Uprgrading my CPU with CCE in mind

If my money isn't funny I'll be upgrading my computer in the near future and I'm wondering what sort of processor(s), motherboard, etc would be best for speeding up RB with CCE SP.

 

I looked at the thread myself and what sparked me to make my own is that people were generally not putting down what kind of processor(s) they were running with--especially to get the fast times they were getting. Currently for me it takes about 4 hours for a regular DVD (episodic ones take even longer.) I'm currently running off a 1 gig system though, would another gig of ram speed things up substantially?

 

RAM is cheap and would probably help you with your encoding but what are your current PC specs?

However, would it be cheaper or around the same price to upgrade your processor? I would think that would be more beneficial to your DVD-RBing then a RAM upgrade.

Also although most processors are dual-core these days, from what I know DVD-RB/CCE would not take advantage of both cores. So, unless you multi-task a lot or commonly use programs that are multi-treaded it might be better to just get a faster single core as opposed to "Upgrading" to a Dual-Core.

Again, just to get an idea of where you stand, could you maybe post your system specs and, if you feel like it, your approx. budget for the upgrades.

 

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm)XP 2700+2167 MHz
Memory: 1 gig ram (384 free)
Mainboard: SoyoComputer k7vkpe

300-500 dollar budget.

 

OK, well according to this website the fastest CPU it supports is a 3200+. I couldn't find a Socket A (aka Socket 462) processor at Newegg or ZipZoomFly.

The fastest one I was able to find was a 2800+ located here. for $85.99 before shipping. Thats not worth it in my opinion as that would not give you that much, if any, of an increase in performance.

As for RAM, its from $105 to $270 at Newegg. I would personally go with this RAM at $125 incl. Shipping - G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 400 (PC3200).

Personally, I don't really like "Budget" RAM (that is RAM actually branded "Value" RAM) but its your call. The RAM I linked to is only ~$5-10 bucks more then the "Value" stuff.

 

Thanks for your help pop Smith and Creaky. Pop, my brother was just telling me the other day not to go with "budget" or cheap Ram like you were saying. You had said upgrading my ram would probably speed things up a good amount with RB, and considering all I use this cpu for is the internet, movie backups, and Word, is it really worth buying anything besides ram for this cpu?

 

I am not 100% the fact that more RAM would help speed up your DVD RB encoding but it wouldn't hurt.

Considering what your using your PC for you might, if you could see yourself doing so in the near future, want to just hold off and get a new(er) PC instead.

However, if you do not see yourself getting a new PC in the near future then yes, I would go with a RAM upgrade. The extremely small jump in CPU speed is not going to help your DVD-RB experience much, if at all.

I would go with something similar to that kit I pointed to earlier, $125 is not bad considering the RAM it is and the speed its at as well.

According to Cinema Craft Inc.'s section on CCE SP it requires a minimum of 512MB RAM. (See here at the bottom of the page)

So, from what I can tell, boosting your RAM from 1GB to 2GB, plus having it running at the maximum speed your board supports its going to decrease your DVD RB/CCE times.

Maybe not by a lot but it will be quite a bit better then doing a 2700+ -> 2800+ processor upgrade.

 

Very sound advice indeed. By the end of the summer I should have enough money for a new computer so I'll just wait until then. No sense in throwing a hundred dollars and some change into some ram that won't transfer into a newer machine. Thanks for all the help Pops.

 

klemperal


Any of the current Intel CPU offerings will show a remarkable improvement when compared to your current processor. Encoding speeds are largely determined by CPU capability although memory also plays a small part.

I have two Dual core AMD's (Opteron 175 and 170), 1 D series Intel (D940), and 2 Conroes (E6600 and E6700). Note that all of the systems are overclocked to increase performance. The slowest of the 5 is the D 940 at 3.75 Ghz, then the Opteron 175 @2.6GHz, the Opteron 170@2.75 GHz, the E6600@3.4 GHz and the E6700@ 3.75 GHz (this one is also water cooled). My average encode speeds (including Prepare/encode/rebuild on all) for the Opterons is roughly about 70-90 minutes, my E6600 about 55-70 minutes, and my E6700 about 45-65 minutes.

