Atom 1.6 GHz single or dualcore gutsy enough for MP3 encoding?

[Muse]

I'm planning to build or buy a machine for a dedicated file server for my wired desktop and wireless laptops. It will be connected by ethernet to my Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 wireless router (which is not gigabit, evidently a drawback here). I'm currently doing a lot of MP3 encoding from audio line-in on my desktop machine, but figure that since the server machine is going to be running 24/7, it would be greener to do the MP3 encoding right on the server machine. I'm using Total Recorder to run the scheduled encoding with the LAME encoder. I could install Total Recorder right on the server.

The MSI Wind barebone machines that I'm contemplating sport either the Atom 1.6 GHz single core or dual core CPUs and the price differencial is about $17. Other than the different CPUs, the machines appear to be the same. Will both of these CPUs handle the encoding easily or only the dual core or neither?

 

[amheck]

I have a single core Asus 1000H that I've used here and there for movie encoding, as well as grabbing home movies off my Mini-DV camcorder and put them into mpg or whatever. It was slow, but worked fine. Not sure sure how it'd go with other stuff running though. I'm guessing there are tons of other more capable CPU's out there.

 

[RaiderJ]

The single core will be fine, just slower than the dual core. If speed isn't an issue, you can save $17. You might wait for the new PineTrail systems, they'll be greener, but not really any faster.

 

[amheck]

For $17, I can't imagine not getting the dual core, but that's just me.

 

[Decembermouse]

I agree. Definitely get the dual core dude! Another core for $17!

 

[Muse]

I have a single core Asus 1000H that I've used here and there for movie encoding, as well as grabbing home movies off my Mini-DV camcorder and put them into mpg or whatever. It was slow, but worked fine. Not sure sure how it'd go with other stuff running though. I'm guessing there are tons of other more capable CPU's out there.

Oh, there certainly are more capable CPUs. I'm looking at this set of hardware because they are cheap and green. If they'll suffice, great. If not, then I'll try to save myself grief and buy higher off the hog. Anybody know if those Atom CPUs (and which) are up to that MP3 encoding? I'll only be doing 128 kbps bitrate, 44 khz sampling rate using the LAME encoder.

 

[Muse]

I agree. Definitely get the dual core dude! Another core for $17!

I figure, not knowing anything else, I should just get the dual core for the extra $17. Like the saying goes , "it's better to regret something you did do (in this case, buy a feature) than something you didn't do."

 

[Decembermouse]

I hadn't heard that saying before somehow. That's good stuff, I'll have to remember that.

 

[21stHermit]

Oh, there certainly are more capable CPUs. I'm looking at this set of hardware because they are cheap and green. If they'll suffice, great. If not, then I'll try to save myself grief and buy higher off the hog. Anybody know if those Atom CPUs (and which) are up to that MP3 encoding? I'll only be doing 128 kbps bitrate, 44 khz sampling rate using the LAME encoder.

Use the Anand CPU comparator, covers both the single core and dual core atoms. Just compare to a CPU you have now using the MP3 test benches.

I've had an Atom 330 since May, works fine as my everyday PC. However the Intel GPU is lacking, so two choices 1-Ion or 2-an add on graphics card, Ion is much greener, but expensive.

 

[Muse]

Use the Anand CPU comparator, covers both the single core and dual core atoms. Just compare to a CPU you have now using the MP3 test benches.

I've had an Atom 330 since May, works fine as my everyday PC. However the Intel GPU is lacking, so two choices 1-Ion or 2-an add on graphics card, Ion is much greener, but expensive.

I wouldn't add a GPU to an MSI Wind barebone, don't know that it's possible. I don't know that I'll miss graphics capabilities with this because I'll probably by using remote access either with Ubuntu or WHS. Could be one day I'll rue the fact that it doesn't have DVI out, but not immediately.

The single core will be fine, just slower than the dual core. If speed isn't an issue, you can save $17. You might wait for the new PineTrail systems, they'll be greener, but not really any faster.

Hadn't heard of Pine Trail. Evidently supposed to arrive in 2009, so where is it? Maybe I'll wait for it. At the very least, the release of it should push down the prices on Atom systems. Might be worth it just for the power savings.

 

[Viperoni]

I run server 2k3 x64 on an atom 330 setup, works fine.
I run VM's on it, one at a time, but don't do any kind of encoding on it.

