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P4 with 800 Mhz FSB is not my choice for NLE

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  • P4 with 800 Mhz FSB is not my choice for NLE

    I am preparing to build my new PC mainly used for NLE. I got quite interested when Intel announced their new 800 Mhz FSB platform for the P4. I thought that together with an HT enabled Pentium processor, this would be a major step forward in terms of performance for encoding and RT work.
    As with any new PC, my search led me to review sites where I got a big surprise: the new platform based on the i875 chipset and 3.0 Ghz P4 (4x200 Mhz FSB) does not provide much higher performance than the "old" i845/i850 and 3.06 Ghz P4 (4x133 Mhz FSB), which is far less expensive. Here's the information I found so far:

    1. Tom's Hardware Audio/Video Benchmarks:
    DV to MPEG encoding using MainConcept 1.3.1
    i875 + P4(3.0 Ghz) 800 FSB: 211 seconds
    i850 + P4(3.06Ghz) 533 FSB: 214
    i875 + P4(3.06Ghz) 533 FSB: 214

    2. Anandtech Video Encoding benchmarks:
    MPEG-2 to DiVX Conversion using XMpeg 4.5 & DiVX 5.0.2
    i850E + P4(3.06 Ghz) 533 FSB: 97.9 Frames per second
    i875P + P4(3.0 Ghz) 800 FSB: 97
    i845PE+ P4(3.06 Ghz) 533 FSB: 91.5

    In interactive applications benchmarks such as office use, tests show a maximum 7% advantage for the new 800 Mhz over the 533 Mhz FSB.

    My conclusion is that NLE is probably not FSB bound, at least not over 533 Mhz with a 3 Ghz P4. The new platform and FSB might be interesting for heavy game players or other applications. But for NLE, I have not found proof that justifies the price difference:
    i875
    P4 @ 3 Ghz $550
    Motherboard $200
    1Gb Samsung RAM $190

    Total $940

    i845
    P4 @ 3.06 Ghz $380
    Motherboard $120
    1Gb Samsung RAM $160

    Total $660

    At this point I would rather stick with the i845 platform and with the $280 I save get a pair of 120Gb SATA drives in a RAID 1 configuration.

    Does this make sense? Has anyone else come to the same conclusion? I am sure some of you will disagree and would appreciate your comments.

    Fred

  • #2
    Fred,

    Insightful analysis, and I agree with you.

    First of all, from what I have read, DivX encoding does not show as close a correspondence to MS Pro performance as MPEG encoding. You can see that the 800MHz fsb advantage is quite small for MPEG encoding. That being said, remember that the 3.0 P4 has a 1% disadvantage in terms of raw clockspeed compared to the 3.06 P4.

    If the 875 chipsets that are on the market now were going to have some "legs" I would considering buying one with one of the cheaper HT enabled P4's, ie 2.4, 2.6, or 2.8. They are reasonable priced, and then upgrading to something signficantly faster later.

    Unfortunately, I think the current process is only going to 3.2GHz and I bet that Intel will change the motherboard spec for the Prescott. They've done it for just about every core revision for the past few years when a process shrink is involved so I wouldn't expect anything different this time.

    So yes, for max/price to performance for quite a while the 845PE/3.06 is probably your best bet for video editing work.

    - Mark
    - Mark

    Core 2 Duo E6400 o/c 3.2GHz - Asus P5B Deluxe - 2048MB Corsair Twinx 6400C4 - ATI AIW X1900 - Seagate 7200.10 SATA 320GB primary - Western Digital SE16 SATA 320GB secondary - Samsung SATA Lightscribe DVD/CDRW- Midiland 4100 Speakers - Presonus Firepod - Dell FP2001 20" LCD - Windows XP Home

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    • #3
      Hi Mark,

      Thanks for your opinion. I wonder when the 2.4, 2.6 and 2.8 HT enabled chips will be available, or are they already? You seem to have pricing information already, how much are they?

      Also, I ran the MSP7 speed tests on my Athlon and will be sending them to you. Have you got any results from a P4 3.06 with and without HT? I'd be very interested to find out how much one can gain from Hyperthreading in MediaStudio.

      I think you're right, it's almost the end of the line for the current P4 design. Intel's goal for this year is to slightly increase perf on the platform, and not much on CPU Ghz. AMD allows you to keep you motherboard longer by allowing more incremental upgrades. Problem is I am not about to buy an Athlon XP knowing the 64 is just around the corner. And I hate to wait fo the next big thing that will "soon be out". I'll never buy anything...

