (102°F) [0x13B] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 39°C (102°F) [0x13B] (Core #1)
Temperature 2 40°C (103°F) [0x13D] (Core #2)
Temperature 3 40°C (103°F) [0x13E] (Core #3)
Temperature 4 40°C (103°F) [0x13C] (Core #4)
Temperature 5 40°C (103°F) [0x13C] (Core #5)

Get the latest version @ http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=520

[Capsbackup]

Not a bad looking system... except the HD's! A WD 1TB Black, ($99.00) would make for some good speed improvements. :p
Of course if you have the money, SSD. :rolleyes:

[Groucho2004]

MSI 890GXM-G65
Corsair DDR3 4GB PC1333 Twin

Very good choice of components, excellent quality.

[techno1]

Yes, I know the hard drives are older. Amazingly the system booted right up without any complaints even though it's internals had just been replaced. It's an old XP VL install. I still have an issue getting the HDMI audio driver to install, but I'm not using that function. I'll eventually upgrade the hd's, but right now I'm getting better than 10x performance boost from the new components. According to the benchmark charts, I'm right there as far as comparable performance. I could over-clock another 10%, but why push a stable system? Again, thanks for all the input. :thanks:

[jdobbs]

Nice. Man, I'd love to see fps numbers that high... any reason why you're still using X264 r1342? It's up to r1683 now -- with lots of speed improvements.

[Groucho2004]

any reason why you're still using X264 r1342?

It's the one used in the Techarp benchmark, I guess.

[techno1]

Nice. Man, I'd love to see fps numbers that high... any reason why you're still using X264 r1342? It's up to r1683 now -- with lots of speed improvements.

Just as Groucho mentioned, for benchmarking purposes they want a constant version used. However, I substituted the newer x264 version (r1688) for the old and have these results. Quite an improvement in the newer version! Note sure why his script doesn't parse the correct version used. Prolly hard coded?

Results for x264.exe r1342
--------------------------
encoded 1442 frames, 74.18 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 74.13 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 74.01 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 73.89 fps, 3898.70 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.73 fps, 3972.40 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.70 fps, 3971.03 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.66 fps, 3957.30 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 29.66 fps, 3970.50 kb/s


System Details
--------------
Name AMD K10
Codename
Specification AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor
Core Stepping
Stock frequency 3300 MHz
Core Speed 3080.2 MHz
FID range 5.0x - 16.5x

Northbridge AMD 785GX rev. 00
Southbridge ATI SB750 rev. 40

CAS# latency (CL) 9.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 9
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 9
Cycle Time (tRAS) 24
Command Rate (CR) 1T
Memory Frequency 733.4 MHz (3:10)
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 3328 MBytes
Channels Dual, (Unganged)

Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 6
Number of threads 6 (max 6)
L2 cache 6 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64
Package Socket AM2+ (940)
Package Type 0x1

Temperature 0 39°C (102°F) [0x138] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 39°C (102°F) [0x138] (Core #1)
Temperature 2 39°C (102°F) [0x139] (Core #2)
Temperature 3 39°C (102°F) [0x138] (Core #3)
Temperature 4 39°C (102°F) [0x138] (Core #4)
Temperature 5 39°C (102°F) [0x138] (Core #5)
___________________________________________________

Results for x264.exe r1342 (r1688 actually)
--------------------------
encoded 1442 frames, 118.02 fps, 3911.62 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 118.01 fps, 3911.62 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 118.17 fps, 3911.62 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 117.87 fps, 3911.62 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 30.89 fps, 3960.45 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 30.90 fps, 3961.19 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 30.95 fps, 3961.84 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 30.99 fps, 3962.68 kb/s


System Details
--------------
Name AMD K10
Codename
Specification AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor
Core Stepping
Stock frequency 3300 MHz
Core Speed 3080.1 MHz
FID range 5.0x - 16.5x

Northbridge AMD 785GX rev. 00
Southbridge ATI SB750 rev. 40

CAS# latency (CL) 9.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 9
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 9
Cycle Time (tRAS) 24
Command Rate (CR) 1T
Memory Frequency 733.4 MHz (3:10)
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 3328 MBytes
Channels Dual, (Unganged)

Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 6
Number of threads 6 (max 6)
L2 cache 6 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64
Package Socket AM2+ (940)
Package Type 0x1

Temperature 0 40°C (104°F) [0x142] (Core #0)
Temperature 1 40°C (104°F) [0x142] (Core #1)
Temperature 2 41°C (104°F) [0x144] (Core #2)
Temperature 3 41°C (104°F) [0x144] (Core #3)
Temperature 4 41°C (104°F) [0x144] (Core #4)
Temperature 5 41°C (104°F) [0x144] (Core #5)

[techno1]

Okay, his bat file does NOT echo the actual release of x264. Hmm, I wonder how many of the posted results are from newer releases?

echo ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> 720p_results-"%target%.rtf
echo. >> 720p_results-"%target%.rtf
echo Results for x264.exe r1342 >> 720p_results-"%target%.rtf

[Groucho2004]

However, I substituted the newer x264 version (r1688) for the old and have these results. Quite an improvement in the newer version!

Comparing 1342 with 1688 using the same command line doesn't make sense.

Defaults have changed, features have been added, etc.

[techno1]

Agree Groucho, for the Benchmark 3.0 to be meaningful the included x264.exe (r1342) MUST be used....I only tried this when Jerry mentioned there is a much improved release, and the results surely support Jerry's comment. Perhaps a Benchmark 4.0 is needed :-)

[jfcarbel]

Mine is Intel core i7 980x ( six core) @ 4.3 GHZ, 24 GB Ram and nvidia quardo series video card.

I am curious with this setup how long does the average BD-Rebuilder take when encoding?

[sharjohn]

I have a quad core iMac (i7) with windows 7. My question is simple: Is there a setting I need to make in Windows 7 to utilize all the cores when using BD-Rebuilder or is it automatic? The system has 8 GB of memory and 1 2TB hard drive as well as a SSD.

[jdobbs]

I have a quad core iMac (i7) with windows 7. My question is simple: Is there a setting I need to make in Windows 7 to utilize all the cores when using BD-Rebuilder or is it automatic? The system has 8 GB of memory and 1 2TB hard drive as well as a SSD. I'm not that familiar with iMacs -- but I assume Windows 7 runs just like it does on a PC (via a dual-boot system), or is it an emulator?

You shouldn't have to do anything. The cores should be automatically recognized and used.

[tapidlittle]

How to know which version of X264 is deployed with BD Rebuilder? can we update it if it's up to date? if so how?

thanks.

[jdobbs]

How to know which version of X264 is deployed with BD Rebuilder? can we update it if it's up to date? if so how?

thanks. I always update it to the latest release from x264.nl. So it will be the newest version that was available on the date it was released. If you read the CHANGES.TXT file that is included you will see the version number.

You can always replace it in the BD Rebuilder TOOLS folder. But I'd recommend being careful about updating... I do several tests with the new version before including it. There have been times when command line changes to X264 have made it stop working with BD-RB and I have had to update the code to correct for it.

[tapidlittle]

I always update it to the latest release from x264.nl. So it will be the newest version that was available on the date it was released. If you read the CHANGES.TXT file that is included you will see the version number.

You can always replace it in the BD Rebuilder TOOLS folder. But I'd recommend being careful about updating... I do several tests with the new version before including it. There have been times when command line changes to X264 have made it stop working with BD-RB and I have had to update the code to correct for it.

thanks that's what I thought.

[tapidlittle]

That would be nice to have some log paste here to compare hardware speed, depending on movie length, quality settings, video type, etc...