What would the fastest xvid system be?

[tdsfan]

I have about $600 to spend on a processor, mobo, and ram. Which of these systems would give me the fastest encoding time?

Athlon 64 oc'd to 2.6ghz

Dual Athlon XP Mobile 2600+'s overclocked to combined 5.4ghz?

I use Virtualdub and avisynth to encode. Basically, I need the fastest system because I can't go to bed until it's done encoding so staying up til 3am with my 1700XP now really sucks..

[Sharktooth]

Athlon FX... but i doubt it will cost 600$.
I would go for an Athlon 64 4000+.
Dual CPU or HyperThreading is of no use with Xvid but if you plan to use heavy AVS filtering then maybe a P4 with HT will do slightly better at the cost of "room overheating" due to the enormous amount of heat dissipation.
That may be good in winter but... :cool:

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by Sharktooth

I would go for an Athlon 64 4000+.

Same here...

A water-cooled n' over-clocked Athlon64 4000+ !!!


Bye

[Blue_MiSfit]

Definatley. Clock per clock they will outperform a P4, and the Athlon64's have SSE2 - which is pretty much the best SIMD set that XviD supports. The new Opterons have SSE3 now, and that will trickle down to the A64 soon. IIRC, XviD doesn't have SSE3 yet, but it may in the future.

I have an A64 and it's freakin fast. I get close to realtime encoding when doing full D1 with some intense avisynth (LRemoveDust and RemoveGrain) and high quality settings (VHQ4 w/bbops, Trellis, AQ, Qpel, Bvops, etc). 2 passes in about 2.5x the time of the movie, not too bad.

In all honesty though, it's not INCREDIBLY faster than my "old" AthlonXP 2500+ Barton. if you need to save some $, drop one of those bad boys in your socket A system (the mobile version). Watercool it (or at least run heavy air cooling), get some crazy overclocking RAM and overclock it to 3400+ levels hehe. Mine would hit 3200+ with no problem on air at 400fsb. God I miss those chips.

~MiSfit

[squid_80]

Originally posted by Blue_MiSfit
Clock per clock they will outperform a P4

I always thought at the same clock speed, yes an Athlon will do better than a P4 but not by much, especially for SSE2 instructions. However the P4 is available at higher clock speeds than the AMD chips, so if you wanted the fastest xvid system wouldn't that be the way to go? Unless the P4s really do suck as badly at MMX as I have heard (Avery Lee's movq example springs to mind) but I thought they fixed that.

[Blue_MiSfit]

actually at the same clock speed an Athlon64 will absolutley tear apart a pentium 4.

For example, my 2800+ runs at 1.8 GHz stock. It does not even begin to compare to a crappy old 1.8 GHZ P4.

[*.mp4 guy]

Right now IMO the only good processors are AMD's, and Pentium M's, but the Pentium M's don't do good at encoding and are prohibitively expensive.

[squid_80]

I forgot about the Athlon's instruction re-ordering, duh. I guess that's where the difference comes from. Plus the bigger cache, onboard memory controller on the AMD64s... Let's forget that I ever mentioned Pentiums at all.

[tdsfan]

I guess I'll just get a 2600+ and overclock it. It seems like a proven combination..

[Sharktooth]

Overclocking is not a good idea.
It has been proven that xvid and video codecs in general stress the CPUs so much that more than 50% of the overclocked boxes doesnt complete the encoding task correctly.

[Paulcat]

Intel would, of course, love for you to think that raw GHz is the only important thing...not really true!

Personally though, I'll let my pc run overnight, I just shut the door to the room and check in the morning!

[Soulhunter]

Originally posted by Sharktooth

Overclocking is not a good idea.
It has been proven that xvid and video codecs in general stress the CPUs so much that more than 50% of the overclocked boxes doesnt complete the encoding task correctly.

Runs 24/7... ^^ (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77531)

No problems so far !!!


Bye

[Blue_MiSfit]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
Overclocking is not a good idea.
It has been proven that xvid and video codecs in general stress the CPUs so much that more than 50% of the overclocked boxes doesnt complete the encoding task correctly.

True, but I would bet that in many of these cases the overclocked systems did not have sufficient vDimm or vCore to run perfectly stable in XviD. I run overclocked most of the time and generally have no problems. When I had my overclocked barton I occasionally would get the "disapearing vdub" crash - again though I left vCore and vDimm at stock settings.

