What AMD Processor will convert faster

[gmatov]

Jeez, a whole page has cropped up since I started to type the last.
Colindale, how'd you set up your 1.6 to 2.5? and stay at such a cool speed? Bump the voltage much? 33 C is 91 F or damn near. My case temp is that high, maybe higher. 50% is a hell of an increase. Maybe you could give a short tutorial to a couple here who have oc'd with no voltage change, and insist they run cooler, if anything.
Tex,
When it comes to CPUs, I think AMD does some selective testing, and only the best of the crop come in a "boxed" version. They are typically about 10 bucks more, with a heatsink and fan that are specifically approved by AMD, serially numbered, have one fail, give them the fan serial, new proc. OEMs are packed in a plastic tray, a dozen, 50, a 100, whatever, and a corrugated box. No individual protection, whatsoever. They pick it out of the enmasse tray, slip it in a plastic bag, and there you go, mate, gimme a hundred, whatever. You just beat AMD, AND Intel, because, if you go to any shows, you will see as many, if not more, Intels in plastic trays.
As far as ketchup goes, well, you're a Texan, what the hell do you know about it. Let me advise you, my man, that Heinz Ketchup originated, and may still be solely produced ( but probably not ) 20 miles from my home town. Not too many people here would have answered the ?s your researchers asked with the wrong answer. Hunt's, Del Monte, whatever else you said, would be unpalatable. And, if that's not enough, tell me who else has green and purple ketchup. No one, that's who!!! ( I understand blue is next. Don't it wanna make you gag? )
And, boy, are they ganging up on you. I count 3 totally anti, some with valid argument, some with hyperbole, some with just plain viciousness.
I personally don't give a damn what anybody encodes with or browses the net with or puts actresses heads on tramps bodies with.
But, if I knew how to quote a previous post, I'd sure like to quote the one above, lead, page 3, that says the literati ( the computer literate ) will laugh at you if you tell them you use an Intel CPU. Hell, if you admitted to an Intel board and chipset, to boot, you'd probably be laughed out of a relatively large town. I know Colindale is safe because there aren't any relatively large towns in Australia. I know. I've seen the Dundee movies, as well as Quigley Down Under, one of my favorites

[freak_in_cage_10k]

Metaluna- your test favours amd even more than you suggested! you cant compare your oked 1700+ to the bart6on because, even though they have the same clock speed, your 1700+ isnl;t a barton, its a thoroughbread (has smaller cache etc). However, the 1.8GHz you overclocked your 1700+ is the speed of a 2200+ Thoroughbread, and so you were not comparing a "2500+ barton" to a 2.5GHz P4, but you were comparing a 2200+ thoroughbread to a 2.4GHz p4.

my only worry is that the HD on the intel system would have been a bit more clogged up, hence it may not have been such a fair test!

[rhegedus]

You people should read the whole article. If you read the whole article, note that there are MANY people that say that they do not have issues with their chips. Also if you actually read closely, it is mostly the OEM chips that are having issues. OEM chips come in bulk and are NOT packaged individually. So its not surprising that some come come with bent pins considering many suppliers do not package the cpus carefully. If you read ALL the way to then end, not just two or three lines, it says that the Retail package chips have very low failure rates. Most people that buy Intel buy it in a retail package. If you want to be safe then buy retail package.

Erm.... I did read the whole article, hence my proviso about not being able to make much of it. However, this point is quite telling:

If anything, it seems "episodic" - some purchasers might run into a string of bad CPUs at times, at other times not.

Shouldn't they be tested thoroughly before shipping to vendors? To have chips not even boot up is inexcusable.

Perhaps the best advice out of this is to purchase retail CPUs - more protection for users in the event of failure; and you can use the heatsink that comes with it for a paperweight.

Does this mean that the OEM heatsink is not up to the job?

[mtremel]

Many people who own computers have "Intel Inside", this is not because they are a better product, cheapter, more effective at what they do. It is because the avg. person doesn't know about Intel. So it is obvious that AMD might not be as popular, but what does it matter? Who cares which one runs cooler, of faster. Point is AMD provide the best speed/performance ratio. My primary box is an AMD 1600MB, and can render mpg vid in vegas4 in real time, at the best settings. The important thing is to complete the job, if an Intel chip could have done this quicker, that's fine. How much faster do you need?!?!

