i7 920 vs Athlon 64 6000+ For Video Encoding

I would say that it is at least twice as fast in basically all cases for encoding. It would be a huge upgrade, and well worth it on all but the tightest of budgets. Encoding is one of the areas where the i7 absolutely dominates, and the fact that it overclocks extremely well only helps it more.

It would be safe to say that the Athlon was a good enough chip two generations ago and today its not a door stop because its too small

If you are encoding professionally or A LOTS AND LOTS of encoding then do it - but if you are just burning a few disks once in a while, then No.

Phenom II will not outperform i7 in encoding - not even close. But for other stuff, since you obviously have a suitable motherboard, check this out:

http://my.ocworkbench.com/2008/asrock/ASRock-AOD790G-12...

You might want to compare the 6000 to Phenom II - I think it's better than the 6000 - see benches in that link. And P2 would be a cheap easy upgrade for you - only need a bios upgrade for your mobo. (esp. if you have an AM2+ mobo) - not sure what mobo you have - check with mobo maker for new bios or cpu support - should be easy, cos most are available already. The AM2+ version of Phenom II is supposed to release any minute now!

A Q6600 is an upgrade over your 6000+, the Core i7 is a monster, if you can afford it and after a new system go for the Core i7, if your on a budget go for a Core 2 Quad.

BTW i hope your going Vista x64 with that new rig, XP would be a waste of time, if you go i7, go BIG (ram etc).

Also a valid point, if you got the supporting motherboard and can wait a little longer, see what the Phenom II brings first perhaps?

If you have the money and do lots of encoding, Intel Core i7 is the way to go and that's no doubt.

The first comparision is FPS, higher is better.

The second comparison is time to complete a conversion, lower is better.

Scrap that, I didn't read your post properly.

Can't edit/delete posts  

!! before you go buying new hardware make sure the encoding software can actually use multiple threads, if it only uses 1 thread there won't be _that much_ of an improvement from going from dual to quad as it won't use the extra cores. !!

and just running multiple instances of the encoding software doesn't really count....

Bit Tech Benchies - Includes Encoding
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/03/intel-core-...

and the next page: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/11/03/intel-core-...


{edit} From Anand: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx...

The short of it is that, if you're building a new system and do a lot of encoding then the I7 is the best there is.

From Newegg today:
Gigabyte GA-EX58 motherboard - $244.99
A-Data 6GB 3x2GB DDR3 1333 - $154.99
Intel Core i7 920 processor - $299.99

Total of $699.97

You could save even more if you shop around. Microcenter had a i7 920 for $250 yesterday, plus there are cheaper motherboards and RAM if you'll settle for lower quality. If I were building one of these today I'd probably spend about $50 more for a better motherboard and ram over what I listed, but that's still way under your $900 estimate.

It's really about the same price as the Q6600, X48 board, and 8GB of DDR2 800 RAM were when I bought them. Just for fun I looked up what each item cost me when I purchased it and amazingly it comes out to $699.97. That's pretty crazy.

Q6600 (Purchased December 2007) was $255.00
Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 board (purchased July 2008) was $224.99
4x2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 RAM (Purchased March 2008) was $219.98

Total of $699.97

This is no contest. The vast majority of encoding apps favor Intel processors. I would think some of that would lie in the fact that most of these programs utilize an intel compiler. Even in the dark days of Pentium D, encoding was the one realm where Intel was still competitive.

What's that supposed to mean? Encoding is one of the areas in which i7 really shows the full theoretical benefit of the new architecture, as shown by the 2.66GHz i7 920 beating the old 3.2GHz QX9770 in that benchmark. If someone does a lot of encoding, i7 makes sense, especially as i7 920 based systems are really not that expensive.

which I said already in my previous post

this comment was just a giggle - perhaps a pointed giggle - sorry to offend.

I don't understand i7 not being expensive - but I have not researched i7 systems much, and probably won't for a while - I just understand cpu + mobo + ram are expensive compared to other platforms that, to me, at least, would be smarter choices, and something I would naturally do without having to consult others. Your preferences are different it seems.

But we certainly do not know all the op's motives for considering this platform rather than a more economical almost obvious solution - which is what my previous response suggested, as do you. Namely, if he is spending all day doing this, then a minute or two, here and there can translate into hours. However, the level of activity is subject to speculation as is the motive therefore.

I was only kidding; but sometimes that comment bears truth.