Never hurts to try ... unless of course you just set the fsb to 400 and nuke your cpu the first time you turn it on :D

~misfit

[Sharktooth]

I also have an overclocked barton (the 400Mhz FSB rox) and it is an old one with the unlocked multipliers.
The system runs 24/7 without any problems, but most users experienced problems (expecially with xvid) with overclocked CPUs.
Overclocking is not only a matter of "ok i push the FSB up and it's ready to go".
My previous post was only a warning: if you overclock and experience weird things you know why...

[Kagura]

I would say:

Athlon 64 family >
Pentium 4 family >
Pentium M family >
Athlon XP family

for encoding tasks. The integrated memory controller and low latencies makes the a64 fly on encoding tasks. The P4 has always been good at streaming data through its long pipeline, so it's somewhat suited for encoding. SSE2/3 will also really help it. Architecturally, P-M is superior to AXP and the efficiencies of the core allows it (at least in my tests) to beat the axp in speed.

Disclaimer: I have no real proof for the above. They are just informal tests run on my own and my friends' pcs. There is a disparity of clock speed (of course), memory amount and quality, and hard drive speed, so by no means take that as the last word. It's just what I would do when building a pc for encoding.

EDIT: Answering your question: The A64 would win hands down. I have a hunch that SMP won't work so well on encoding tasks. Anyways, architectural inefficiencies and overhead/latency will kill any advantage you get by going SMP. Doing a preencode to huffy will negate advantages of combining filtering and encoding and getting a speed boost on SMP systems.

[Joe Fenton]

Well, given that xvid is open source, the FASTEST xvid system would be to find an old Cray at an auction, or something similar. :)

[*.mp4 guy]

I would say:

Athlon 64 family >
Pentium 4 family >
Pentium M family >
Athlon XP family

Sorry man, but I've read a lot of comparisons that say in order of raw encoding performance:

A64>
AXP>
P-M>
P-4

note for some other codecs besides Xvid switch the P-4 and AXP and put the pentium M at the end. However if we're talking cost per speed ratio AXP 2600's tend to leave everything in the dust.

[phro]

Whenever I read a cpu/mobo review I tend to pay closest attention to the video encoding benchmarks (as I'm sure most here would). In general based on the sites I frequent I'd say Intel comes out on top in most cases. However there are *ALWAYS* exceptions to the rule. Your preferred software and procedure will always make a difference in your total time spent encoding.

I suggest a glance at some recent reviews...

The P4 600 Series and Extreme Edition 3.73 GHz (tomshardware) (http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050221/prescott-09.html)

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ & FX-55 (hardocp) (http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=Njc1LDM=)

Intel Pentium 4 6xx and 3.73EE (anandtech) (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353&p=8)

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ vs FX-55 (nordichardware) (http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?page=8&skrivelse=362)

I'd say that the bottom line is you really gotta try *your* preferred encoding method on different hardware and see whats best for you. I know that ain't exactly easy since most of us can't just dart out and grab a P4EE and/or Athlon64FX rig to fool around with. Maybe grab one of those friends that most geeks seem to have who has more money than brains and more CPU power than they have any idea what to do with and spend an afternoon putting down some pizza and mpeg4?

Also, I should note that I use AMD chips wherever possible as intel can't come close to AMD's price/performance ratio and I'm a cheap bastard.

[Sharktooth]

Bah, i dont trust anandtech reviews at all.
However i would never buy a p4 5xx or 6xx or EE unless i have an empty industrial refrigerator to stuff it in... the darn thing is too HOT!

[Kagura]

Originally posted by *.mp4 guy
Sorry man, but I've read a lot of comparisons that say in order of raw encoding performance:

A64>
AXP>
P-M>
P-4

note for some other codecs besides Xvid switch the P-4 and AXP and put the pentium M at the end. However if we're talking cost per speed ratio AXP 2600's tend to leave everything in the dust.

Ah, I merely guessed on a64 performance hehe. But I actually own an AXP and a P-M and have compared the two. I also ran some tests on a friend's Northwood just to be sure.

Encoding to huffy on P-M (755 or 2 ghz) = 5 hours, AXP (2.13 ghz) = 5.5 hours.

