Yet Another Dual Core question.... (sorry)

RedBeard

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2000
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I know this has been beat to death.....

Right now I have an Opteron 146 running at 2.5ghz.

My PC does alot of media encoding with autoGK using Xvid.

The opteron has 1mb of cache whereas a X2 has 512bk/core.

Will I see a much of a speed increase? I was thinking of trading up.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
22,894
12,954
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You should see considerable performance increases using a dual-core CPU when running a multithreaded encoding app. How much, I don't exactly know. You'll have to look around for some AutoGK benchmarks to see.

The fact that some X2s have 512k l2 cache isn't much of a factor due to the second core you'll have working for you. If you're too worried about cache, get a s939 Opteron or an X2 4400+ or 4800+.

But if you get your X2 or Opteron at 2.5 ghz or higher (generally not difficult), the performance increase should be considerable.
 

Supercoolyo

Junior Member
Jul 5, 2006
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You probably won't see an increase on single-core programs, maybe even a decrease because the core only has half the cache. However, for multitasking, it'll be much better.

Good luck man :)
 

Unkno

Golden Member
Jun 16, 2005
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Originally posted by: Supercoolyo
You probably won't see an increase on single-core programs, maybe even a decrease because the core only has half the cache. However, for multitasking, it'll be much better.

Good luck man :)


uh.....unless your not running windows xp and/or any background processes (including antivirus, firewall, and the occasional malwares), you WILL see a performance increase even if you're running single-threaded programs. (one core would handle your OS and background process while the other core handles the other program/game/encoding
 

stardrek

Senior member
Jan 25, 2006
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Being a fellow media encoder, I like dual core systems for the ability to perform other tasks while encoding video or audio. Also, if you use something that takes advantage of dual cores, like Divx's new encoder (that can be used in conjunction with vdub), you can cut encoding times by 40%!

If the 1MB of cache is something that worries you, then you might be able to find a 4400+ x2 which has 1MB of cache for each core.
 

Griswold

Senior member
Dec 24, 2004
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Originally posted by: RedBeard
I know this has been beat to death.....

Right now I have an Opteron 146 running at 2.5ghz.

My PC does alot of media encoding with autoGK using Xvid.

The opteron has 1mb of cache whereas a X2 has 512bk/core.

Will I see a much of a speed increase? I was thinking of trading up.


Since Xvid is also multithreaded, you can expect 70-80% performance increase or in other words, your encoding times will almost be cut in half. Go for it, definitely worth it.

 

RedBeard

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2000
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Whoa. Thanks for all the remarks. Looks like I need to trade may Opteron 146 up!
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
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Video encoding?

You'll nearly always see at least an 80% speed increase, if not 100%