Going back to the spirit of the original question, the extra cache (in my opinion) is not as likely to speed the video encoding process up. Bottom line go for the highest chip you are willing spend.

Speed is a relative term, what is slow for me, may be fast for you. :P

[IJM]

Hi,

I must say that this debate is very interesting. Usually, these things descend into slanging matches, but its nice to see some interesting and intelligent arguments. So much so, that I feel I'd like to contribute. So here goes:

I like AMD, partially because they are the underdogs. Intel are huge. They have the muscle, they have the money, they have immense resources and they have a very well established market. For AMD to do what they've done and capture as much of the market from Intel as they have is amazing. And they are still a relatively small company.

While Intel has lead the way with ever-increasing clock speeds, AMD's creative and clever chip designs have managed to produce some very high performance processors without the Ghz. And for a while they were even leading the way performance-wise. Intel have since re-established their position, although AMD are very close, snapping at their heels.

Intel's main strategy has been upping the Ghz, shrinking the die process and extending the process stages to do so. They've also thrown other obstacles in AMD's path by introducing ever-more sets of instructions (such as SSE and SSE2) and features such as hyper-threading in an effort to ensure that their competition was always at least one step behind them.

This isn't to say that AMD lack innovation themselves, just look at 3dNow! and their Hypertransport technology for instance. Primarily though, its AMD's creative and clever chip designs have managed to produce some very high performance processors without the Ghz. But I'm sure that AMD are aware that such design will only get them so far. I do get the impression that with the Thoroughbred and Barton processors, AMD expected to be running at higher clock speeds than they are doing. Still not as many Ghz as the P4, but a few extra clock cycles coupled to their clever design would have seen them leading the field. I think that holding back the Athlon64 is buying time to enable them to get it properly sorted, so that when it hits the market, it has the impact that it's supposed to have.

But, I feel that the thing that has let AMD down is their packaging technology. I'm not talking about the box that your processor comes in. I'm on about the part of the CPU that interfaces the silicon processor with the outside world.

Have a read of this article from Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1542. Its a couple of years old, but it gives an insight into just how much thought, effort and design has to go into it.

For years Intel have incorporated heatspreaders, thermal diodes and protective throttling technology into their CPUs. This has made them very robust and reliable. Quite simply put, they don't break. Even when abused. I don't know if Intel processors do run has hot as their AMD counterparts. But the difference is that when Intel CPUs overheat, for whatever reason, they would automatically save themselves.

AMD have seriously lagged behind here. It's only with the first Athlon XP processor, the Palamino, that AMD finally put a thermal diode on the processor itself. And even then, it relied on motherboard support for the CPU to be protected. So much so, that it was only with intervention, that AMD finally had to actually give the motherboard manufacturers a recommended circuit design for them to implement. Tom's Hardware featured an article on this: http://www6.tomshardware.com/column/20011029/index.html.

Furthermore, AMD's processors did not have heat spreaders, a feature that would have made a heatsink's job much less demanding. Just look at when AMD introduced the Thoroughbred; the heat output was about the same as the Palamino it replaced, but the smaller surface area of the core meant that AMD had issue much tougher heatsink specs to compensate. A heat spreader would not only make thermal dissipation much easier, but also protect the CPU core when the heatsink is installed.

Still, despite this, the damage to AMD's reputation was already done. There was nothing wrong with the processors themselves; they could do everything that the Intel processors could do. Systems designed with care from the case inwards, with adequate cooling, could result in very high power systems for relatively little money. But, I believe that going all those years without reliable protection against CPU burnout is the one thing, more than anything, that has given AMD processors their poor reputation.

As a result, PC manufacturers shied away from AMD processors. Instead they went for Intel processors. Easy to install and robust with high reliability, despite the systems costing much more. It was more important to have fewer warranty claims and have an image of higher reliability. Because it was these factors that would get them repeat business; especially in the business market where the big money is.

