Performance: AMD VS. Intel

[Fluffy]

Working at a computer repair shop is a wonderfull thing. Especialy when your boss asks you to about encoding DVDs to Divx. Anyways. Im currently testing 2 boxes with divx. a P4 2.5ghz with 512 megs of ram, and a SCISI RAID (striped). along with an Athlon XP 2000+ with 256 megs of ram and a 60 gig WD IDE drive. To encode im using the DVD Key the Metal Idol. and the latest version of Gknot. audio is pre-encoded to mp3 and muxed. i am using subtitles, and both machines are set to field deinterlace in the AVIsynth options.
on the AMD machine i get 18-20 FPS
on the P4 machine i get only slightly better at 18- 24 FPS.
Does this say something about the processors? or am i encoding in a way that is not allowing the machines to show how fast they really can encode?

[Enchanter]

on the AMD machine i get 18-20 FPS
on the P4 machine i get only slightly better at 18- 24 FPS.
That is not a very big speed upgrade from my own P4 1.8GHz (Willamette), which should handle 12-17fps for the same case (NTSC material with deinterlacing). I guess it will still be some time before we can see CPUs that can encode DVD videos at blazing speed (70+ fps).

This comparison actually brings to question on whether the P4 is truly meant to shine on multimedia applications. The AthlonXP 2000+, which is at a much lower speed (1.67Ghz), is able to stay close to its much faster rival (2.53Ghz). :)

p.s. Both systems encoded the same DVD source and using absolutely the same settings, right?

[khp]

One has to wonder, if the P4 was build for anything but high mhz.

And for the price of the P4 system, you could get a dual athlon rig, which would slap the P4 silly.

[Fluffy]

Both machines had the exact same settings. yes. however ive noticed that in my toying with many programs for this, i have managed to get faster encoding speeds. this is why im wondering if the similar speeds have something to do with the specific encoding process (i know that if you use Donald Grafts telecide filter to removed interlacing it limits your encoding speed to 6-8 FPS on an athlon XP 1900)

[Enchanter]

Try running the SMart Smoother filter. My CPU grinds down to 2-4 fps while using it and I expect quite the same reduction with the P4 you are using. I don't know how the AthlonXP will fare though.

[techno]

AMD sucks....Intel rule!!!! :)

that's all I am sayin.

:)

Techno

[Batman]

Benchmarks (tom's hardware and pcworld) indicate that the fastest Intel P4 processor can outpace the fastest AMD processor. However, the processor is just one important aspect of a system, many other factors also come into play when determining encoding speed. There is also a more detailed discussion of this subject on the doom9.org forum.

[UncasMS]

@fluffy

i know that if you use Donald Grafts telecide filter to removed interlacing it limits your encoding speed to 6-8 FPS on an athlon XP 1900

have you ever tried decomb (also written by donald graft) or greedyhma through gordianknot?

[Fluffy]

I have actually just started using Gordian knot to encode my videos, and I am very pleased with the results it gives, including the built in deinterlacer. The movie I've been doing these tests on continues to be a problem however. Key the Metal Idol, is being quite a pain in the ass for me. The video quality looks great on the machine I encoded it on, but on my home machine it looks quite bad. In addition I am having a terrible time getting the subtitles to run properly, I need to find a good guide for using Vobsubs subresync.

[UncasMS]

in case you're not pleased with de-interlacing or ivtc you should try greedyhma in gordianknot - it is fairly easy to setup and the results might make a difference.

for an older vobsub guide read this doom9 guide (http://www.doom9.org/dvobsub.htm)

[Fluffy]

unfortunately Doom9 doesnt have a guide for using Subresync, and the documentation that came with Subresync i simply cant understand. the problem im having is that all the subtitles are about 30 seconds late (i know where i need them to start, i just dont know how to make them start there. do i use the green filled in circle. the red up arrow, the red down arrow?)

[Ryo94]

I choose AMD, Intel is pure speed but AMD has a more promising architecture, just take a look to any fpu test and you will see that AMD procesors takes the advantage even against Intel micros with 500 or 600mhz more. And the worst nightmare of Intel is coming, the Hammer, a new core, more speed, LDT support and sure ultrahigh performance for less cost than Intel micros.

[Enchanter]

My upgrade options in the near future is looking bright. LOL!

[a13antichrist]

Out of principle more than anything else I'd rather have AMD. But the P4 in my notebook does 25-30fps for the first pass and 35-40 for the 2nd pass in GKnot so I'm not complaining all that much... :)

[Glanz]

i have a p 4 2.4 gigaherts with a gig of ram and it seems to do the job just fine well kinda but im pleased with it but ur right whoever said they are expensive

[Erci]

I've just upgraded from a chaintec 7aja (chaintech sux) with 356 mb SDRAM and a thunderbird 950 mhz to abit kx7-333r with 256 mb PC2700 DDR and a xp 1800+ and I almost got frightened when I saw that it raised the fps with approx 12-15 and I like it alot=) I wasn't excpecting that difference.

//Erci

[Ryo94]

For all who want power, take a look to this faq about Hammer and see what's coming.

http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?ArticleID=1195