InstantCopy 7.03 and Hyperthread

[dvd_maniac]

I have just put together a new system and I am wondering why ic is only using around 45-50% of my cpu. Even though the upgrade is significant, I am not seeing any added benifit in speeds because of this.

My system
WinXP Professional
p4 2.80 (800mhz fsb) Hyper Threading Enabled
1024MB of DDR400 Samsung Ram
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Motherboard Dual Channel 800MHZ fsb, S-ATA(Raid)
2x120GB 150mbps 8MB cache Seagate S-ata hard drives (raid-0 Striped)
2x80GB 100mbps 2MB cache West Dig IDE Hard drives (raid-0 Striped)
ATI All-in-wonder 9700 Pro
ac97 On Board Audio
3com Gigabit Lan
Dvr-a05 Speed Hack
TDK 52x24x52 CD-RW
1.44 Floppy
Everything has Most recent drivers

Procedures I use:
Rip with dvddecrypter 1.6 to ide raid
Open with ic7 update 3, do custom resize
under details change temp to s-ata raid
So it reads from one raid and reencodes to the other raid.
Before the hardware upgrade the star trek TNG episode discs use to take me 70-75 minutes to complete. Now they take the same but are only utilizing half the cpu instead of the whole cpu.
Before I was only running
P4 2.6 533FSB
gigabit MB running 1024MB ddr333
2x80GB 100mbps 2MB cache West Dig IDE Hard drives (raid-0 Striped)

So going to the same raid at lower fsb and smaller cpu made NO significant difference.

Anybody got ANY ideas as to why?

[padre]

My configuration, and results are pretty much the same. My config:

WinXP Professional
P4 3.06ghz (800mhz fsb) Hyper Threading Enabled
1024MB of DDR400 PC3200 Memory (Corsair)
ASUS P4C800 Deluxe Motherboard Dual Channel 800MHZ fsb
2x200GB ATA/133 Maxtor drives (7200rpm)
NVideo 8xAGP Ti4200
ac97 On Board Audio
3com Gigabit Lan

I get about 50% CPU utilization using IC7 (patch 3). It takes about 70 minutes for a 7.8gb->4.3gb conversion. Ranges from 1.50MB/s to 2.25MB/s.

I get the feeling the reason it doesn't maximize the CPU (or utilize 100%) IS because of hyperthreading. I think it sets up a boundry for other applications to be running at the same time. After I finish my current batch of copies, I might turn the hyperthreading off and see what the results look like (and post them).

[dvd_maniac]

I have to wait for about 10 more minutes and I am going to try as well.

[padre]

Weird results. Although the Task Manager showed 95-99% CPU utilization using IC 7 with hyperthreading disabled (via bios), the time to complete was almost the same as if I had hyperthreading enabled.

Only difference I noticed was I couldn't do much extra, too sluggish for other applications running. (took a few seconds to bring up a DOS box, after clicking on Run, CMD.exe. In hyperthreading mode, instantly pops up.

[dvd_maniac]

Although I was hoping to get better results, It is nice to be able to encode using IC and still capture video at the same time...:)

[padre]

Thanks for the idea! I didn't realize it would have enough horsepower left over to do capturing while encoding. I'm doing a 1&1/2 hour video capture (firewire) while encoding with IC7. No impact! Cool!

[sonicbox]

Sorry, IC 7 isn't multi-threaded. So, for people with Hyperthreading capable or Dual CPUs, it doesn't buy you any speed. 50% of a HT CPU is really close to 100% (Think about it.) Of course, as you noticed, it may assist you with having some free cycles to do other tasks. But with HT, if you do too much other work, it'll definitely slow down IC 7. It's not the same a real 2nd CPU... it just pretends to have a 2nd CPU.

[padre]

Well, in hyperthreading mode, I have not seen any slow down in IC 7 while doing something else (like video capture) in another session. I have a dual head setup, encoding with IC7 in one window and Studio 8 in the other.

It takes just about the same amount of time to do an IC7 job that way, as it does with no second session running or if I disable hyperthreading.

[dvd_maniac]

I am capturing dvd_high mpeg-2 and IC7 is chugging along at the exact same speed. 70-75 minutes for the TNG episode discs. Although anybody with this (Asus p4c800 deluxe) who want's to build a sata raid0, It doesn't work yet. Read speeds are high but write speeds are under 6mb/s(Not a typo) So don't waste your money on second sata drive...Like I did :(
EDIT: I had to install the promise raid fastrak s150 tx windows series drivers instead of the drivers supplied by asus for this board... Now with retext I get 80mbps

[Nethermancer]

I get write speeds of about 55MB/s with my Seagate 120GB SATA drives (2 in RAID0 configuration like yours) and can capture raw RGB AVI (27MB/s sustained) for hours without problem. I have an Intel D875PBZ Canterwood board and 3GHZ P4.

As for HyperThreading support we will have to wait for PIC to go SMT (we can Email them to nudge them along) and I have been informed by Pinnacle that this is in the pipeline.

HyperThreading is no gimmick and the ability to do otherwise intensive tasks like video capture is a great benefit. Even the improved general responsiveness is like using a Dual CPU system. Anyone interested in knowing exactly how HT works can read my Hyperthreading Technology guide at:

http://www.hardwarereview.net/Reviews/Intel%20Hyper-Threading%20Guide/Hyper-Threading%20Guide.htm

which I did last November and for comparing HT vs non-HT benchmarks you can find my original P4 3.06GHz review here:

http://www.hardwarereview.net/Reviews/Intel%20Pentium4%203060/Pentium4-3060.htm

also from last November. I'll be happy to answer any HT questions.

[dvd_maniac]

I have also achieved raid0 with 2 seagate120's. But I had to use the promise s150 tx series for windows from promise's website rather than the asus drivers provided or listed on their site.
I am getting around 70mb/s with this setup. Also I can not wait for pinnacle to implement HT support...

[h00z]

Hyperthreading is nice, but it isn't a real "dual CPU" setup. I've been using dual processor machines since the PII 233/Intel 440LX chipset days, and while hyperthreading is nice, it isn't "all that".

If you'd like to see some benefits (and drawbacks) to HT, click this link:

http://www.2cpu.com/Hardware/ht_analysis/

Having a single P4 with HT enabled is nice, but two Xeons with HT enabled is even better ;)