*shrug* I did post a disclaimer. =P

Btw, you read your comparisons while I did tests on machines. o.o

[Numer0bis]

Well I got a Athlon 3500+ and it performs awesome on XviD. But as soon as you encode DivX or Mpeg 2 then a p4 with more raw ghz power will outperform a a64. Especially because the most widely used mpeg 2 encoders cce and tmpenc are heavy p4 optimized and quite profite from ht and sse3. So It depends in what format you are encoding. As I assume you encode in Xvid, otherwise you wouln't have posted it in Xvid section you should get a64 :)

greetz Numer0bis

[bloodrush]

I went from a Celeron D at 2.6Ghz if I was lucky, getting 20 - 23 fps in AutoGK with Xvid. On my new Athlon 64 2800+ at 1.8Ghz I'm getting 55fps in AutoGK Xvid encoding. All hardware is the same except for MB and Processor. I got the Athlon for about $25 more than the Celeron. I couldn't be happier. If you are doing Xvid, definately go with Athlon 64.


--bloodrush

[*.mp4 guy]

huffyuv is usually fsb or hard disk bound, not cpu bound. I've made tests Athlons absolutely dominate Xvid encoding and thats ignoring the price/performance ratio. For most commercial programs a P4 is better despite the godawful price and heat gneration.

[phro]

Kagura you're right, I haven't done any comparisons on my own hardware. My p4 1.8 doesn't have shit on these newer systems. It'd be interesting to see tho, what doom9 people get in terms of performance. I would consider that a more "real world" result than any of these hardware review sites. Maybe sticky worthy?

[Shinigami-Sama]

basicly what I figured from the time A64 came out :)
good thing my next system<in a year or so I hope> will be an A64fx :D thats assume school doesn't rape me for every last penny I have, but at $10k CAD a year for school it looks that way, thouhg I hope by hte time I get hte money saved to buy it there will be a 64bit binary for xvid to play with and beat down 32bit even more than it is :D

[tdsfan]

Just thought I would follow up.. I built a 2600-m setup and it's currently running at 2.7ghz. This thing is a lot faster than my 1700XP, yet I still have to turn VHQ down to 2 to get encoding times down to an hour for a 21 minute show. I guess if I had to do it again I would get a A64, but I guess I can still get one later when they're faster. Here's a few benchmarks of the 2600 Mobile

http://members.cox.net/michaelshaffer/desktop.jpg

[Zep]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
Overclocking is not a good idea.
It has been proven that xvid and video codecs in general stress the CPUs so much that more than 50% of the overclocked boxes doesnt complete the encoding task correctly.


Only boxes overclocked TOO MUCH and not tested fail.
That is not OC fault that is user error for going too
far OC wise and not running prime95 or something else that
can test the CPU against known results.

Those users think everything is ok because they can boot
fine and web surf etc... like i said the problem there
is in front of the keyboard not the on the mobo :)

in the beta2 thread I suggested a download of prime95 and run it
for 8 hours and if you do not fault then Xvid will work
fine since Xvid is CAKE compared to prime95 torture test mode.

As for heat, prime95 or dnetc will truly push the cpu.
Xvid I slam 99% usage for hours straight and the temps
are always 5c to 10c under a prime95 or dnetc run.

AMD 64 3500+ 2.2 OC to 2.7 prime95 never faults and
Xvid works fine and dandy.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Paulcat
Intel would, of course, love for you to think that raw GHz is the only important thing...not really true!




what is funny both intel and AMD wanted you think that just
a few years ago and mac users were amused at how caught up
most PC users were into the MHz myth.

My how times have changed :D

[*.mp4 guy]

At that time most processors offered fairly equivelent "bang for the Mhz" so it made sense and as far as apple are concerned they really don't apeal to me because of quicktime and price/performance ratio along with a plethora of other things. They have their place, but I daresay it is not a big place; especialy in the budgetarily minded and "bleeding edge" encoding worlds and i think most would agree with me on that.

[obieobieobie]

Both AMD and Intel have thrown in the towel with regards to clockspeed.

The GHz race is over for the time being. :)

[Nudnik]

The Nudnik Speaks:

Does an SCSI drive offer any increase in performance?

What about memory and video cards; what brands and specs outperform the rest?

