Encoding speed: Athlon vs. Intel

[Ruskicowboy]

I've been doing a lot of video editing, converting AVI's to MPEG and recording DVD's, etc. It normally takes the computer around 4 hours to encode a 1 hour AVI file to MPEG quality. A friend of mine said that Intel processors are a lot faster with this type of work, compared to the Athlon. Is there any truth to this? I've have an Athlon XP 1800+ with 512 megs of DDR 2100 memory and would like to stick with Athlon so I don't have to buy another motherboard just yet.

Ruskicowboy

 

[TKH]

Don't know I can help or not. My 2600+ and 512MB PC2700 on A7N8X Deluxe can convert a 100min DVD movie to MPEG-4 AVI in 75min. Don't know how fast a P4 2.66 can go though.

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
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[vacs]

just for your information, I can encode a 2 hour movies into divx in 2 hours with 2 passes using Gordian Knot with my P4 2.4GHz.

You can upgrade your Athlon but I don't think that encoding times will improve that much, I'm also not sure if a P4 is really faster than an equivalent Athlon in encoding video files... maybe a few seconds but nothing major

 

[imgod2u]

Again, this kind of question could easily be answer by <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=18" target="_new">benchmarks</A>.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[vacs]

since the encoding speed depends mostly on the program used, the speed is depending on the program's optimizations for a certain CPU. Therefore one really can't say that CPU "XYZ" is always faster in general encoding than CPU "ABC".

As always, benchmarks only tell one part of the story. If you use other apps like the one anandtech used, the results probably are completely different...

 

[juin]

I totaly agree

[-peep-] french

 

[imgod2u]

If he uses a different program than the benchmark used, he could certainly google for other reviews. Mine was only an example. Such questions are easily answered by a little googling.

"We are Microsoft, resistance is futile." - Bill Gates, 2015.

 

[Spitfire_x86]

It depends lot on video encoding software. Use TMPGEnc, it's optimizied for maximum speed, also gives good quality output. <A HREF="http://www.tmpgenc.net/download_files/TMPGEnc-2.510.49.157-Free.zip" target="_new"> Click to download TMPGEnc</A>

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<b><A HREF="http://geocities.com/spitfire_x86/myrig.html" target="_new"> My Rig</A></b>

 

[peteb]

The fastest will encode pretty fast, but so will the fastest Athlon.

In reality the difference is a benchmark statistic, not a significant number. If you have to wait 4 hours, does it matther if you wait 4 hours or 4 hours 15 minutes for example?

Regarding people giving times, this is entirely useless unless they are using the same application, the same video stream and the same settings. The video source, settings and app. will make far more difference to encode times than the CPU (within limits!)

An 1800+ is not shabby by any means, and although it is not the fastest, I don't think your money would be well spent upgrading at this time. First thing you should do is investigate all types of encoding programs and make sure you have the most optimal, try differet quality settings to make the best balance between speed and finish.

Then, if you can put a real benefit for yourself at spending $300 to get maybe an hour back per encode session, then go for it. After a certain point it makes sense just to batch them and let them run overnight and have them waiting for you in the morning.

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To the gentleman in the pink Tutu

 

[Ruskicowboy]

Thanks everyone for you answers.

 

[AMD_me]

What the hell are people doing here running TbredBs not overclocked?????
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