TMPGEnc encoding faster: 2.4ghz Intel celeron or northwood

[jeg_jason]

I am planning to use a powerleap CPU adapter on my Dell Dimension 8100 to go from a 1.3ghz Wiliamette pentium 4 to either a 2.4/2.6ghz Celeron or a 2.4/2.6ghz Pentium 4 Northwood to encode faster with TMPGEnc. I have heard that the Celeron has only 128K of L2 Cache versus 512K for the Northwood, but I do not know if that will affect TMPGEnc or not. I know it would make a difference on other applications, but the only CPU intensive thing I really do is encode video. Both processors would have the same clock and FSB speed (400mhz my motherboard won't take 533.) If any one has used a Celeron and Pentium 4 at the same clock and FSB speeds with TMPGEnc, I would appreciate your comments. The only reason why I am considering the Celeron is that it is half the price of the Northwood.

[ImaWeTodd]

Here is a link to Tom's hardware that does a Divx encode compare. This is not exactly what you are looking for but I bet it lines up about the same. It looks to me like you would get a 10 to 15% increase from the pentium.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20021016/celeron-07.html#xmpeg_45

I wounder how much improvement you'd get over your old processor.
I'd:
- save my money and buy a whole new computer. (very hard to save when you really really want to buy)
- use the main concept encoder (faster)
- Encode while you sleep. (6hrs is not really much better than 8hrs)

[jeg_jason]

Thanks for the link and info ImaWeTodd. I did a search around the site and found a direct comparison between 1.7ghz celeron and pentium 4 processors. The following link states that for video processing L2 cache does not make much difference.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020903/p4_celeron-08.html#mpeg4_encoding_flask_501

Although this was for mpeg4 encoding, I wonder if it holds true for mpeg2 encoding as well. I would love to save the money and get nearly the same encoding speed. I am hoping to go another 1.5 to 2 years before I buy a new computer (Pentium Tejas maybe) and keep using my free version of tmpgenc (12a) with unlimited mpeg2 encoding instead of paying $150 for Mainconcept. Anybody know if the L2 cache affects mpeg2 encoding?

[ImaWeTodd]

So, you are willing to spend $150 on a new cpu, but not $150 on software. Programmers get no respect from you hardware guys. I believe you can try the mainconcepts encoder for free. I will admit that a hardware upgrade is easier. Nothing new to learn.

On another note, It looks to me like you really get a big boost jumping FSB speeds. I'm not sure cache makes a big difference. Is cache the only difference between the 2 chips? Here are 2 links that compare mpeg2. The last is the best (and notice the encoder they used for the test

Your current cpu (i guess) was 813sec. A 2.4 Pentium is 453sec. A 2.0 Cel was 597s and a 2.0 Pent was 534s. It'd be interesting to see a price curve. Looks like Memory/FSB speed makes the difference.

http://www.sharkeyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_1582091__4
http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_1002661__6
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-26.html

[ImaWeTodd]

By the way: There are free ways to boost performance, like putting black boarders around the frame, doing film at 24fps, giving up quality (motion search, smoothing), etc.

[housepig]

So, you are willing to spend $150 on a new cpu, but not $150 on software.

I don't think that's a case of "programmers get no respect" or "not wanting to learn new software" or taking the easy way out.

It's more that this poster can spend $150 on an alternate one-trick-pony software, or he can spend $150 and speed up and improve all his computer's processes.

[ImaWeTodd]

I was only half serious about the $150. I was just pushing MainConcepts. It's of course up to j_jason. I have a dual amd 1900 and can do dvd full frame almost real time with mainconcepts. I was shocked when I learned this.

Hopefully the links I found added value.

As far as bang for your buck or speeding up your web surfin and all other pc processes, and economist would say a consumer would spend their $150 on what the consumer (not you nor I) would say adds the most value. I'm sure jason will do the same.

In other words, the marginal value of the 'one trick pony' may well exceed the entire benefit of the faster cpu. In fact, the value of speeding up all other processes may be zero. So your argument really falls flat.

I'm only saying this because you wanted to point out why I was wrong, but didn't want to give any info about bigger faster machines. No offence intended. After all, I am a weee tod.

[mgh]

Enable DMA for your HD if you haven't already. That makes a big difference.
Shifted from PIII 800 to PIV 2.4 GHz few days back. VCD to VCD is faster than real time. Dr.Divx (when it does not crash) encodes faster than real time with 2 pass encoding for same job. Encoding to MPEG2 is double to triple real time depending on filters used.
Set up TMPGEnc using wizard for batch encode. Start the encode and then click the switch off PC when finished checkbox. Then go to sleep. By morning the job is done and the PC is switched off automatically at the end of it.
BTW if you do not use the wizard, the checkbox doesn't appear!!