Best processor for multimedia?
Luigi Rizzo
rizzo at icir.org
Fri Jul 8 07:06:48 GMT 2005
On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 03:08:45PM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> I'm thinking of building a new, quite fast system for multimedia,
> notably displaying MPEGs. I'm currently using mplayer on an Athlon
> 1700, and from time to time there are hiccoughs. Processors are cheap
apart from the obvious optimizations (such as using mplayer compiled
for the specific flags for your CPU) i believe the hiccups are more
likely due to CPU and disk not being available when you need, rather
than raw CPU speed (above a certain level, that is). I'd try to
tweak process priority and things such as HZ and kern.quantum.
Also having direct access to the frame buffer helps a lot, but
i think most video cards do support that now (possibly the
'expensive' cards might be a worse deal due to lack of sw support!)
cheers
luigi
> now, and it would be trivial to get a "3000" rating processor
> relatively cheaply.
>
> The question is, which one? The current choices seem to be:
>
> - P4
> - Celeron
> - Athlon
> - Sempron
> - Athlon 64
>
> From previous mail on this list, it seems that Athlon 64 is probably
> not the best choice for reasons of compatibility. Obviously the
> fastest Athlon (32) will be faster than a correspondingly rated
> Sempron, and similarly a P4 will be faster than a corresponding
> Celeron. But by how much? Ignoring things like Xeons and P4
> Extremes, I find roughly the following pricing (here in Australia, pre
> tax):
>
> Intel Celeron D 335 - 2.8GHz CPCELD335 $134.00
> AMD Sempron 3100+ Box Soc754 CPAS3100 $157.00
> AMD Athlon XP 3000+ BOX BARTON CPAXPB3000 $184.00
> Intel P4 3.40GHz PRESCOTT 1MB CPP43.40HT-PS $409.00
> Intel P4-660 (3.6GHz)LGA775pin CPP4-660 $841.00
>
> That's a pretty big price range. What's important for multimedia? My
> understanding is that software MPEG processing needs a lot of CPU, and
> the processors here are roughly comparable (OK, the P4s may be
> somewhat faster). But what about the other differences? How
> important is cache? If I take the AMD offerings, am I better off with
> the (cheaper) Sempron with a slightly faster clock, or with the Athlon
> XP with more cache? How does the Celeron compare with either? Also,
> is it worth paying the significantly higher prices for the P4?
>
> Greg
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