Wow - P4 3.0GHz/800fsb is so fast!!!

[AmazingRando]

Ok, I know some of you will feel like I'm just bragging, but I just got my new system set up and I can't believe how fast it is. I was an avid Athlon fan for a long time, but the P4 seems to always come out on top with video applications. Until this weekend, I had a P4 2.4GHz with 533MHz fsb. It's been real solid and I've transcoded about 100 DVDs to Divx with that rig. I've been waiting on the new canterwood (875P) chipset and the 800Mhz fsb CPUs.

So this weekend I got myself a P4 3.0 GHz/800fsb CPU and a DFI canterwood board. I was hoping for at least a 30% speed boost over my prior setup. But, I was amazed at just how fast it was. I transcoded an episode of star trek on my old rig and it took almost exactly two hours with two-pass Divx. I reran the same episode with the same version of gknot on my new rig and I was shocked to see it done in 53 mins!! I guess between PAT, hyperthreading, the faster CPU and the faster fsb, it all added up to a doubling in encoding performance. I'm so happy!

I also bought a water cooling case (koolance), so my project this week is to get that set up and see how much I can overclock it. Seems like people are getting between 3.5 and 3.8 GHz when using liquid cooling. Yeah baby!! :D

[hakko504]

#3 (http://forum.doom9.org/forum-rules.htm) Thread moved.

[colordog]

Hey, congrats to you. I'm also a previous die-hard Athlon fan, and currently love my P4 2.4GHz/533FSB with 1,066 MHz Rambus! It's great!

I've been waiting (to afford) to purchase a P4 HT chip. I've also looked at the Koolance integrated and external (Kaos?) coolers - they look awesome/sexy. How hard is it to enable overclocking on a P4? Don't you have to do something to it similar to the athlon?

[AmazingRando]

I did another Divx encode from the White Squall DVD. On my old rig, it took four hours and one min. on the new set up it was about one hour 55 mins!! I love it. :D

As to your questions colordog, I got the Koolance case. They also sell an external unit called the Exos. Both are essentially the same radiator, etc. The case essentially has the Exos built in to a nice Antec case. Since the Koolance case doesn't cost much more than the Exos, it was worth it to me to get the case. Those Anatec cases are usually pretty pricey (but nice). I'm still waiting on a couple of parts, so I don't have any first-hand experience yet. My only experience so far is that the case is nicely built, and that my wallet is definitely lighter. Between the case, a power supply, CPU water block, video card water block, motherboard waterblock, etc., it's very expensive. I'm hoping for some great results though.

As for OC'ing the P4's, they are clock multiplier locked, but you can change the FSB. In my case once I get water cooling going, I'll start edging up the FSB. I think 250Mhz (1Ghz) is reasonable. A lot of people seem to be able to get that. That would translate to 3.75GHz. I'll let you know what I find :cool:

[nFury8]

Drat! I guess you guys are now almost able to convince me to jump over to the P4 camp. I am also an avid Athlon believer. Love that baby. Me and my 3year-old 1Gig Thunderbird have seen better days. She never let me down. She was always there to give me all the geeky things I needed. She never asked for anything in return. And what do I give her back for all the satisfaction I got from her? A complete turnaround! A betrayal! Preposterous! Blasphemy! C'mon guys. Convince me, challenge me, defy me.

Or better yet, just give me the money to go buy that P4 3.0C-HT with the 875P-based motherboard cause that's really the only thing that's holding me back from getting my hands on that setup. Really. Drat.

[Ramirez]

If I'd have to upgrade my system today I'd have to choose between the following(IMO La Crème de la Cream) hardware for both AMD and Intel platforms(all prices are the lowest I could find in my area)

Intel
Intel Pentium 4 3.06 GHz 800 MHz 512K (http://sharkeyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_1500631__1) > 520$
DFI Lanparty PRO875 Intel 875P (http://www.3dxtreme.org/DFI_lanparty_p1.shtml) > 275$
Total: 795S$

AMD
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ Barton 400 MHZ (http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/2205861) >580$
Epox 8RDA3+ nForce2 Ultra 400 (http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/epox-8rda3+/) >160$
Total: 740$

So let's review,in my case the price difference between AMD and Intel is only 55$, so for that money I can get blazing speed P4 processor Plus way more advanced canterwood mobo then corresponding Nforce2 based one.

Now here is the real question, do I really need to drop it just because it's more hmm... "Fashionable" to blindly support AMD? I don't think so..
IMO AMD has lost the Price/Performance advantages and my next major hardware upgrade will be based on Intel hardware. (Yes I'm a long time AMD fan too, but enough it's enough.)

