Is Edius already Quad-Core optimised?

[majormauser]

~QUAD IS UPON US~

I understand all of the posts above but, the Microprocessor suppliers are going in the direction of creating multiple Core Processors rather than create much faster CPU's.

This year there are going to be Quad core Processors in Laptops.

I am very happy with the performance of Edius its amazing. So my next statement has nothing to do right now with Edius.

I wish MicroSoft and Apple and Software Developers take notice and do the best Job they could to support Quad and Dual Processors in the future. Since it really is the only way to make things run faster. Its Funny that Apple has an 8 Core machine and Most of its software does not use the system properly. Some programs like H264 Encoding Barely touch the Processors while others take advantage of it.

Its mainly the fault of MS and Apple and they need to do a better job creating tools for Developers to harness the Extra CPUS.

Intel Roadmap 2008 http://eetimes.eu/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199203857

[wags]

I have just built a new system and used the 2.4 GHz Q6600 Quad chip.
As it is a classic overbuilt chip I overclocked it to run at 3.2 GHz no problems.

Rendering speed is amazing and it maxes out all 4 cores when doing so.

[The Dane]

Look at my signature…

I have been using this setup for my second edit station since last November.
The system is running smoothly, I have never seen it loaded more then 50%.
On of the benefits of all that cpu power, is that I can run more programs at the same time, without overloading the system.

Most of the time, I can se activity evenly spread over all 8 cores..

On my other system, 3,0ghz dualcore with 3gb ram, I always run out of cpu power when running more programs at the same time, making everything very slow.

I will go for quad cores. If the programs are not using all the cores at present time, they will in the future.

[pjsssss]

Maybe Mr. Obscure Analogy Man, or Mr Where the heck did he come up with that analogy, or simply Mr. Parable

[GrassValley_BH]

Maybe I should change my title to "Demystifier" :)

[SoundFreak]

Thanks Brandon, that was clear enough.

[GrassValley_BH]

Will this "preview' render mode still give you good end quality or is it advised to just use the much slower 2 pass "master" quality mode ?

It really depends on the nature of your footage and the average bitrate you choose. The more complex your footage and/or the lower the bitrate, the more benefit you'll see from using 2-pass Mastering over the DVD Preview target.

The thing is, the DVD Preview target splits the video into sections and encodes them simultaneously (it uses grid encoding), but the problem is that because they're now split "chunks" - the motion estimation and analysis can't see beyond the "chunk" it has, so the encoding isn't as efficient as it theoretically could be.

[STORMDAVE]

I have an 8 core Xeon system (that's 24Ghz total processing power) and Edius sees all 8 cores on launch, but doesn't use more than 2-4 cores during editing or filter use.

I think a regular Quad Core at 3.0Ghz would be a good choice. If I was building a machine right now, I'd go with a Q6600 (cheapest on the market) and overclock it to 3.0Ghz with a good CPU fan. Or if you're scared of OCing, just get the newer QX cpu's.

[SoundFreak]

Thanks for the reply,

Sorry my mistake, I was not really clear on the Core's, it's 2 x Xeon Dual core (that's 4 physical core's) and 4 HT Cores, that's a total of 8.

Anyway i have been testing but can't find any issues or "real" ground breaking improvements when HT is on or off.

With 4 logical cores running at 3 Ghz with each 4 Mb L2 cash, they are more than fast / powerful enough to edit DV in edius, also for any multitrack audio I have done (24 or more) it's no problem because the audio interface takes most of the processing load.

As I have no HD camera to borrow maybe I should just pay around with the sample HD footage that came with the installation disk to max the system.

So for now I think i'll keep the HT on, as reported ,it will most likely do no harm, if you use windows task manager it's also showing a constant load when using procoder, otherwise they pretty much sleep.

Even rendering in procoder leaves all the cores only running at 20 to max 30%, without HT it's 5% extra, so the system is basicly sleeping *LOL*

I only had the system running at 95% at all cores when using the preview render mode in procoder, it's faster thats for sure but the system sounds like a 747 taking of.

Will this "preview' render mode still give you good end quality or is it advised to just use the much slower 2 pass "master" quality mode ?

It's not a problem at my side, just a question to broaden the knowledge base.

Have a nice day ahead.

[GrassValley_BH]

"Would you be happy if your car ran at redline 100% of the time?
Wouldn't you be looking to get a new car with a bigger engine?"

Ok. So you would basically suggest to buy Quad-Core, isn´t it?

