P4 or Athlon XP which is better for encoding....

[Sefy]

SatStorm, no it's not better, just more expensive.

Macros746, AMD are not being dishonest, they explain it on their own homepage, if people really want to know, they could just go there and read it, Intel are being dishonest, but then again, when you lie so many times, people think it's the truth.
FilComArt, hell no! go get the new nForce mainboards! they rock!! AC3 Dolby Digital Sound Card on board, GeForce2MX on board, Lan on board, TV-Out, and DDR support! what else do you need ??

[noldzy]

i have found a site that compared amd to pentium
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q4/011031/xpvsp4-08.html

But it's up to the individual what they like it does not matter coz cpu's changes all the time it keeps getting faster and faster,better and better all the time, why not ask around or surf the net?

hope this clarify.

[epic47]

What's the best motherboard for AMD XP, either Dual or single...doesn't matter

[tinycorkscrew]

Looks like the nVidia motherboard is the best bet for a single XP, and either of the Tyan boards for MP. I have a Thunder K7 for my MPs, but if you don't need the onboard video, SCSI, and NIC, then the Tiger might be a better fit for multiprocessing.

[MrDilemma]

Ok so wut about multitasking? I had no problems burning a cd and playing movies with my celeron 633mhz processor but then i purchased 1ghz amd athlon and when i do the same the movie playes very slow or the burn fails. Wuts up wit that?

[Sefy]

Sounds more like a mainboard problem then a CPU, you won't believe the amount of impact a mainboard has on the performance of your system.

I have Encoding in the background, 2 Netscape 6.2 windows open, ICQ, FTP Server, WebServer, DNS Server, Eudora for email, GetRight for downloading, and this is a daily regular usage, you can add Burning to that as well on the days i'm burning, and TV also when I want to watch TV, and other stuff...

As for performance and stability, i'd defenetly go for EPoX 8KHA board (DDR) or 8KTA3Pro (SDR), I saw someone who got a score of 11,990 using a self modificed 8KHA+ board!

They care great for Price/Performance, but i've emailed them asking if they will come out with a nForce chipset and dual anytime soon, cause I want that more

[Douglesh]

The only thing i am waiting for is a mobo that supports athlon XP 1700 and RIMM, or ram faster than 266. I hear DDR266 performance is barely above SDRAM.

[tinycorkscrew]

You hear wrong, then.

[nanjil]

where di you get one for that kind of price?
Any pointers?


<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-12-03 06:28:04, sommersby wrote:
My new AMD1600xp cut my encoding times by about 40% over my 1g tbird, from 4hrs to 2 1/2 hours for a 2 hour movie. And its a cheap upgrade, I got the system with 40g hd, 16x dvd and 256mb ddr ram for $418 total at a recent show.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

[Sefy]

Douglesh, I believe you have been brainwashed by Intel's marketing, RDRAM isn't all that good in real performance on the real life, it's only good on the paper with lots of big numbers, and DDR is now reaching 333mhz, oh, and you heard very wrong! and you never answred my question:

How is it a Ultra Superior P4 with RDRAM can't even beat P3 ?

[wolly]

An unscientific data point. I get to run varied apps doing work on AMD, Intel, and Alpha boxes. Seems to me that AMD has had the edge for many generations.

One thought about motherboards. You might want to consider onboard SCSI.

[Sefy]

I don't believe SCSI is good for the home user unless he has some major network and file sharing, it has no performance gain over todays IDE drives, and it's just plain too expensive, you can get a much larger sized IDE instead, and that is better for Encoding and ripping then any SCSI super extremly fast drive.

[LP209]

I've been reading all the post since my last reply and have noticed that very few people stated how fast or long it takes them to encode video files. I believe that would put a little more credit to what anyone is saying. I'm not a brand name buyer and I usually never fully believe what a company claims about their products. I depend on consumer opinions, reviews, and real world performance results.