An interesting point is that my Opteron 175 has the fastest prepare and rebuild phase of all of my systems and the only real difference is that it has a Raptor WD1500AD hard drive. Since it only shaves about 4 minutes total it is hardly worth the extra money just for it alone but there is no doubt in my mind that in those two phases hard drive speed plays a small role. It might also play a small role in encode speeds but it is difficult to determine by how much and in the end my Opty 175 still takes a back seat to my Conroes'.

All of my systems have 2 gigs of memory.

 

I had an Opty 175 (OC'd a little) and my current 185 (a little) connected to my Raptor and the decrease in time tween the two wasnt nearly as significant as the difference tween opties and Intel C2D. Also Sophocles is being generous with his reported times to show the difference in a full DL encode vs. a smaller disc. I've been done giving my old machine more RAM & CPU's, and decided to wait awhile to pull the trigger on a totally new system.

 

Could you please post a picture of what this looks like, I've never seen that before. I know this is a little off topic but my curiosity has gotten the better of me.

 

although cce does not fully take advantage of both cores, it does still utilize both cores to some extent. due to the architecture of the core 2 duo's, no other single or dual core cpu's of the same speed will outperform them using cce, procoder, or hc. actually a stock E6600 C2D at 2.4ghz will compete with or outperform even an AMD athlon 64 X2 6000+ at 3.0ghz and it will walk all over all single core cpu's.

with a C2D not only will you benefit greatly in the time required to run dvd-rb/encoder but you will also be able to multi-task while it is running.

I greatly admire and respect Sophicles but I also feel he was being generous with the times he reported. I can run RB/CCE, build an ISO, and burn most folders in under an hour, some in as little time as 45 minutes.

more/better ram won't hurt and may help a little but it will be much more beneficial to upgrade to a dual core cpu (preferably a C2D).

my E6600 at stock speed of 2.4ghz was almost twice as fast as my P4 northwood core 3.4ghz OC'ed to 3.6ghz.

clock per clock no other cpu can outperform a C2D (excluding quad cores).

 

Thats some handy information Mort and I'll definitely keep it in mind once I get my money right. lol, The first thing that popped into my head reading this was "damn, you can multi task with RB!?!" That will definitely be nice.

 

klemperal,

you have dvd-rb pro don't you? you should be able to multi-task now by setting the encoder priority to idle (low) priority even though I don't recommend multi-tasking with a slower/older cpu and less than 1gb of ram.

 

Yeah, I have pro but multi tasking is out of the question with as little memory as I have available. I've had some bad results the couple times I did...then I had to start all over again and wanted to kick myself for it.

 

While it is true that RB uses only a single core during the prepare and rebuild stages, CCE is a truly multi threaded application. CCE uses both cores during the entire encode phase which will decrease encode times considerably. My encodes on my single core P4 used to run around 3X at its best, my Dual Core Opterons around 4.7 to 5.25 times, and my E6700 7X to even 8X or better.


HC encoder and Procoder are single threaded applications but they too can be sped up considerably since RB can run each of those encoders twice at the same time, one on each core. Since they are naturally slower than CCE they both still take quite a while to finish but they finish much faster running instances on each of two cores at the same time.

So if you want to speed up your RB encodes then the best way to do it is with Dual core.

http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/cpu.html

 

Just a little update. I just finsihed an encode of Pirates of the Caribbean 2, full copy minus foreign languages, CCE 2 pass. The point was not to show encode times but rather how my tjunction temps are during full load but they will do to make a point. Also note that encode rates can vary throughout an encode so I took two shots at different ranges.

 

Impressive. What make and model dual processors were those? Were they overclocked, and if so, what kind of speeds would they generate without being overclocked?

 

klemperal


The encode was done with an Intel E6700 overclocked to 3.6 Ghz, but even without overclocking it would hit speeds in the 6X/7X range.