 

[alyarb]

pinetrail is already here and i would urge that. it is absolutely faster than silverthorne at less than half power.

http://www.provantage.com/intel-boxd510mo~7ITEM0H7.htm

note provantage is using the wrong product image, but the item is in stock. here is the actual board:

http://www.logicsupply.com/images/photos/mainboard/d510mo_pic1_big.jpg

just throw it in something like this. very inexpensive, comes with the PSU and will fit the samsung disks that you wanted.

http://www.provantage.com/athenatech-a1019hg-150~7ATHN030.htm

 

[Muse]

pinetrail is already here and i would urge that. it is absolutely faster than silverthorne at less than half power.

http://www.provantage.com/intel-boxd510mo~7ITEM0H7.htm

note provantage is using the wrong product image, but the item is in stock. here is the actual board:

http://www.logicsupply.com/images/photos/mainboard/d510mo_pic1_big.jpg

just throw it in something like this. very inexpensive, comes with the PSU and will fit the samsung disks that you wanted.

http://www.provantage.com/athenatech...0~7ATHN030.htm

Thank you. I'll hold off on the MSI Wind systems and look at Pine Trail. That system would have a 150 watt PSU. Wonder how the energy usage would compare with the MSI Wind barebones systems which use a 65 watt external adapter. I have a concern about that adapter, whether it's up to having two of those 1.5 TB Samsung ecogreen drives in there. I passed up on the deal at Newegg on those HDs, though. It was only good until yesterday. Without the coupon they're $110 instead of $100. I just wasn't sure, so I passed.

 

[alyarb]

the power supply with the larger case is basically if you wanted a higher-performance mini itx machine, like a 65w phenom ii x4, Q9550S, etc. MSI uses the small supply with the wind nettop because they know the limits of its expandability with that atom platform.

a pine trail system powered by a larger PSU will be approximately just as power efficient as with the smaller supply., and will be much more power efficient than an old atom regardless of the supply.

i know PCI isn't fast or anything, but it's just a nice thing to have because you still do whatever you want with that slot, for instance, with a SATA controller it becomes simpler to add storage to the NAS via esata, which you don't get with the MSI wind.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132013

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111048

 

[Muse]

the power supply with the larger case is basically if you wanted a higher-performance mini itx machine, like a 65w phenom ii x4, Q9550S, etc. MSI uses the small supply with the wind nettop because they know the limits of its expandability with that atom platform.

a pine trail system powered by a larger PSU will be approximately just as power efficient as with the smaller supply., and will be much more power efficient than an old atom regardless of the supply.

i know PCI isn't fast or anything, but it's just a nice thing to have because you still do whatever you want with that slot, for instance, with a SATA controller it becomes simpler to add storage to the NAS via esata, which you don't get with the MSI wind.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816132013

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816111048

Thank you for those links and the lowdown! I didn't even have a sniff of Pine Trail before this thread. Anandtech rocks rocks rocks!

 

[alyarb]

the price of that controller went up $10 overnight, i swear it was thirty bucks.

 

[CSMR]

I'd get the single core for power savings. The pine trail D410PT board has 10W TDP for the processor/graphics/controller and I would expect the entire board to be <13W, not including storage.

Do the mp3 encoding on a PC, no point fiddling around with a server to do this. You should get 50-300 times realtime encoding on a modern PC. But best just to encode when you save the file. And try the ogg AuToV encoder, it's more efficient than (ancient) mp3.

 

[Muse]

I'd get the single core for power savings. The pine trail D410PT board has 10W TDP for the processor/graphics/controller and I would expect the entire board to be <13W, not including storage.

Do the mp3 encoding on a PC, no point fiddling around with a server to do this. You should get 50-300 times realtime encoding on a modern PC. But best just to encode when you save the file. And try the ogg AuToV encoder, it's more efficient than (ancient) mp3.

I'll have to try ogg out, never have. The program I use to make the recordings does support it. I suppose I'll need to download the AutoV ogg encoder and point my program to it (Total Recorder Standard Edition).

Thing is I do all this automatically and unattended. The PC even turns on automatically (BIOS wake event) and shuts down later. So, how would "encode when you save the file" work in such a scenario? Do you mean record to WAV and convert?

You are suggesting Pine Trail with single core? Not clear on that... Guess so. But that one doesn't have gigabit ethernet (My current router, a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 wireless router, evidently doesn't support it but I may one day get an N router and seems to me the gigabit ethernet on the server machine should mean a much faster network?) and no audio on board. I'm wondering if the power savings is worth it. 3 watts difference, evidently.

Why forego encoding on the server? Seems like it would be easy to set up. If I'm not using my systems, as long as the server can handle it, why not use it especially if it's on anyway? Booting the PC works OK for one time a day, because the auto-turnon from BIOS has only one setting. But if the server is on all the time, I could schedule multiple recordings daily (which I often do), and not have to mess with the complexities and gyrations of turning on the PC (which uses ~140 watts, IIRC even with the monitor off).

 

[alyarb]

so speed really isn't important is it? how many encodes per day do you do, and how long are they? i think the gigabit ethernet on the D510 is definitely worth the extra money.