But, watch out Intel, AMD are on the march again. The new Opteron shows the way that hopefully all AMD processors will go. First thing to notice: heat spreader; makes it easy to install the heatsink and easier to manage the heat. Also, the thermal protection is built into the chip itself. This is a clear and direct attack on the (justified) unreliability tag. It remains to be seen if they will feature on the forthcoming Athlon64. If they don't, then I think AMD will be shooting themselves in the foot.

At the end of the day we all want powerful cheap computers. I put it to you (especially the Intel fans) that you want AMD to produce processors that are at least as reliable and powerful as Intel's. You don't want a CPU market to stagnate under one overly-dominant company who can charge what they like, whether its Intel or AMD. You want genuine competition because it pushes processor speeds up and prices down.

Can AMD processors do video? Of course they can! And I do do video with my Athlon; hours and hours of it. But I will agree with the argument that, at the moment, it's easier to build a reliable system with an Intel CPU; you just have to pay through the nose to do it. Especially when its the type of turnkey power computing solution that the video industry demands. An AMD system will be similarly as powerful, but will take more thought and care to put together; and crucially, less money.

I'm not an Intel fan. I'm not even really an AMD fan. When I last upgraded, the mitigating factor wasn't just the CPU, but also the extortionate cost of RAMBUS memory. When I come to upgrade my computer I a couple of years time, I'll look at the market at that time, and decide who gives the most bang for the buck.

In answer to the original question: simply go for the fastest processor you can afford. But take into account the cost of the whole system/change. You'll get the benefit from having the longest lifetime before feeling that you need to upgrade again.

I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Regards.

Ian.

[dontasciime]

Its like WWIII in here ,who would have guessed that asking a question about which one is better for encoding the ~AMD XP +2600 or AMD Barton +2500 ,would have led to such a debate about Intel V's Amd .
To be honest They are both rubbish well (the HYPE that is ).

You want to build a computer for under £300 then go for AMD *
You want to Phone norton Finance then build a computer go for an Intel




* (not including monitor)

[rhegedus]

If you look at the prices (UK £ www.overclockers.co.uk ) for the top of the range processors, you'll see that the AMD is more expensive than the Intel:

AMD Athlon "Barton" XP3200+ 400FSB (Socket A) - £380.70

Intel Pentium 4 'Northwood' 3.0CGHz (800FSB) - £343.10

If you see the following benchmarks of the two chips,

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030513/athlon_xp-11.html

the Intel beats the AMD in every test - not what you'd expect.

The conclusion makes for interesting reading:

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030513/athlon_xp-22.html

[LanEvo7]

Erm.... I did read the whole article, hence my proviso about not being able to make much of it.

Then I am not talking to you, I am talking through you. That comment was really targeted at people posting "facts" that have no backing other than their mouth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you look at the prices (UK £ www.overclockers.co.uk ) for the top of the range processors, you'll see that the AMD is more expensive than the Intel:

AMD Athlon "Barton" XP3200+ 400FSB (Socket A) - £380.70

Intel Pentium 4 'Northwood' 3.0CGHz (800FSB) - £343.10

If you see the following benchmarks of the two chips,

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030513/athlon_xp-11.html

the Intel beats the AMD in every test - not what you'd expect.

I just want to make it clear that I am not Pro-AMD and Anti-Intel. Frankly I like both companies, I just can't stand when people make themselves sound like an expert and spreads false statements.

Regarding AMD's Barton core, I felt it was somewhat a disappointment. They increased their rating system, when clearly the extra cache does not benifit ALL programs. Sometimes a xp2800(thoroughbred-b) beats a xp3000(barton). In the upper segment(>2.8ghz), Intel has a better value. In the middle arena(2.4-2.8), it really can go either way depending on what you want to use the computer for. In the lower segment, AMD has a shouldn't even be considered. Intel offers the celeron, while a comparable Athlon can be purmuch better price/perfomance ratio. In the super-low segment(>2.0ghz) Intel shouldn't even be considered. What reason would you have to buy a slower Celeron for a higher price than a comparable athlon?

