x264/720p CPU requirements

[RB4891]

Howdy all. I recently built myself a media box, just a cheap one I frankensteined from some old parts and new gear. Here are the specs:

ASRock P4VM890 Socket 478 Max Bus 800Mz SATA150
2Gb DDR SDRAM PC3200
Sapphire Radeon X1650Pro - Radeon X1650Pro VPU w/512Mb DDR2 & PCI Express
Dual 750GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 SATAII-300 7200RPM 16Mb OEM
PENTIUM 4 (NORTHWOOD) 2.4Ghz

Now I have CoreAVC installed and most of my x264 files play fine, but a few spike up mid-lateway and the video gets lagged behind the audio.

Now my question is this, will there be a noticeable video performance difference if I horde out $100-200 for a new CPU (this one is from mid 2002 lol)?

I pretty much have three choices:
Northwood at 3-3.4GHz (512 L2 cache)
Prescott at 3-3.4Ghz (1M L2 cache)
Extreme at 3.2Ghz (2M L3 cache)

Now the Prescott is the cheapest for some reason, I'm not really up to scope with the whole P4 scene, I can find a Pres for about 100 bucks. The NW is about 150 and Extremes go for 200+.

This whole setup set me back about 300 bucks excluding the HDDs. I'd prefer not to fork more into it especially for a minimalist increase.

Can anyone with any experience of info fill me in, TYVM.

[amir77a]

I can tell you that I am running Vista Media Center, on Pentium 4 2.4GHz, with 1GB RAM. All movies are working very good.

So.. I believe it's the software. not the hardware.

[jman98]

Try installing the free VLC player, which often makes X264 watchable on slower systems. I have an AMD 3200+ CPU (32 bit, single core CPU 2+ years old) and VLC is the ONLY thing I have that enables me to watch X264/H264 at all. Your video card should be fast enough to render X264/H264, so try turning on hardware acceleration, if you can, in whatever program you are using to watch these videos. The much hyped CoreAVC codec is essentially useless on my system. I'm sure it works great - if you have a powerful enough CPU.

[amir77a]

CoreAVC is working great on my slow system.