P4 vs Athlon XP in video compression.

[lokem]

Hi all,

Hope this is the correct forum.

Anyway, I was wondering if someone could explain the following to me.

My friend tried using an AXP1700+ with DDR RAM and a P4 1.8Ghz with SDRAM to compress/convert a video file in VirtualDub.

Somehow, the P4 manage to edge the AXP by an average of 1-1.5 frames per second. Anyone knows why since VirtualDub does not use SSE2 instructions and in terms of raw power, AXP beats the P4.

TIA.

 

[hyjacked]

i would have guess the p4 would have lost with sdram, but it won, go figure, the p4 has always held the upper hand in video applications(as far as i know). this was intel's whole push for the p4 when it first came out. anyone remember the commercials with the people flying through the air?

i'm not sure of why exactly the p4 is better than the athlon in this area, but i think the p4 has been optimized for it, somehow, just my guess...

 

[Didou]

It might be a cache issue. The P4 ( just as the P3 ) has less latency between its level 1 & 2 caches. Its L1 cache is much smaller ( 16 K ) but I guess it makes up for it someway.

 

[erwin1978]

I don't think it has so much to do with the front-end as much as the codec being used. Try using Divx5.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Originally posted by erwin1978
I don't think it has so much to do with the front-end as much as the codec being used.

Exactly! Compression/decompression does the real job, VirtualDub just tells it what to do. Lokem didn't mention which codec it was but new codecs take advantage of SSE/SSE2/3DNow! instructions.

 

[lokem]

Whoops.. Me bad. I'll have to ask my friend what codec he used. Thanks for teh info BTW.

 

[lokem]

Hi all,

Just got the details from my friend about the stuff he used to do the comparison:

P4 1.8GHz
AXP 1700+
DivX 3.11alpha

Not sure whether that version of DivX supports 3DNow!, but I'm sure MMX is supported and AXPs utilize that pretty well.

Any feedback is welcomed.

 

[K o R ! K]

Ok my level of Computer knowledge is quite limited but as a general rule the P4 CPU's have a large amount of untouched potential. The technology behind the P4 is very advanced. The software however is rather behind... It won't be until Microsoft brings out their new replacement for Windows XP that the p4's will be utilising their full power... Don't get me wrong athlons are fast beasts.

Also P4’s are generally faster when dealing with video editing and other high CPU usage applications, Athlons are slightly faster when it comes to games.

The difference between Athlons and P4’s isn’t that big. Right now I can get a p4 1.8 system at the same price as an Athlon 1900+, I’ll prolly go with a p4 system because of the greater level of stability.