[dontasciime]

yeah you have a point there ,but consider this in a few weeks that amd price will have fallen ,when they hit the target for rich kids and mugs that have paid top dollar for the priviledge of being the first to get ripped off.
In a few weeks or 2 months that price will be much lower ,yet the intel will still be sitting at the same price range for a lot longer .
And the fact that the intel is a higher ghz chip ,does show some benchmarks to be better than the Amd Top Of The Range Chip ,when i reality a 2.2 ghz is keeping up with the intel on a some of the benchmarks.
I mean come on look at the price.. Xp 2500 1833 ,£65 Xp 2700 2.2 ghz ,£111
And that Xp 2700 will be even cheaper shortly.

If it wasnt For Amd you would have Intel making 5 ghz celeron chips when i reality they just copied the fisher Price 20mhz chip and rebadged it.

[TBoneit]

Many people who own computers have "Intel Inside", this is not because they are a better product, cheapter, more effective at what they do. It is because the avg. person doesn't know about Intel. So it is obvious that AMD might not be as popular, but what does it matter? Who cares which one runs cooler, of faster. Point is AMD provide the best speed/performance ratio. My primary box is an AMD 1600MB, and can render mpg vid in vegas4 in real time, at the best settings. The important thing is to complete the job, if an Intel chip could have done this quicker, that's fine. How much faster do you need?!?!

Going back to the spirit of the original question, the extra cache (in my opinion) is not as likely to speed the video encoding process up. Bottom line go for the highest chip you are willing spend.

Speed is a relative term, what is slow for me, may be fast for you. :P

I care which one runs cooler, I care because I don't need a ton of fans to get rid of the heat, with P4 I get rid of the fan noise, even the heatsinks run cooler on a P4 vs AMD...

Yes I have done both here at work (AMD Barton core, superfancy Asus MB) and P4 Superfancy Asus MB.

Would you like to guess which one throws out less heat into the room, makes less noise, which one I use at home for video encoding etc....

Yup Intel, I prefer silence, lower power useage (I'm guessing ( , and less AC needed in the summer vs Cheaper (AMD).

I've seen totalled MBs from processor overheat, The Newbie builder used scotch tape to hold the heatsink on!!

The only CPUs I've seen that burned the chip material were AMDs, Excluding a couple where the PS sent (probably AC voltage from failed diodes) and burned everything, MB, Drives, RAM, CPU etc.

You come in the store and want AMD vs Intel, I'll sell em, But don't complain about the fan noise for the extra required cooling

Cheers
Roger

[dontasciime]

The issue of Intel V's Amd for heat and Fan Noise make no difference to me as i am deaf .

[jnk76]

As stated above I too am finding this thread very interesting and educational. I am glad this has not degraded to flaming.

Since I am not a fan of AMD or INTEL because I never receive any money from them I just care about building systems that are reliable and cost effective for ME.

The P200 that I have is going strong. It has had 3 new power supplies is kept in a non ventilate area and had been running great for 7 or 8 years.

The Athalon 1200 is also running really good. I have done some many rips as SVCD and DVD that I would have thought by know the system would be dead. As a note * The cpu fan did die at one point and the system just shut itself down * No melting or smoke or nothing. I was not running ANAL probe....umm I mean ASUS probe software either.

Current system is XP2500 and it too is running great. I have more than doubled my speed using CCE which is way more than I expected.

I thought an interesting thing to do is start a thread or continue this one where you state what speeds you are getting with certain programs like CCE. You can eliminate some variable by having some things the same but it would be good indicators where and why you may be running slower or faster than others using same equipment.

So I will start here:

Athalon 1200: AVG. CCE speed using DVD2SVCD with DVD settings is approx. 1.2. With the Robshot method ( I think that is the name of it) which is method using the Big Three (DOitfast4u, DoCCE4u and Reauthorist) I get 1.4. This system has a 266 FSB and 2 x 256MB DDR 266 mhz ram.

XP2500 (no overclocking) Avg. speed is approx. 2.4 to 2.5 depending on method. Mobo has 400 FSB but CPU is running at 333 and 2 x 512 MB DDR ram is also @ 333mhz. When overclocked to 12.5 multiplier instead of 11 I get over 2.6 using Big three.

[rhegedus]

yeah you have a point there ,but consider this in a few weeks that amd price will have fallen ,when they hit the target for rich kids and mugs that have paid top dollar for the priviledge of being the first to get ripped off.
In a few weeks or 2 months that price will be much lower ,yet the intel will still be sitting at the same price range for a lot longer.