[Scipio]

did another Divx encode from the White Squall DVD. On my old rig, it took four hours and one min. on the new set up it was about one hour 55 mins!!

Well, 4 hours to 1 hour with 3 GHz instead of 2,4 GHz... c'mon, don't lie to us this obviously.

HT does some ~30 percent but the 3 vs the 2,4 is only 25% faster. Let it be 50% faster and it would result in 2 hours... but 1 hour instead of 4 is ... impossible (with the exact same settings given).

Or do you compare 128MB RAM versus 1GB RAM?
without exact system specs, these results tell us... right... nothing.

[AmazingRando]

Originally posted by Scipio
Well, 4 hours to 1 hour with 3 GHz instead of 2,4 GHz... c'mon, don't lie to us this obviously.

HT does some ~30 percent but the 3 vs the 2,4 is only 25% faster. Let it be 50% faster and it would result in 2 hours... but 1 hour instead of 4 is ... impossible (with the exact same settings given).

Or do you compare 128MB RAM versus 1GB RAM?
without exact system specs, these results tell us... right... nothing.

Let me correct you on one thing. It went from four hours even to 1:55, cutting it in half. You must have misread the original post. But, here are the specs for ya:

Original System:
Intel P4 2.4GHz/533MHz FSB
Abit IT-7 Intel 845E based board
768MB DDR DRAM
200GB WD Caviar 7200RPM drive
ATI Radeon 9700 PRO 128MB
Windows XP SP1
Gordian Knot .27/SystemPack .27

New System:
Intel P4 3.0GHz/800MHz FSB
DFI Lanparty Pro875 Intel 875 base (HT and PAT enabled)
1GB DDR DRAM in Dual Channel Mode
80GB Maxtor 7200RPM drive (temporary, but slower than 200GB drive)
ATI radeon 9700 PRO 128MB
Windows XP SP1
Gordian Knot .27/SystemPack .27

Content:
Star Trek - Original Series, Episode 49
"White Squall" DVD

In both cases, the encode was from 720x480x23.97, to divx 5.0.2 two-pass, 1024kbps video, 160kbps abr mp3 audio (normalized). cropping, sizing and all other settings were exactly the same between the two encodes of each program.

I'm curious about any ideas of what, besides hardware, could have be the culprit in making the encodes take so long before if it's not just that the new system is that much faster. I'll be kicking myself for the hundreds of wasted hours of encode time.




I'm curious to know why you think the results would not be correct. I encoded well over 100 Divx movies on my old system and went to great lengths to get all the horsepower I could out of the system. I had no interest in having my encodes take any longer than necessary. Frankly, I was quite surprised with the performance of my new system, but I've done about a dozen different encodes and get the same results each time. Whatever the reasons, I'm very happy I can do :confused:

Todd

[Scipio]

You must have misread the original post.

Yes, I have and I'm very sorry for that. (I missed the "one hour and" before the 55 minutes...)


Nice to see that you posted your specs. Really nice hardware.


As for the spead increase: I'd really like to find out, too.
So... if you would like to experiment a bit, I'd suggest you benchmark the 2,4 without HT versus the 3,0 with HT on the same platform with i875 /everything enabled (PAT etc.).

That way, we'd see:

- 2,4 old config vs 2,4 new config speed increase
=> this would be the platform increase.

- 2,4 new config vs 3,0 new config
=> this would show the role that the new CPU plays. I'm sure you could overclock the 2,4 to 2,8 or 3,0 (via FSB) or downclock the 3,0 (even more secure) down to 2,4.

Remember: The 3,0 has 800 FSB, so if we want to compare CPU speed, we should measure it with nearly the same clock speed if we want to find out about the effect of HyperTransfer.


If you've still got the old CPU, I think many ppl would be glad to see your test results... and you can even do more, I only suggested the obvious settings... perhaps I overlooked some even more interesting setups.

[int 21h]

Originally posted by Scipio
... HyperTransfer ...


You mean HyperThreading.

HyperThreading could make a big difference depending on how you're transcoding (i.e. FlaskMPEG, or FrameServing, etc.). Otherwise, my guess here would be the increase in memory bandwidth and FSB that gave the increase.

As for dream systems.. I think I would get the Asus P4C800 with a P4...

[Scipio]

You mean HyperThreading.

Yep. I have changed my main system to AMD now. The P4 Northwood without HT isn't very attractive anymore given the price difference of the "low-cost" models (below 2,5 GHz).

