i7-2600K vs current generation - worth upgrading for video encoding?

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ulillillia

ulillillia

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Currently, I have an i7-2600K CPU overclocked to 4 GHz. From looking at benchmark.com, I'm seeing only a very slight improvement is available compared to current generation processors. What I want to know is how much of an improvement can I expect with a, say, 6-core CPU of the current generation (or 8-core if available), over what I have now. The primary use for this would be video encoding through the use of the X264 codec. I currently get around 1.5 to 1.8 fps while encoding 1920x1080 video from my camcorder at 29.97 fps with the "very slow" preset. No gaming is intended.

I'm not after buying anything, I'm just curious to know if it's worth an upgrade within the next year or two. How much of an improvement can I expect?
 
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Short answer: not a lot. It's true that going to a more extreme socket like X79 will provide more performance. You won't get much performance unless Intel chooses to focus on that.
 
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vmem

vmem

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going up to a 6-core CPU will get you upto 30% more performance for multithreaded applications such as 3D animation and content creation, and encoding. but only under situations where all 6 cores get used.

if I were you, I'd wait until next year for the rumored 8-core Haswell-E CPUs
 
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ohim

ohim

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Can you be more specific what exactly are you using for encoding since your times are way low .

For example i use Premiere Pro CC with MPE active on the following PC:

FX8350 stock , 8GB DDR3 1866 , GTX 760 SC and use 1080 25p video material from my Canon 5D Mark III DSLR.

And i get on average better than real time compression meaning let`s say 10 minutes of video footage i transcode it in h264 10 Mbps Mp4 file in about 8 minutes, this means more than 25 fps , way more than your 1.8 fps encoding performance.

2wo8x3m.jpg
 
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jnjnilson6

jnjnilson6

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By the looks of things, you will probably be able to keep your 2600K for at least 3 more years with your eyes closed.. And even after that, the upgrade won't still be something god knows how dramatic, not like for example going from a Core 2 Duo E8600 to i7-990X..
 
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ulillillia

ulillillia

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Are you using the "very slow" preset? If not, that explains it. CPU usage while encoding hovers around 70 to 90% while encoding. Sony Vegas 11 Platinum and Virtual Dub both get the same 1.5 to 1.8 fps encoding rate for the same 1920x1080 video. 1024x768 gets around 3 to 5 fps encoding.
 
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ohim

ohim

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There`s no such thing as very slow preset in Premiere, we do have Render at maximum bit depth and use maximum render quality that for some reason when only transcoding doesn`t affect the render times at all, it does impact when i edit with color correction and everything but not to bring the encoding to a crawl. And these two settings are quite useless in Premiere since it`s been proven that they bring little to no image quality improvements when exporting with CUDA enabled cards.

You might have 2 Pass encoding but still way too long times for encoding. 2 Pass about doubles my render times but since i already export at faster than what i have in the timeline is still ok.

I don`t know much about Vegas but from my field working colleagues i know that there are no such big rendering times, you might have something wrong with your software, drivers etc.

Premiere CC takes advantage of everything you`ve got in your PC , my CPU stays at about 100% usage (which contrary to popular belief is actually a good thing, you don`t have a ferrari and drive it only at 50 KM/h ) and GPU useage 30 to 80%.

You have any dedicated video card or you`re running on the Intel one ?

And to be on topic with your initial question, the answer is NO! It might be worth upgrading in about 2-3 years but for now you`re fine with that CPU, the only thing that bothers me is that you have very slow exporting times, which are not normal.
 
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ohim

ohim

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Yeah i`ve heard of this x264 codec, supposedly has a little bit better quality than the h264. Don`t know about it`s encoding times, but if you`re using your videos for personal use or small video business, i don`t see the advantage of using such a very slow encoding codec.
 
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ulillillia

ulillillia

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If I used, say, ultrafast, I can get 70+ fps encoding for 1024x768 video and about 30+ fps for 1920x1080 but ultrafast is not only twice as big for disk space, the quality is also lower for the same quantizer. The "medium" and "slow" presets are the best balance between speed, disk space usage, and picture quality. However, the 1.7 fps encoding speed doesn't bother me that much. With an 8-core CPU, I could probably up that to 3 to 5 fps, quite considerable.
 
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