Ram and encode speeds ???

[pantsmonkey]

Hay guys i currently have an Athlon XP 2800 with 512 MB pc2700 ram

My machine encodes about 10% slower than real time when all resources are allocated to encoding.

If i was to upgrade to 1024 MB of pc2700 ram would that speed encode times very much ?

and would it be better for encode speeds to jump to pc3200 ram (1024mb)

Ie should ie get 512mb more of 2700 or should i get 1024 mb of pc3200 ?

not sure if this is in the correct board though

cheers

[TeeeRex]

Hi,

There is little point performance wise in getting faster memory if your FSB of your processor / motherboard cannot use it (PC2700 is 333Mhz (I think..) and PC3200 is 400Mhz).

Having said that - for the few extra pounds, I would go for the faster memory - it won't make any difference now (assuming you have a 266 or 333 Mhz FSB) , but will do when you upgrade your motherboard/processor later for a 400 Mhz one ...

Also to note, in my experience Dual DDR (ie 2 x 512Mbyte in my case) encodes a LOT quicker then single DDR so you may want to match the memory if you have a Dual DDR motherboard.

Just some thoughts ...

TeeeRex

[Gazorgan]

I went from 133 Mhz SDRAM or 266 DDR and it improved my encoding exactly 0% (based on test encodes). The Bottleneck is always CPU, not disk I/O or RAM.

Gaming is the otherway, usually RAM/Video is the bottleneck.

[TeeeRex]

Forgot to mention - adding more than 512 Mbyte of RAM in a single DDR configuration will not increase the encoding speed (in my experience anyway) as most encoders/transcoders are bound by CPU rather then memory.

[TeeeRex]

Gazorgan - what encoder did you try this comparison with ? Going dual DDR with an Athlon XP 2400 (o/c'd to 2.2Ghz) and I get nearly 2.3x in CCE. With single DDR I only get 1.9x ?

Interesting ...