Well, sort of. I'm saying that it's better to have a CPU that's working at 70-90% load than a CPU working at 100% load and the mouse stops responding, etc.

My preference is for faster individual cores, over more cores. Or in simpler terms, I go for speed over quantity.

My question now is should I use the Hyper Treading function or not ?

Any benefits from that, or would it be better just using the 4 "real" cores and disable the HT in the bios ?

Hyperthreading can be useful in some instances, but in infrequent cases it can also "confuse" programs which then try to "overwork" the CPUs, causing things to slow down.

Case-in-point, say you have a dual-CPU with Hyperthreading, so there are 4 logical processors, 2 of which are physical (real) cores.

If a program optimizes its workload for 2 cores, then no problem - the 2 physical cores run along, and the 2 virtual Hyperthreading cores do housekeeping tasks in-between, so your system still responds and such.

If the program optimizes its workload for 4 cores, then it becomes a problem because the 2 physical cores get maxed out, the 2 virtual Hyperthreading cores also get the workload intended for a physical core and essentially you're loading each CPU with 2 CPU's-worth of work when it realistically can only do 1.2-1.5 CPU's-worth of work. Now everything's overloaded and the system responsiveness quickly heads toward nil.

That said, I'd try your normal operations with Hyperthreading enabled first, then try the same with Hyperthreading disabled, and see if there's a speed increase or decrease for the applications you normally use.

Remember too that you can also set CPU Affinity for processes via Task Manager to keep them using specific CPUs.

[istvan]

Hi,

"Would you be happy if your car ran at redline 100% of the time?
Wouldn't you be looking to get a new car with a bigger engine?"

Ok. So you would basically suggest to buy Quad-Core, isn´t it?

"I actually liked this one better due to the Pci-e 2.0 (16x) and Pci-x slots"

There has also been a note on the german forum. 16x PCI would be useful für display cards (graphic card?!). In this case I would take the X7DWA.

"I think encoding between formats and not Real time edititng is the reason to go for the latest chips rather than old ones but why is option 2. only 1 x 54xx CPU? Is that because of insane pricing?"

Exactly. One CPU costs € 540,-. I do not need this "double" performance anyway ...

The X7DAE looks very similar to the Intel S5000XVN board (which i'm using)

I would like to buy a good board but not really a high end one. Could you suggest a good one for Edius SP (also for uncompressed SD!):

- not too old
- upgradeable / compatible with Quad-Cores
- Compatible also with Edius NX for HDV (I am stull using this card ...)
- Hat 16x PCI for graphic cards (enough GPU-performance???) At the moment I have "EVGA e_GeForce 7600GS". It could be ok ... !

Thank you for your help.

Regards,

I.

[SoundFreak]

a Quick off topic question for the Guru's here,

As this is only a "hobby rigg" of mine, I never went for the Quads yet (planned that as a later upgrade one they become cheap, but after reading here it sounds more like a waste of money !?)

I'm using the much cheaper 5050's with Hyper Treading.

My question now is should I use the Hyper Treading function or not ?

Any benefits from that, or would it be better just using the 4 "real" cores and disable the HT in the bios ?

Thanks ...........

[SoundFreak]

The X7DAE looks very similar to the Intel S5000XVN board (which i'm using)

Any known pro's or con's between the 2 boards ?

[shueardm]

It's got everything but a SAS controller option :(

[Jerry]

Hi,

concerning my future system with Edius SP (without SDI) I have two options being suggested by the dealer:

1. Board: http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...000X/X7DAE.cfm
+ CPU: 2 x Quad-Core Xeon E5335 (each 2Ghz and € 270,-)
Total costs (with 750W Power Supply, 4GB RAM: € 1.315,- zzgl Ust.

2. Board: http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...400/X7DWN+.cfm
+ CPU: 1 x Quad-Core Xeon E5440 (each 2,8Ghz and € 550,-)
Total costs (with 750W Power Supply, 4GB RAM: € 1.330,- zzgl Ust.

If I understand it on a good way the option nr. 2 should meet the hardware requirements of Edius SP, as well.

Can Edius anyway exploit the power of Quad-CPUs? Wouldn´t it be better (and cheaper) to stay at Dual-Xeons?

In a certain time (some weeks) I would still use my NX for HDV (Vers. PCIe) with the new board. Do I mean well that the board is compatible with it? (NX-PCIe). I think yes ...

Regards,

I.

I actually liked this one better due to the Pci-e 2.0 (16x) and Pci-x slots
http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...00/X7DWA-N.cfm
If your going to spend that kind of money anyway, you might as well get the newest.