Maybe AMD will drop the price since they know they can't compete on performance with this chip. It will be interesting to see what the prices will be like in a month.

[freak_in_cage_10k]

LanEvo7- u may be interested to know (or you may already know!) that the SSE2 instructions help a huge amount in the P4s performance (for all tasks). An overclocking enthusast disabled these instructions and benchmarked one of the latest Intels (2.8GHz i think) its performance was approx equal to a 1.3GHz AMD TBird!!!!!!!!!!! So, basically the sse2 instructions are only what is keeping intel up with amd, and without them intel get thrashed!

Both processors are v good, and i suspect that even with software designed to benefit from SSE2 P4 the difference in performance between that & the equivelent AMD would be smallish and, unless you are talking about the 3000+ (which is still v expensive)& 3.06GHz P4, not worth the additional money! Also the P4 MBs are more expensive!

As long as you know how to apply the HS propperly, and you monitor the CPU temp at full load in warm room temps, and they are ok, AMD users have NO PROBLEM!!

All this stuff about AMD producing more heat is WRONG!!!!! AMD processors actually produce less heat than intel CPUs! HOWEVER, they do run hotter due to a smaller die surface area!

TBoneit- i use amd and i dont need "tons of fans" i have two fans, one in my psu (which all psus have!) and one on my heatsink, it runs at about 22db, barley detectable, and it runs at about 50 full load which is fine!!!!! the secret? a copper heatsink, and thats it! none of all this "tonnes of fans" bollox!

[MikeV]

This just happened Monday night. The wife called me into my daughters room because the computer was making funny noises. I listened and said it sounds like one of the fans is going out. About ten minutes later the wife came out and said the computer kept rebooting so she shut it off. This computer is a 700meg Duron with only power supply fan and CPU fan, I'm thinking fried CPU. Pulled the cover off and it felt like I opened the oven door, the CPU fan was melted and falling off the heat sink, the heat sink was soo hot you could fry an egg on it. Went to my work room and found another CPU heat sink and fan, installed it, and hit the power switch. I expected to see and hear nothing, but to my amazement the CPU booted up and ran without a problem. This is one AMD chip that took a lickin and kept on tickin.

[rhegedus]

I use amd and i dont need "tons of fans" i have two fans, one in my psu (which all psus have!) and one on my heatsink, it runs at about 22db, barley detectable, and it runs at about 50 full load which is fine!!!!! the secret? a copper heatsink, and thats it! none of all this "tonnes of fans" bollox!

At the risk of veering off the topic, as far as I'm aware, heat sinks are made of either copper or aluminium. The jury is out on which is the better material as the metals' conductance and capacitance (I think) will effect the outcome. What matters most os the surface area of the heatsink that's available for cooling. There's an article at the overclockers forum about it.

It's been a while (6/12) since I last read up on it, so things might well have changed since then. All very interesting (in a nerdish kind of way) though.

[edplayer]

Why? One box is no better than the other. So, you're telling me to go pay more because some clown stamped his name on the box? Rather than buying it from an OEM's overstock? Of the same thing? Uh huh. This is another one of those urban legends.

They are basically the same. Some things to consider though, 3 year warranty and heatsink/fan. If the price difference is large enough I would pick OEM any day. However, I have noticed that gap to be closing as of late. Recently the 2500+ dropped quite a bit, there were places where you could buy the retail for less than the OEM. Even now, most places have a very small premium for the retail (like $5).

One other thing, turnover. For people that are really into overclocking, it could very well be that the location you choose to purchase from has newer cpus in the OEM section cause of larger turnover. Statistically, the newer cpus will overclock better.

[edplayer]

But, if I knew how to quote a previous post, I'd sure like to quote the one above, lead, page 3, that says the literati ( the computer literate ) will laugh at you if you tell them you use an Intel CPU.

At the top of each post there is a button that says quote, push it.

[edplayer]

Your motherboard was probably made in Taiwan and probably your intel processor. Same as AMD. It doesnt matter which company... people still work as slaves.

AMD cpus are made in Germany (they used to make them in Texas, if you have a Duron or certain older Athlons, its Texas). Intels are made in various points throughout the U.S.