So with that being said, I would appreciate it if you guys would tell me how long it takes you to encode avis to mpegs using TMPGEnc. I know you can't fully judge the performance of a computer by one application, but I'll factor the results in along with all the other information about whether to get an Intel or AMD.

thanks to anyone who gives honest answers...meaning please don't lie just to make your computer look better

[tinycorkscrew]

LP209 -

I haven't been using TMPGEnc much in the last 5 or 6 weeks, but I did use it to convert a 320x240 60 min MPG to 352x240 VCD compliant MPG earlier today. I used the standard NTSC VCD template with highest quality settings. While running Nero, FlashFXP, 4 windows of LeechFTP, mIRC, Agent newsreader, Internet Explorer, and SureThing, I converted the MPG in about 75 minutes.

System specs:
2x 1.2ghz Athlon MPs
Tyan Thunder K7 motherboard
Seagate Cheetah 15,000 rpm SCSI hard drive
Western Digital 60 gb IDE drive
1 gb Crucial DDR RAM
etc

As for Sefy's comment about SCSI, I agree that the average home user won't find SCSI worth the higher cost, but I disagree about the idea that there's no performance gain over today's IDE drives. The seek time on my SCSI drive blows away the best IDE drives in existence. So a fast SCSI drive makes a noticeable difference if it contains the operating system or program files. It also makes a difference in video editing.

However, Sefy's right in pointing out that ripping, encoding, and storing digital video files requires large hard drives. Furthermore, a 7200 rpm IDE drive can capture without dropping frames, and drive speed doesn't make a difference in the encoding process, so if you can't have both SCSI and IDE, IDE is the way to go.

[Sefy]

LP209, my system is a year old now, so it's not top notch, and I don't have money to upgrade, but since you asked, here is what I do and how long it takes me from DVD to VCD:
Board: EPoX 8KTA3
CPU: T-bird 1ghz/266bus

Smart Ripper (Superman) - 15min
DVD2AVI (Superman) - 15min
TMPGEnc (Superman, each part) - 2 hours and 30 min
Total=5 hours and 30 min for a 154min movie.

I'm sure others can do this faster, but for what I do, and believe me, each step you see in the guide, I took the snaps and I used all those programs, my system does what it needs to do, and without a single problem.

tinycorkscrew, i'm not saying SCSI is crap, i'm just saying for the home user it's not worth the investment, unless you got some really heavy file access (like you mentioned Video Editing) it is simply not worth it.
I've got 2x45gb 5400rpm IDE WDC drives, and my Windows98 load in about 15sec to 20sec including everything on the taskbar, i'd say that's pretty fast, and trust me, my taskbar is full.

[tinycorkscrew]

Sefy -

Are your drives in a RAID array? Have you ever tried to capture DV with them?

I'm just curious because most people say that 7200 is needed to capture DV, but I can capture to my notebook computer and drop only a frame every 4 or 5 minutes, and my notebook's hard drive is only 4200 rpm.

[Sefy]

Hell no, i'm not ever doing RAID, especialy not IDE raid, it's either RAID0 or RAID1, one uses one drive as back and the other one is risky cause if you lose one drive, you lose ALL data on both drives! and you can't even use GHOST on the drive.

I've done plenty of capturing, my very first capture was the Transformers Movie Original VHS to a CD (didn't know about VCD back then) and using an AMD Duron 700, didn't hae any sync or lose any frame, and I never had any 7200rpm drive.

In your cause, it's a Notebook, the HDD that they have are too slow, and the power management ruins the capturing as well.

[StudeBarc]

Yo guys,
Opinions on P4 V AMD Athlon XP
It's been a while since i've used an Intel processor, the last was a P3 - 450mhz on a 440bx mobo. Since then i've had a 1gig Athlon T'bird (OC'd to 1.4g) on ASUS A7v133 mobo and most recently an XP1600+ on ASUS A7V266e mobo. The XP is 45% to 50% faster on each pass via CCE2.5 versus the 1gig Athlon. For mine the best bang for buck rests with AMD XP units on GOOD motherboards with DDR ram. Personally Sefy I don't like Epox Mobos though they and Soltek have good reviews in conjunction with XP's. The go bits in My System:

ASUS A7V266e with onboard C-media 6ch sound
AMD XP1600+ processor
512meg DDR ram (PC2100)
ASUS V7100 GeForce 2MX 32meg video
40g Seagate Barracuda 3 7200rpm IDE
60g Seagate Barracuda 4 7200rpm IDE

Works for me!
Regards
Studebarc.