 

[Muse]

so speed really isn't important is it? how many encodes per day do you do, and how long are they? i think the gigabit ethernet on the D510 is definitely worth the extra money.

Well, speed may not be important, at least for now (i.e. until I start doing something where it is important!). For instance, maybe one day I'll want to stream video to my desktop. We're talking CPU speed there, I assume, of course the data transfer speed across the network is very important.

I'm averaging maybe 1 encoding a day, an hour long. Actually I do those maybe every other day. Maybe 2-3 times a week I do a 3 hour encoding. I've been doing MP3 using the LAME encoder at 128 kbps, 44 khz sampling rate. May start doing ogg, it seeming that my equipment supports it, but I have to check that my players support it OK. I'll do some testing.

I need to find out if there are any systems on the market with the D510, or should I put together my own system? Right now I figure that two 1.5 GB green HDs will be all I need, of course someday I might want more, but right now that gives me tons of headroom. My priorities (not necessarily in that order, but they are all important):

1. Inexpensive
2. Low power draw
3. Reliable network (right now I'm using one of my wirelessly connected laptops as a server and very very frequently my other machines can't see the "server" [It's made available again by bringing up an Explorer window hitting on the drive] and it's often pretty slow!).

The Wind barebones interested me because they include everything but the RAM, OS, HDs and they look like they satisfy those requirements, except that I wouldn't know about #3 until I had it set up and running, presumably with WHS. I was also looking at the Acer H340, which actually comes with WHS already installed, so much the simpler. It has a 1tb HD too, but for some dumb reason I couldn't figure out what HD it is!

I figure that if there aren't integrated systems with the D510 around yet, there will be very soon.

 

[CSMR]

Yes I wasn't aware of the lack of gigabit ethernet. That makes the D410PT an extremely mediocre product for 2010. Go for the dual core pine trail then.
Re: software and setup. It looks like you are recording to wav, then getting the server to convert wav to mp3? Then why not record straight to mp3?

 

[alyarb]

i think prebuilt pinetrail systems will take another 2 to 3 weeks. the board on provantage is really competitively priced because it's still the fastest atom you can get and one of the lowest power atoms ever made, and you can throw it in a micro atx case if you wanted room for lots of drives. i sure wish they could squeeze a single-core westmere down to 10 watts though. that would be something.

 

[Muse]

Yes I wasn't aware of the lack of gigabit ethernet. That makes the D410PT an extremely mediocre product for 2010. Go for the dual core pine trail then.
Re: software and setup. It looks like you are recording to wav, then getting the server to convert wav to mp3? Then why not record straight to mp3?

Well, I believe I already am recording straight to MP3. That is, when I do the encoding of music radio programs on my PC (which I'm hoping I can do on the server machine, saving me having to get the PC up and running and using it's minimal ~140 watts). However, I often do recording with my iRiver iHP-140 (AKA H140) to WAV using the internal microphone and later convert to MP3. I do that when I'm recording meetings (voice at varying levels), or my yoga or pilates classes. I use a freebie called The Levelator on the resulting WAV files, which brings the voice(s) into approximately the same levels for the finished product.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelator

http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator/

I take the Levelator-ed WAV files and post-convert to MP3 using 96 kbps bitrate, the recordings being necessarily low fidelity to begin with. I'd record directly to MP3 with the iRiver but for the fact that The Levelator doesn't support MP3. It's not a giant problem, I do the conversions to MP3 with a batch converter now.

 

[Muse]

i think prebuilt pinetrail systems will take another 2 to 3 weeks. the board on provantage is really competitively priced because it's still the fastest atom you can get and one of the lowest power atoms ever made, and you can throw it in a micro atx case if you wanted room for lots of drives. i sure wish they could squeeze a single-core westmere down to 10 watts though. that would be something.

Thank you! I'm in no hurry, hope to have my finger on the pulse. How/where can I check things out to find out when _integrated_ D510 systems are available? I'll probably wait until a bunch have sold on Newegg and I can read the reviews and see what I'm getting myself into! This business of setting up a data server for my LAN is one of the most challenging technical projects I've ever had. I've built several PCs, but this is another animal. I've been researching this for something like a year now.

 

[Muse]

the power supply with the larger case is basically if you wanted a higher-performance mini itx machine, like a 65w phenom ii x4, Q9550S, etc. MSI uses the small supply with the wind nettop because they know the limits of its expandability with that atom platform.

a pine trail system powered by a larger PSU will be approximately just as power efficient as with the smaller supply., and will be much more power efficient than an old atom regardless of the supply.

i know PCI isn't fast or anything, but it's just a nice thing to have because you still do whatever you want with that slot, for instance, with a SATA controller it becomes simpler to add storage to the NAS via esata, which you don't get with the MSI wind.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816132013

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816111048

Does that tower thing have a motherboard??? Or it just a HD storage extension device?