They are packaged in different countries though (mine is from Malaysia for example). "Package" does not refer to the cardboard box :P

[LanEvo7]

At the risk of veering off the topic, as far as I'm aware, heat sinks are made of either copper or aluminium. The jury is out on which is the better material as the metals' conductance and capacitance (I think) will effect the outcome. What matters most os the surface area of the heatsink that's available for cooling. There's an article at the overclockers forum about it.

Most heatsinks are made of either copper or aluminum. There are some exotic(which happen to be expensive) breeds that are plated with silver or gold. Aluminum, the cheapest material to make a decent heatsink with is, also the poorest. It takes longer for heat to be transfered to it from the cpu. Copper is the better material since it absorbs heat faster. I forgot which one comes next, gold or silver, but they perform the best. If a whole heatsink was made with either, it'd probably cost more than the whole computer.

Most heatsinks are aluminum. That is ok. They are more than enough for regular use, usually overclockers or silence fanatics get the hybrids or the copper.

Usually the best heatsinks are hybrids. Usually a aluminum body with a copper core. The reason for this is because although copper absorbs heat faster, it also holds it in longer. Aluminum disperse's heat faster. So the copper core absorbs the heat faster, the aluminum disperses it faster.

[spiderman2k1]

I have a AMD 1.8XP and it works fine. But some timeswhenI play games my pc reboot's I have talk to another friend and he said he has the same problem. He said he does not have this problem on his intel PC. But another freind of my who's a Intel user said I might just have a bad stick of ram in my PC just have to replace it. I hink alot of AMD bad video problem came from bad via chip set's. I have the Dazzle 2 pci card had to try three mother board's before I got it to work. I use the 266A chip set no problem's now. If I was doing high end Video I might go with Intel. I just no you do not have to think will this work with AMD. It's not really AMD that bad but some of the companies that make there mother board chip set. But if you get a good chip set on AMD you should be fine

[rhegedus]

Most heatsinks are made of either copper or aluminum. There are some exotic(which happen to be expensive) breeds that are plated with silver or gold. Aluminum, the cheapest material to make a decent heatsink with is, also the poorest. It takes longer for heat to be transfered to it from the cpu. Copper is the better material since it absorbs heat faster.

Yep, but the density of Cu is 3x as much as Al, so you're limited to a third of the volume (and corresponding surface area - yawn, too late to do the maths) of what you'd get if you used Al i.e. you can use 3x as much as Al than Cu to cool your chip. That's where Al catches up on Cu.

[gf]

Hi Andy149
I follow this post for a couple of days and I think I have a answer for you. Since you have a NForce 2 motherboard, I would set the fsb (front side buss) speed for 400 Mhz (ddr 200 Mhz), providing you have good ram, set it up for dual ram controller, you need 2 identical sticks of ram, and now the processor. It's a close one, the xp3200+ runs at 2.2 Ghz and the xp2800+ runs at 2.25 Ghz. Now my choice would be if money is no object, the xp3200+ because it has 512 kB of level 2 cache vrs 256 kB on the xp2800+.
Hope this helps, oh check out this page, it does NOT list the xp3200+, but it's a good reference.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-26.html

Steve

[gmatov]

Ed,
Every time I tried the "Quote" button, after hi-liteing a sentence, it quoted the whole post. That's the problem I have with it.
The 3200XP is expensive, and is slow right now because they're trying to get it up to snuff. They have to qualify the CPUs for each speed increase. This thing wasn't designed to be a 2.2. They probably have hopes of 4 gig or something in the long run, but every time they hit a wall, they have to find out what the prob is and fix it. Then they'll put out the next step, and start qualifying a higher speed..
Intel has the same problem. Their latest giant leap was 66 megahertz, a 2 % increase in speed. Not impressive. And it's not going to be easy to go higher, either, and that's why that chip is going to be high priced for a while, same as the 3200XP.
I was happy to see the Freak make mention of the die area. The OC page, or whatever we were directed to way back when, showed the total heat dissipation, in watts, for each CPU, AMD and Intel. The numbers were close. Till now, no one has mentioned that the AMD burned those watts in a smaller area, something like 2/3 as much as Intels. Roughly equivalent to a propane torch compared to an acetylene torch. Much easier to cool the propane's heat output.
Jnk76, I'd like to join that club. I can't believe the times I see here, in some posts. My 2000XP takes like 4 to 6 hours per hour of rip, and others say, "Oh, yeah, real time, sometimes faster.". It would have to be with a standard movie for everyone, though, I suggested Harry Potter, once, as probably everyone has it. If you get this thread set up, let me know.
I still think the "pick'o'the litter goes into an AMD OR Intel "boxed" version. Premium includes a fan/heatsink, which you have to buy with OEM, so cost is about the same, and, again, 3 year warranty in the box.