I got me a Thoroughbred B-model with 1700+ (1466 MHz) and it runs smoothly (even now in hot summer) with 2220 MHz. That's roughly "3000+" if someone cares.

Encoding time in InstantCopy 7 went down from aprox. 4 hours to ~ 80 minutes...

before: P4 Northwood 1,6 @ 2,133 GHz, 512 DDR @ 177 CL2 / i845D chipset

now: nForce2 mobo with 512 DDR @ 185 FSB (synchronous). I haven't tried Dual DDR mode yet... the CPU runs at 12*185=2220. It's damn fast compared to the Intel... even if I run the Intel at 2,32 GHz, it even "feels" slower... I wouldn't have thought that.

[Kb_cruncher]

I have an athlon system with an Nforce2 motherboard using dualddr at 185mhz and a 2100+ at 2220mhz.I get around 40fps(around 2hrs 45 mins for 2pass XviD for a 2hr movie),a single pass using same avs script in cce takes 1hr 10 mins.

[colordog]

@amazing rando

Hey, how fast where you able to get your CPU up to with that KoolLance? I'm still think of buying one.

[[NEX]]

talking about speed improvements.
I just moved to a P4 2.4 and normal 256m pc133 sdram (those bastards forgot to orther my ddr) from my dear son P3 650mhz 128m pc100 THATS and improvement (just waiting for my 3.06 G HT and my DDR mems)

PD my new video card is on the way too they were trying to get me a FX or a Radeon.

[lilhobo]

fear not athlon fans.....the athlon 64 Fx is released, and should bring down prices all round i hope...

so those 3 Ghz systems might be around the stockings for x mas

[Solo]

The thing about the Pentium CPU's is that they do not get as hot as the AMD's - so many people are able to get 3.5 - 3.6 on air cooling alone !!! I'm also runnig mine in a Koolance case though just to make sure the temps are better though.
AmazingRando note that Koolance have just released a special cooler for the Radeon and FX graphics cards as well and they have a special bracket so you can now mount your waterblock on the Athlon 64.

I doubt you'll get the 2.8 as high as that even with the Koolance. The 2.4c usually maxes out at 3.6 Ghz but that is will fsb of 300(1200). With a Prometia or Vapochill the 2.8 would fly to those speads.
The Intel is very easy to overclock, especially the 2.4C. On average you can up it straight to 250 FSB without increasing the voltage (vcore), whereas the AMD's need the extra voltage and as a result start to run very hot.

As for encoding times.
My ststem:
Pentium 4 2.4C @ 1000 FSB = 3.00 Ghz
Kingston HyperX DDR 434 @ 2-3-3-7 Dual Channel
Abit IC7
WD 40 Gig HHD
WD 120 Gig HHD in Koolance Case

DivX 5.05 + AviSynth 2.51 + VDMod + The Transporter
1 CD Rip - No filters - only resize
First pass = about 50 mins - second pass = 46 mins !!!!!

now: nForce2 mobo with 512 DDR @ 185 FSB (synchronous). I haven't tried Dual DDR mode yet... the CPU runs at 12*185=2220. It's damn fast compared to the Intel... even if I run the Intel at 2,32 GHz, it even "feels" slower... And so it should. An AMD running @ 2.220 Ghz in Pentium terms would be about a 3.2 Ghz so you cannot compare to a 2.32 Pentium.

[TCCK]

Just wait until you get your hands on a 3.2Ghz! or one of these nice beta units that I have from Intel on a nice Beta Serverworks board.
Oh yeah baby!

But I must agree my 3.2 at home in my psyco game box rocks!

And at the cost per Mhz with benchmark comparisons why would I ever go back to AMD!!

I have been a long time Intel fan but I did recognize the cost advantage of AMD at one point.

[chipvideo]

"And so it should. An AMD running @ 2.220 Ghz in Pentium terms would be about a 3.2 Ghz so you cannot compare to a 2.32 Pentium."

Are you sure about that. I thought that 2.12ghz was equal to a 2.8 Pentium. I Overclocked both of mine at 2400ghz. Sure is fast. Now I just need to do the pin mod so I can get higher. Already got the fsb at 150. Under full load my temps are 47-51 running two instances of prime. I even encoded a few movies with cce frameserving with newest avisynth at a rate of 2.85 while prime was running. So far I have gone as high as 3.15RT.

I also have the koolance case setup. Sure runs nice.

[TCCK]

I don't think so, I test hardware for a living!

I will stay Intel.