[Sefy]

StudeBarc, you said you dont like EPoX, but you never gave a reason, anything specific ? i've not seen a more stable board then the latest EPoX boards, and when I bought mine there was no XP back then, and with a nice BIOS flash my board now also supports AMD XP, they are fast to release BIOS fixes if there is a problem with anything.
Of course that is my outtake from experience, i'm not saying it is the best for everyone, for me, it's price/performance is the best i saw in a long time.

[FilComArt]

Sefy
The AMD760MPX is a new generation of the AMD760MP chipset, witch support up to 2 AMD AthlonMP processors.
I think your suggested nForce don't support 2 processors. Do you think 2 processors are unnecessary?


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: FilComArt on 2001-12-06 06:50:42 ]</font>

[Douglesh]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
and DDR is now reaching 333mhz
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

How many MB's support DDR333? i cant even find any that support DDR2700(300mhz). Sefy, show me 1 shred of proof that P4 doesnt beat P3, proof other than what you are preaching on this board

[Douglesh]

If p4 is so hopelessly shit, howcome the bandwidth throughput per second is far superior to AMD?

[simchippy]

I'm encoding with cce 2.5 three pass at 1.93 speed on my new xp1800+ o/c to 1850mhz on a KR7.

Douglesh don't get tied up with all the stats just compare the bench marks with real apps. I like to see encoding comparisons, being that is what we are doing here. Yes the xp's are faster and considering the cost, a much better buy at this time.
Dual xps, I am also waiting for a bunch of MB soon to hit the market. The Tigers out now are very fast but I like to o/c so I figured I'd wait.

IMO, Sefy is right as far as the PIII. If I were going that way I'd pick up a dual PIII. The main boards are cheap and dual PIII's would be sweet for encoding. I would also buy a Celeron 1.1 or 1.2 and o/c it over the PIV.

In a few months his may change with the new PIV on the way.
I just can't justify a PIV over the XP's at this time.

IMO

sim

[tinycorkscrew]

Douglesh -

Do you work for RAMBUS or something? As others have been pointing out all along, latency is more important than bandwidth. While RAMBUS has outstanding bandwidth, it has absolutely terrible latency.

The following is taken from Tom's Hardware Guide:

Size is first, speed second. If your memory configuration is too small, memory page swapping to the hard disk will severely limit performance. Beyond that, the system level performance impact of faster DRAM depends on your system architecture and on what kind of applications you run.

How can the new memory types improve performance?
Only two things can impact DRAM performance - improve latency (access time) or increase peak burst bandwidth. Predictably, some of the new DRAM types improve latency, while others crank up the burst rate.

What’s more important, faster latency or faster burst bandwidth?
That is the heart of the matter. As a rule of thumb for today’s desktop PC, faster latency will almost always deliver a performance benefit. Increasing peak burst bandwidth sometimes offers a performance benefit, but not in every case, and not usually as much.

What happens to CPU performance when latency is improved?
When the CPU experiences a cache miss, part or all of the CPU stalls for a surprisingly long period of time. Faster latency DRAM allows the CPU to resume operation quicker. The CPU realizes this benefit each time it accesses DRAM.

[spiderman2k1]

I can tell you what i have heard from my freind i have one freind that has a dual p4 with one chip he says' with flask a two hour movie take about 2 and a half hour on the AMD 1.8XP it took me 3 hour's but my friend also said that his friend has a p4 1.5 and it encodes faster then his 1.7. I know this sound like bull but it might by rambus over Sdram or over clocking also flask is buggy to. I bought ECS k7S5A mother board with the SIS chip set I payed 60 bucks for the board I had it for two week it did not crash at all. I loved the set up the only thing I did not like was the Dazzle 2 would not work right. the second IDE controller does not work with dazzle 2 I also got a Epox mother board and on another site it said it work but it did not I have heard that some AMD cpu's and some mother board work and some do not. If you only want to encode get AMD it cheep fast and work great and i have read it better for encodeing DIVX files also but if you want to capture and rip go with intel the dazzle 2 is the best if you go with dazzle 2 make shore the mother board has a intel chip set not a via chip set or a SIS.

