Sandy Bridge processor for media encoding (integrated GPU type? GPU overclock?)

[marciok]

Hi to everybody. I'm a long time Anandtech reader, but just now I've entered the foruns. (and English is not my primary language, sorry for the mistakes)

I'm starting to work with 1080p videos, and my old setup (an Athlon x2 4000) started to show his age. I've decided to come back to Intel after a lot of years because of a single feature of the new sandy Bridge processors: as you might imagine, QuickSync.

Because of budget constraints, I'm limited to 3 processor options: Core i5 2400, 2500 or 2500k.

Since I'll use an H67 board to use QuickSync (Z67 boards will have a bigger price), the unlocked multiplier of the 2500k have no utility for me - maybe. There are some questions that, after reading A LOT of reviews in different sites, that remains unanswered.

First: the 2500k have a HD3000 gpu, and the 2400 and 2500 have a HD2000 gpu. I don't mind about the 3D performance differences between then, but what about QuickSync performance? Only one site cited an 10-15% performance difference, but compared and 2400 to an 2500k - which are clocked differently. What I wonder is if the 2500 and the 2500k, in stock clock, have similar performance using QuickSync? And the 2400, what could be the performance gap?

Second: most of the H67 boards could overclock the integrated GPU. This affects the QuickSync performance in some way?

Third: maybe this question was more fitted in the Motherboards forum, but here the best price/specs ratio MB is the Intel's DH67BL. I have only one question about this board: only one site tried to overclock the GPU (in one i5 2500k) and said that no performance gains were noted (even 3D performance in games). Anybody here have this board, and could confirm this? (of course, if integrated GPU OC does not affect QuickSync performance, this becomes irrelevant).

These questions are important, because here in Brazil the price gap between the i5 2500 and 2500k is big - a 26% increase (yeah, it's not a typo) - and since I'll not overclock the processor, I wonder if the HD3000 / HD2000 difference in performance with QuickSync is in the same scale. And the price gap between 2400 and 2500 is 9%.

What I needed is a review that have a QuickSync movie encoding using the 2400, 2500 and 2500K, but nobody did it (especially between 2500 and the 2500k). Or trying to OC the GPU and see if QuickSync becomes faster (everyone only did it for 3d performance).

Any help and numbers are appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[Phynaz]

What particular codecs are you using? What video card do you have now?

 

[marciok]

What particular codecs are you using? What video card do you have now?

I will probably work with AVCHD all the times. My current video card is crap - an old ATI HD 2650, that was not recognized by PowerDirector 9 even after Ati Avivo was installed.

But since in all the reviews that I've read the QuickSync performance (and quality) were much better that using NVidia's CUDA and ATI's APP (ATI Stream), I'm not focusing in a discrete card at the moment - I'll get a better one in the future for the occasional gaming, switching it via Lucid's Virtu or maybe with some forthcoming switching technology from Nvidia or Ati.

 

[dac7nco]

I've benched an i3-2100,i5-2400 and Xeon E3-1245 in Quicksync. The IGP 3000 was faster in the 1245, than the 2100 or 2400. I'd assumed it was due to the superiority of the 3000 vs. 2000. The 3000 (2500K/2600K/Xeon 2XX5 series) is the only extant SB CPU with 12xEUs. SB has a section dedicated to transcoding; I have no idea whether CPU core count "counts".

Daimon

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'm pretty sure that QuickSync depends on both the EUs as well as a fixed-function unit. More EUs (12 for HD3000, versus 6 for HD2000) would be better.

 

[marciok]

I've benched an i3-2100,i5-2400 and Xeon E3-1245 in Quicksync. The IGP 3000 was faster in the 1245, than the 2100 or 2400. I'd assumed it was due to the superiority of the 3000 vs. 2000. The 3000 (2500K/2600K/Xeon 2XX5 series) is the only extant SB CPU with 12xEUs. SB has a section dedicated to transcoding; I have no idea whether CPU core count "counts".

Daimon

Thanks for the info. Do you know how much faster?

I don't know if it's only because of the IGP type. The E3-1245 have the same clock values (3.3 / 3.7 Ghz) than the i5 2500, greater than the 2100 and 2400; and have 4 cores and 8 threads - the i5 line have 4 cores and 4 threads (no Hyper-Threading).

 

[marciok]

I'm pretty sure that QuickSync depends on both the EUs as well as a fixed-function unit. More EUs (12 for HD3000, versus 6 for HD2000) would be better.

That's one of my doubts. In theory, yes, it's true, but this comparison was not made anywhere - especially with the i5 2500 and 2500k.

The QuickSync engine, at least in Intel's documents, have a lot of circuitry dedicated only to do it, but some of the processing is done in the IGP EU's.

 

[Phynaz]

PowerDirector does not support QuickSync as of this time.

Edit:
Odd, they have it listed as a feature, but it is not listed in any of the patches as being added (Power Director is older than Sandy Bridge).

Going to study some more...

 

[hans007]

there are a few new cpus coming out that will have the igp 3000.

the i5-2405S http://www.costcentral.com/proddetai...405S/11348574/

and the i3-2105 will be out eventaully.

i think a good choice would be the e3-1235. hyperthreading which those i5 cpus dont have and igp 3000.

 

[marciok]

PowerDirector does not support QuickSync as of this time.

Edit:
Odd, they have it listed as a feature, but it is not listed in any of the patches as being added (Power Director is older than Sandy Bridge).

Going to study some more...

Yeah, Cyberlink says that it's supported in Version 9, but you're right about the updates. Since version 9 is somewhat new, maybe they already inserted the QuickSync support - MediaEspresso supports QuickSync since the Sandy Bridge launch.

If it's not supported already, it will be soon.

 

[marciok]

there are a few new cpus coming out that will have the igp 3000.

the i5-2405S http://www.costcentral.com/proddetai...405S/11348574/

and the i3-2105 will be out eventaully.

i think a good choice would be the e3-1235. hyperthreading which those i5 cpus dont have and igp 3000.

Yeah, the E3-1235 is very interesting. But it's out of my budget - here I just found the E3-1230 (that don't have HD graphics) and it's already 12% pricier than an i5 2500k...

Just to put in perspective, here in Brazil an 2500k is US$ 334,00...

 

[marciok]

Just an update in my research: the closest thing to the answer that I've found was this review.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188/17

Since the encoding time usign QuickSync between an i5 2500k (HD 3000) and i3 2100 (HD 2000) was only 12% - and with the huge difference in speed/architecture (3.3 vs 2.93 Ghz , 4 cores/4 threads vs 2 cores/4 threads), I guess that in terms of QuickSync, the HD 2000 and 3000 are somewhat similar in performance.