[jnk76]

gmatov,

Picking a movie will be tough. I actually don't have Harry Potter.
I did think of some ideas though.
The program to be used is DVD2SVCD with settings that are predetermined for DVD encoding which would just be a file you load.

The Disc would need to be ripped on drive already so ripping within the program would not be neccesary which eliminates slower DVD drives.

Once the process is done, I am pretty sure the log file can be copied and posted very easily.

Is anyone else interested in this? If so what movie seems to be common?
Maybe we may have to do 2 or 3 movies.

[gmatov]

jnk76,
Doesn't matter the film. Make it an oldie so no one complains of the price, everyone get it , and go to town..
You're right about the settings. Some may try a low bit rate, or a high bit rate, otherwise. "This is good enough for me." or "That's crap!"
Mebbe you can start a thread in Off Topic, or somewhere to do it. It ain't gonna work here. Hijacking is frowned upon. I think I did it a while back, and am glad no one got mad.
I would like to see some actual times, and results, so I won't keep thinking I have a sloooowwwww machine.
The processor thread seems to be petering out.

[gmatov]

jnk,
A suggestion. I am watching "Merlin", which I ripped a month or two ago. Took 2 2/3 80 minute CD-Rs. I think it is excellent. 3 hours, a few seconds.
At least, if we have to do something everyone agreees upon, it should be an entertaining flick. It's the one with Sam Neal. Excellent movie, but I'm old enough to enjoy this kind of stuff. Some others might not be.

[freak_in_cage_10k]

rhegedus- obviously the sa of the heatsink plays a large part, along with the air flow in the case (reducing mb temp) and the material of the hs. yes, copper is much denser than al, but what so what? the manufactures make cu heatsinks as large as they do al ones, ok, so they are significantly heavier, but its not a problem if u use a shim, and sum of the heaviest cu heatsinks have four mounting pins (instead of a clip) to hold them onto the cpu. so, you are not limited to 1/3 of the volume with a cu heatsink! what is limiting you?!

oh, and to straighten things out, copper is a MUCH better CONDUCTOR of heat, however al is a better radiator of heat! but put it this way, if you made 2 identical heatsinks, one from cu and 1 from al (same surface area etc) the cu one would win, easily. just ask any overclocker, they ALL use cu heatsinks!

[rhegedus]

Really? I thought the current view was to use a combined Cu/Al heatsink (Cu base with Al fins). Couldn't find any full scale comparisons of the same model of heatsink with Cu, Cu/Al, and Al variants.

As for being held back, I'm doing quite nicely with my Zalman NPS6500B-AlCu. Zalman's own stats don't show much difference in C/W between the Cu and Cu/Al models, but the Cu one weighs about 1/2Kg more.

P4 2.26 oc to 2.53 with only a couple of degrees rise in temp (over not oc) at 100% CPU usage with the fan on minimum. Nice and quiet.........

Do you know any up to date Cu, Cu/Al, Al heatsink reviews? I want to upgrade soon so I'll start from the bottom up!

[borghe]

I am running a 2.0Ghz AthlonXP w/ 1GB RAM Low Latency (2225) Dual Channel DDR and both the FSB and Memory clocked at 200/400Mhz. I am using a Western Digital 8MB cache drive (unfortunately reading and writing to the same drive also with the pagefile on the same drive). Using TMPGEnc and encoding a 2 hour MPEG2 file (about 26GB avi source) first running through AVISynth which does trimming, Decomb, clipping, resizing, and adding borders, no audio, and TMPGEnc set to highest quality motion search using 2-pass VBR, it takes me between 14-15 hours to encode.

If this is bad someone tell me...