[linardi]

I dont care with the couple mins difference between Intel vs AMD. What I know is: I can save my money if I buy Intel product. It hs been proven when there is malfunction with the CPU fan. Intel still keep working, but AMD? you must throw it away, because it burned! That is why so many CPU cooler offered for AMD , from 10 bugs to hundreds.
Dont believe? just try.

[tinycorkscrew]

linardi -

Then buy a Pentium.

Or you could buy an AMD and use a freeware temperature monitoring program that shuts down the computer if the fan suddenly dies.

I guess it's your choice.

It seems to me that the overheating scenario is a scare tactic - if Pentiums can't match AMD's performance, then let's go after reliability instead.

[linardi]

Sorry to say, it is not a scare tactic. It is the fact.
Pls go to http://www.tomshardware.com . Download the video demo/test. 2 CPU's from Intel vs 2 CPU's AMD.
I just want to give the balance, that buying a PC is not just comparing CPU to CPU speed.
I am not Intel's fan, but fr my experience that using Intels products , including intel chipsets ( 815, 850), give much less trouble and time saving.

[Sefy]

FilComArt, currently I think only AMD chipset offers a Dual CPU option, but i'm quite sure with nForce capabilities it will be an offered solution in the future, remember, it just came out.

Douglesh, I don't like your tone of speech, i'm not preaching for anything, and i'm not forcing anything down anyones throat, i'm giving my personal view and recommandations, you dont like it, don't accept it, as for your continues blabbering about how superior the P4 is, how come in EVERY SINGLE BENCHMARK ON EVERY SINGLE WEBPAGE THE P4 LOSES ?? and not just to AMD, but to Celeron and Pentium 3 as well! you never answered that question yet, I wonder why!!! maybe cause you just like talking and not proving ? go to ANY PAGE you want, I don't need to do the searches for you, anyone who did a little bit of investigating saw for themselfs how Tom's Hardware, Ace's Hardware and loads of others show the AMD just about Wipes the floor with a counterpart and sometimes even a higher P4 model!

So ONCE and for all, either tell me WHY a P4 with all it's "superiority" can't beat an AMD, or a Duron, or a Celeron or a Pentium 3!!, or watch your language! cause you are getting out of hand, i've got the flu and a higher fever, but that's not the only heat I have rising right now, you are really pushing me and that's a very rare thing.

linardi, I've had CPU's from AMD since K6-2 days and I have not had a single one die on me yet, if you buy a crappy fan, you'll kill your CPU, even in Intel's case, it may not happen as fast, but it will still happen, it is your responsibility to take care of your computer, atleast with AMD you can spend the money on the performance you will get immediatly, with Intel, you gotta fork over a whole lot for the same performance, and each CPU upgrade you'll do, would cost you awhole lot more then a decent FAN for an AMD CPU.

[tinycorkscrew]

linardi -

I'm aware of the article at Tom's Hardware. Here's a quote from it:

"The Pentium 4 core comes equipped with a thermal monitoring unit that permanently checks the temperature. As soon as the core temperature has reached a certain trigger value, the thermal unit throttles down the clock of Pentium 4 until a safe temperature has been reached."

What I said in my last post is that there is freeware that will shut down an AMD processor before it gets to a potentially damaging temperature. It's not the same thing as throttling - I'll give you that - but it does protect the chip from melting. I use K7 Tiger Temp which monitors my processors' temperature via the internal diodes. I can specify a temperature at which an alarm will sound, and I can also specify a temperature at which the system shuts down immediately. The program uses an absolutely tiny amount of resources - only two system files in Windows XP use less.

By the way, has anyone actually had a heatsink fall off? I've never heard of that happening to anyone before, but maybe someone here has had it happen. The fan on one of my Pentium processors did go bad, but it did so over time and made enough noise to alert me that something was wrong.

I have heard of less-than-bright people powering up systems without heatsinks installed and frying their processors, but I'm sure no one in this forum would be so stupid