More Ram or a 4GB Video card for my new system

[wiseant]

Hi

I should be getting my new computer today or tommorow
To keep my costs down I decided to stay with the embedded graphics card.

The most demanding usage will be encoding video with x264 and rendering with POV-Ray [where I do not need to see the preview image]

Since the embedded graphics uses some of the 12 GB RAM would upgrading to 24 GB RAM greatly improve the graphics performance compared to getting a video card with 4GB RAM?

Here the info:
Processor
12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-12400 (18 MB cache, 6 cores, 12 threads, 2.50 GHz to 4.40 GHz Turbo)

Memory
12 GB, 1 x 8 GB + 1 x 4 GB, DDR4, 3200 MHz

Graphics Card
Intel® UHD Graphics 730


Processor Graphics
Processor Graphics ‡ Intel® UHD Graphics 730
Graphics Base Frequency 300 MHz
Graphics Max Dynamic Frequency 1.45 GHz
Graphics Output eDP 1.4b, DP 1.4a, HDMI 2.1
Execution Units 24
Max Resolution (HDMI)‡ 4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz
Max Resolution (DP)‡ 7680 x 4320 @ 60Hz
Max Resolution (eDP - Integrated Flat Panel)‡ 5120 x 3200 @ 120Hz
DirectX* Support 12
OpenGL* Support 4.5
OpenCL* Support 3.0
Multi-Format Codec Engines 1
Intel® Quick Sync Video Yes
Intel® Clear Video HD Technology Yes
# of Displays Supported ‡ 4
Device ID 0x4692 / 0x4682

TIA

[jagabo]

x264 doesn't use the GPU at all. I don't think POV-Ray does either (aside from showing you the result).

[Cauptain]

Are you going to use a 6 year old video card? Get a Core series 12XXX at least one RTX series 20.


Claudio

[wiseant]

@Cauptain

?

The UHD Graphics 730 is an integrated graphics solution by Intel, launched on March 30th, 2021.

12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-12400

[johns0]

Best to get more ram if you go with integrated graphics

[flashandpan007]

And also get either 2 x 8 GB OR 4 x 8 GB OR 2 x 16 GB.
You have 2 Memory Channels, A and B und you want to use a matched kit. 32 GB should be more than enough. Also use faster RAM instead of more RAM

What Motherboard do you get? There is support for both DDR4 and DDR5.

[johns0]

You should say more ram that's faster.

[flashandpan007]

Yes, better to use fast 32 GB kit than slow 128 GB. The fastest DDR4 RAM is either 4x8 GB single rank or 2 x16 GB dual rank. 4x16GB or 2x32GB or 4x32GB is always slower and also the imc of the cpu cannot handle fast big ram like 64 or 128 GB.

DDR5 I don‘t know.

[Cauptain]

@Cauptain

?

The UHD Graphics 730 is an integrated graphics solution by Intel, launched on March 30th, 2021.

12th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-12400

This video card (UHD 730) is equivalent to one released (Nvidia GT 740) 8 years ago in terms of performance.

That's why I talked about getting a newer model.

Comparison: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GeForce-GT-740-vs-Intel-UHD-Graphics-730/...3294vsm1500304



Claudio

[jagabo]

This video card (UHD 730) is equivalent to one released (Nvidia GT 740) 8 years ago in terms of performance.

But neither x264 nor POV Ray use the GPU. Dual channel memory will only get him 5 percent more performance with x264, and probably something similar with POV Ray and most other programs.

x264 encoding 4K video at the slow preset only uses about 4 GB of memory. The placebo preset ups that to about 6 GB. Unless he's using very large models and textures POV Ray probably isn't using more than 4 GB either. He can always verify this by using Task Manager.

[wiseant]

The memory I have:

8192 MB @ 3200 MHz (DIMM DDR4)
4096 MB @ 3200 MHz (DIMM DDR4)

The POV-Ray benchmark took 248 seconds on my old computer, this computer took 67 seconds - so 3.7 X faster - used 100% CPU and only about 30% of RAM

however according to https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/povray

the Intel Core i5-12400 took 46 sec [4 COMPATIBLE PUBLIC RESULTS]

This speed increase of 67/46 = 1.46 X may be due to faster RAM or possibly some math calculations done by a GPU

[jagabo]

Are you running off a hard drive of an SSD? The difference in performance for such a short benchmark could be the time loading textures from a hard drive rather than an SSD.

[wiseant]

@jagabo

Right now I just have a SSD: 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive

[jagabo]

So load speed probably isn't much of an issue.

POV-Ray doesn't use a GPU:
https://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:Miscellaneous#Topic_1

There was an experimental version of x264 that used the GPU -- but only for a very small part of the encoding. It's only a few percent faster than the pure CPU version.

Maybe POV-Ray has some CPU instruction set options that you need to set? SSE4? AVX512?

[wiseant]

In post #11 I said my POV-Ray benchmark used 100% CPU and only about 30% of RAM

The actual RAM use peaked at only 40 MB - memory doesn't seem to be the issue - the CPU use is 100% and neither POV-Ray or x264 use GPU

Other computers with the same CPU using DDR5 or DDR4 memory at speeds greater than 3200 MHz may increase performance

@jagabot
thanks for the link

There may be CPU instructions that can be used in a command line render with POV-Ray

Can CPU instructions be used with x264?

[jagabo]

in x264 you can specify advanced instruction sets with the --asm argument. It detects what's available on most CPUs and enables them correctly. You can see which extensions it's using in the CLI Window:

x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 BMI2 AVX2

The exception is AVX512 which must be enabled manually with: --asm AVX512. If your CPU doesn't support AVX512 the program will hang.

[jagabo]

Another thing to check is the CPU clock speed when encoding (Task Manager can show this). If you have insufficient cooling the clock speed will be reduced, slowing the program. Your BIOS may have options for this. You want to optimize for performance, not quiet running.

[Valerie2]

I always opt to have more ram unless I am going to play games with really heavy graphics.