      Fred

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      • #4
        Hi Fred,

        800fsb P4's will be released May 21. You can check out pricing here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/30273.html

        I wish I could get ONE score of a HT enabled 3.06 P4 so we could see what it's going to do for us. When the price drops a bit more I'm going to swap out my 2.4 for one.

        Mark
        - Mark

        Core 2 Duo E6400 o/c 3.2GHz - Asus P5B Deluxe - 2048MB Corsair Twinx 6400C4 - ATI AIW X1900 - Seagate 7200.10 SATA 320GB primary - Western Digital SE16 SATA 320GB secondary - Samsung SATA Lightscribe DVD/CDRW- Midiland 4100 Speakers - Presonus Firepod - Dell FP2001 20" LCD - Windows XP Home

        Comment


        • #5
          It's the register

          Comment


          • #6
            Mark,

            Those prices, if they are confirmed on the 21st, are quite good if we can see at least some improvement for HT vs. non-HT. I think a nice 2.6 HT would work just right for me, the price/performance ratio looks right. With that, maybe a nice low cost i865 may do the trick and convince me to move away from the 845PE after all.
            Hummm, something to think about. The price difference from 533 FSB to 800 FSB is not that large anymore.

            There's got to be someone running MSP7 on an HT system out there, I am sure Ulead has a few to test the software with. Maybe some beta testers too? I'd very very interested.

            Fred

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            • #7
              They are already available!


              DJ

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              • #8
                Note that 3.066GHz P4 (23x133) is 2.2 percent faster than 3.0 P4 (15x200)which corresponds to roughly 2% performance delta (533 FSB part having higher performance than 800FSB).

                The applications with higher bandwith requirements should benefit from higher FSB (random access of large data).

                Videoencoding is regular pattern access of large data. In this case prefetch correctly predicts most of the time and there are few cache misses, which means P4's 20-stage pipeline never stalls.

                Since the 3.06GHz part is 2% faster and cache doesn't stall it scores slightly (~2%) in encoding benchmarks.

                However, 875 boards are more futureproof, since Prescott will most likely use Socket 476 and have 800FSB. Tejas will shift to LGA Socket, however this is quite in the future.

                Certainly the higher speeded Northwoods will most likely be 800FSB only.

                2ndly if you use Gigabit Ethernet, you'll benefit from network connected to the northbridge, leaving PCI for bandwith hungry I/O devices such as RAID arrays and videoedting boards.

                Comment


                • #9
                  As far as MSP7 is concerned it's all speculation regarding HT performance until we test a system!

                  - Mark
                  - Mark

                  Core 2 Duo E6400 o/c 3.2GHz - Asus P5B Deluxe - 2048MB Corsair Twinx 6400C4 - ATI AIW X1900 - Seagate 7200.10 SATA 320GB primary - Western Digital SE16 SATA 320GB secondary - Samsung SATA Lightscribe DVD/CDRW- Midiland 4100 Speakers - Presonus Firepod - Dell FP2001 20" LCD - Windows XP Home

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Look at the prices! Who would buy them at that price. I believe they are not available and this site is just trying to capture some early customers willing to pay a fortune to be "on the list" to get one first. I trust the Inquirer's prices more than this site's if you ask me.

                    Fred

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by UtwigMU
                      However, 875 boards are more futureproof, since Prescott will most likely use Socket 476 and have 800FSB. Tejas will shift to LGA Socket, however this is quite in the future.

                      Certainly the higher speeded Northwoods will most likely be 800FSB only.
                      Did you mean 478? In this case an 865/875 motherboard will run the next generation P4? That's very good news to me, thanks for the information. I've always been able to upgrade my AMD processors at least once without changing motherboard, RAM etc... and I'd like to continue if I buy a P4 motherboard.

                      Fred

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                      • #12
                        Check mike's hardware for roadmaps.

                        You'll be likely be able to upgrade, how high I'm not sure. For instance my BX is stuck at Katmai (600MHz which would be pointless jump from 467). BIOS upgrade / board support...

                        There will be lower speed HT 800 FSB P4's (2.4, 2.8).

                        Next Intel desktop chipset is due in about a year, so current chipset will support CPU's untill then, which means 4 or more GHz.

                        It's rumored that latter Prescotts an Tejas (P4 after Prescott, After that comes Nehalem) will introduce LGA (land grid array, Socket T?).
                        Last edited by UtwigMU; 6 May 2003, 18:49.

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