Dr. Hevel Nudnik aka Julius Irving
Inventor of the Orange Julius

[cdrips]

If any of you guys are really into overclocking to get the fastest possible xvid speed, this is what I run. 2.8GHZ LGA775 P4 overclocked to 3.54GHZ running at 45C on air. XviD takes around 30-40min/pass for a medium compressible movie 100 min in length. B-frames/vhq1/h263 with a forced film .d2v. I'm not sure how this compares to others, but A64's may run a little faster, but in terms of overclocking and getting your money's worth, this may add to the selection.

[Sharktooth]

For the same price of a P4 2800 i can buy an athlon64 3500+ (and get the same performance of your overclocked CPU) and when the new venice or san diego cores will be available (the next week), they will be the new overclocking champions... (just imagine an Athlon64 running @ ~3Ghz...)

[phro]

Apparently the 3800+ Venice cores overclock very nicely. Definately something to keep an eye on.

[Alvy]

What is about dual channel ram? Does an upgrade make sense to gain xvid encoding speed?

[Sharktooth]

Wait for the Venice & San Diego CPUs... then it will worth upgrading.
However i found an interesting article. Before buying Intel i suggest everyone to read it: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=93304

[Zep]

Originally posted by *.mp4 guy
At that time most processors offered fairly equivelent "bang for the Mhz" so it made sense and as far as apple are concerned they really don't apeal to me because of quicktime and price/performance ratio along with a plethora of other things. They have their place, but I daresay it is not a big place; especialy in the budgetarily minded and "bleeding edge" encoding worlds and i think most would agree with me on that.

oh i understand where you are coming from but a dual G5 @ 2.5Ghz
is faster by a fair bit than the intel/amd side when doing xvid and
i know because i own one as well as a P4 and a AMD 64 box.
I like and use both macs and PC's all day at work so i bought
one of each for home use.

Encode speeds are over 3 times faster on my G5 than my AMD 64 3500+
@ 2.7 GHZ with Dual channel PC4000 ram @ 262Mhz running XP.

Tiger (OSX 10.4) is even faster do to the new 64bit math libs etc...
and other low level tweaks.

I never use quicktime just like i never use WMP and M$ stuff on PC.
I use all open source on both platforms. In fact it is
WHY a G5 encodes so much faster than PC's. The open source
gurus took ffmpeg and branched off an optimized altivec version
AND made the xvid code split the encoding across 2+ CPU's which
is actually easy to do and i wonder why it has not been done
on the PC side to the same level. (if at all?)

Note i was the one who first ported ffmpeg to osx years ago but i
left the project once i got it working well and other coders
who are far better than me (I just did it for fun and to learn how)
came on board. :D

That being said i use my AMD 64 box to do most encoding because
of avisynth which will not be ported over until version 3.

[MacAddict]

Dual G5 chips running Tiger. Yum:) Sorry but I can't help but drool!

[cdrips]

A64 3500+ will cost around 250USD while P4 2.8 costs 150USD, I don't count that as around the same price. Also on another note, my motherboard is holding me back in overclocking terms, I'm positive I can get more out of the FSB. My next system will be an A64 system though, can't wait.

[Sharktooth]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
For the same price of a P4 2800 >>>I<<< can buy an athlon64 3500+...

[Koti]

posted by Joe Fenton
Well, given that xvid is open source, the FASTEST xvid system would be to find an old Cray at an auction, or something similar. :)

There's always the Desktop Cray (http://www.xosx.com/desktopcray/) Supercomputing Desktop Environment. ;) :D

[cdrips]

For the same price of a P4 2800 >>>I<<< can buy an athlon64 3500+...

I thought we were trying to help the poster and others decide, not you. It's no good to him that you can get an A64 3500+ for so cheap.

[Sharktooth]

Well, i can always use the postal service to send it... :)

[Shinigami-Sama]

Originally posted by Sharktooth
Well, i can always use the postal service to send it... :)
if it;s to/from the USA chances are it will get torn to shreads over it being a "suspicous package" :P with amd writen all over it
I jsut seen het new dual core amds I don't think they;re worth hte extra price yet how bout you guys?
not that we can use them yet seeing as how they;re not out or anythign<i think>
seing as how no-one seems to want to make ht/SMP code for xvid and I don't not know ;_;

[Sharktooth]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1788692,00.asp
keep in mind they tested the opteron 875 that runs at 2.2Ghz and with ECC RAM on a motherboard tuned for server applications...
The athlon64 x2 will be faster...