From two posts above yours. Current price on a Q9400 (Yorkfield, same clock speed)?? $269


Economical and Obvious?? The I7 crushes the performance of everything else out there for the OP's intended usage. For $30 more!?!? YES PLEASE!

Thanks for all the info. My motherboard is AM2 not AM2+, so upgrading to the Phenom is unlikely. I was pretty sure that the i7 was good at encoding using Nero, I was just uncertain of how much an improvement it would be from my Athlon 6000+.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPv-32UbBG8




I was hoping to avoid using Vista. I've experimented with it several times and whenever I installed Nero on a Vista (both 32 and 64 bit versions) OS and an XP pro OS, the one on Vista system always ran slowly than on XP pro. This was done using 2 different HHD's using the Athlon X2 64 6000+.

As for memory, I thought programs like Nero didn't really depend on Ram.

i7 motherboards are just to expensive

Vista x86 is useless and was like a "compatible" OS, Vista x64 really shines especially paired with 8gb of ram and the system to back it - then its a monster, using a XP spec'd system in vista doesnt cut it, its designed for new stuff not old rubbish.

If your looking at the i7 system then you have the cash and wouldnt be touching anything less then 6gb memory (3x6gb, tri channel etc) so go with vista, get over the BS rumors and half assed systems that make it seem bad when its really not - you will never go back when you experience a proper Vista x64 system.

I have Nero 7 on my Vista x64 and its pretty flawless. Nothing runs slow on my 64 bit.

Let me caveat that - time remains a constant speed.

Although if your PC were close to a black hole ...

Look here >>>
http://ati.amd.com/technology/avivo/technology.html

If you have an AM2+ mobo and upgrade to an AM2+ Phenom II (coming very soon) and use a ATI 4800 or 4600 graphics card here is an alternative.

17 times faster ... makes the cpu look like a snail in comparison ... any cpu.

Pitty its only for converting, not editing   -- FOR NOW

CPU is like general purpose/wide spread application, but alot of apps would benifit from it! Thank god the days of "video cards for gaming only" are coming to an end, its sad when that massive chunk of hardware isnt being used for much etc and so much power/performance going to waste half the time  

Yes,I agree that it's a pity that it's only a video transcoder and doesn't have full editing capabilities.Perhaps in the future AMD will change that.
Also I've seen that apparently there are some issues with the Avivo transcoding software that are in dire need to be worked out.I see this here.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3475
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=647

Assuming your software has multi threading (or will have it in the future) go with the i7, else a Quad core (ie Q6600).

  Id love to know where your buying RAM for that price. Cheepo RAM on newegg is at least $70 for 8GB.

Where is this 8GB of "not crappola either" ram for $50 at. I will order a 8gb right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

8GB for $40 after rebate

makes you wonder why these idiots running xp still dont spend that $40 for 8gb and try vista x64 and see for them selves how good it is, and on that note, why do people call it heavy and resource hungry when "resources" are only $40...

For some reason in my head I read a 8GB kit. Instead of just 8GB total.

Thats still not 50 bucks. You only get a rebate from one kit. If you order 2 kits you only get on rebate from I can from reading the PDF

Good question. I still run XP x64 because I run CAD software (SolidWorks), which don't work well with Vista x64. I still run Vista x64/OSX/Fedora/SUSE on a day to day basis.

Any reason to not change. This same crowd rails against UAC, yet can't seem to figure out how to turn it off, or how to use the Superadmin account. Clue: If you can't do those things, then you *NEED* to have UAC on your computer.



Regarding the OP - Check the encoding benchmarks for an I7, already posted in this thread, versus those for your processor. The Answer you seek is readily apparent.

Having just came from a x2 6000+ to a phenom2 x4 940 i can attest that the 6000+ is not going to cut it if you want to finish your work in any amount of decent time! I would start encoding a video and i could feel the performance hit when trying to run other app's.

If you have to stay dual core at least go for the 7750x2 it is clock for clock faster and Oces to 3ghz and more.

After finally getting my new i7 setup running, here are some results:

Converting a 700 Mb AVI to DVD format (no burning) using Nero 7 , Single Pass and fit to disk:

Athlon 6000+ x64 3.0Ghz with 3Gb ddr2 ram took 40 minutes and 7 seconds

i7 920, 2.67Ghz with 6Gb of ddr3 ram 1600 took 12 minutes and 14 seconds

so my i7 system is about 3.3 times faster

Using Winavi for the same video above:

Athlon took 16 minutes 12 seconds
i7 took 7 minutes and 22 seconds

so my i7 system is about 2.2 times faster