Investigations into Athlon X2 Overclocking
by Jarred Walton on December 21, 2005 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Encoding Performance
For our encoding performance tests, we use AutoGK 1.96 with both the DivX and Xvid codecs. (A newer version of AutoGK is now available, but performance and scores didn't change noticeably, and so, we will continue using the older version.) We encode chapter 9 from The Sum of All Fears without audio to 75% quality. This results in a file size about 1/3 as large as the original (not counting the audio size). As a more common encoding task, we also encode a TV commercial from 30 MB down to 5 MB, including audio encoding. This results in three encoding passes: the compression test, a first pass, and the final pass. We take the total number of frames in the video (900) and divide it by the time taken, reporting the resulting frames per second. In all AutoGK benchmarks, higher scores will be better.
The performance difference between the slowest and fastest setup is around 35% for every encoding task, scaling linearly with processor speed. AutoGK runs a lot more of the computations within the CPU and doesn't depend much on user input, and it also benefits from multiple processor cores. Compared to the Venice chip, the second core increases DivX performance by about 50% and Xvid performance by about 30%. Comparing the different RAM types, the largest gap is about 4%; so while there is a difference, it's not huge. As we said, clock speed is king for encoding.
For our encoding performance tests, we use AutoGK 1.96 with both the DivX and Xvid codecs. (A newer version of AutoGK is now available, but performance and scores didn't change noticeably, and so, we will continue using the older version.) We encode chapter 9 from The Sum of All Fears without audio to 75% quality. This results in a file size about 1/3 as large as the original (not counting the audio size). As a more common encoding task, we also encode a TV commercial from 30 MB down to 5 MB, including audio encoding. This results in three encoding passes: the compression test, a first pass, and the final pass. We take the total number of frames in the video (900) and divide it by the time taken, reporting the resulting frames per second. In all AutoGK benchmarks, higher scores will be better.
The performance difference between the slowest and fastest setup is around 35% for every encoding task, scaling linearly with processor speed. AutoGK runs a lot more of the computations within the CPU and doesn't depend much on user input, and it also benefits from multiple processor cores. Compared to the Venice chip, the second core increases DivX performance by about 50% and Xvid performance by about 30%. Comparing the different RAM types, the largest gap is about 4%; so while there is a difference, it's not huge. As we said, clock speed is king for encoding.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
This may seem like a stupid question, but you did copy the SuperPi executable into two separate folders, right? Otherwise, the two running processes overwrite each others' data and one will always fail. Anyway, I don't find SuperPi to be a very useful stress test compared to Folding@Home, Prime95, and several other utilities; it just doesn't stress the system out that much IMO.Yianaki - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Yes of course it is in two folders. I realized that the SECOND time I did it Heh.Leper Messiah - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Thats actually a good thing, my X2 3800 does 2.65 at 1.425 vcore stable a rock. Looks like this x2 test is a good average indicator instead of most reviews which have the nice cherry picked silicon.JustAnAverageGuy - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Yeah, My Opteron 165 seems to top off at around 2.6GHz with the stock cooler.Araemo - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
If you buy a socket 939 opteron, will it work in a normal NF4/etc mobo?A dual core opteron is tempting if it will work in the standard enthusiast motherboards. Get a nice heatsink and get it nice and toasty, I could turn my heater back off. :) And I hope 2GB RAM sticks go down in price within the next 9 months.. I'm still debating between a sweet laptop or a good overclocker desktop for my next computer, the desktop would be much cheaper, for sure, but it is a pain to take to LAN parties.
JustAnAverageGuy - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Most NF4 motherboards support the S939 Opteron, yes. Check the manufacturer's site to confirm though.Googer - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
I found it a bit humourous that this http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/amd/athlon...">graphresembles a tent. It reminded me of the days in high school when kids would get fill in the bubble tests and use the answer sheets to do connect the dot drawings.
I wonder if Jarred had too much time on his hands?
kleinwl - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
If you are going to start testing various cooling systems and how they affect max overclock... go ahead and throw in a Seasonic PSU as well. The Seasonic should be rejecting less heat into the case which may make as much difference in overclock as a more efficent Heat Sink. In any case... try it out please!<Note I have a XP-90, with a Antec SmartPower 2.0, on a venice... and I'm curious how such a case temp difference could affect the overclocking potential>
BigLan - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
quote: Looking at the different RAM options, it's difficult to make a good case for spending tons of money on memory.I've always thought that spending a lot of extra cash on memory was a bad idea. It pretty much shows no improvement in Fear. It's nice to see a review of the everyday stuff.
Puddleglum - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
The results for Fear looked bizarre. After reading some of the charts where 4xAA is used on games like Battlefield2 and FEAR, which would be a nice feature to show off on a high-end system, the numbers reveal marginal performance.I confess, I'm still using a Ti4200, which is only performing well in games because it's not drawing the DX9 stuff, and I've truly been waiting for an ideal video card to come out that's worth purchasing; but the new cards that are out right now are making it easy to sit back and wait for the hardware/software ratio to become a little more price-competitive.
Also, why is the OCZ PC4800 freaking out with BF2 when the CPU is overclocked to 2.1GHz?