Upgrade from E8400 to Q8400 ?

[FS]

I was wondering about my options as far as upgrades go without spending more than $100 ($150 initially, before I sell the E8400).

I am not interested in a gaming rig or anything like that. Now that it's out of the way, I have a very basic setup that includes Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128072 + Intel Core 2 Duo E8400(3GHz) + Arctic Freezer Cooler + 2 GB of RAM

What would be the best bang for the buck CPU upgrade so it helps with 1080P HD viewing and encoding/transcoding. As of now I am limited to 720P video viewing as the processor + IGP can't handle 1080P and the encoding is pretty slow as well.

Now that the situation is pretty clear, would it make sense for me to just get a Q8400 cpu and go with it or is there any other option that would make much more sense. Please feel free to share your input. Thanks in advance

PS: would love to go with the i7s or at least an i5 but that's not feasible atm, so please suggest something that can utilize this board.

 

[Conroe]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Prod....36.37.38.39.40.41.42.43.44.45.46.47.48.49.50

You would see some transcoding benefits, but you can get that from a low end video card too. I think the IGP is your real problem.

 

[FS]

Thanks, so it seems like E8400 is equal to if not better than Q8400 in almost all scenarios. Any idea as to which benchmark applies if you're trying to figure out AVCHD conversion performance ?

I guess my best bet is to just get a passively cooled card* and maybe upgrade the RAM to 4GB.


* don't really want anymore heat or noise but I guess more heat is a given with dedicated cards, so at least I can do away with the noise.

 

[Denithor]

If you cannot even watch 1080p video then yes, you need a true video card to offload that duty - will smooth everything out. But probably won't help much with encoding.

What kind of case do you have? Nice and roomy with plenty of space for a full-sized card, smaller but still adequate for a single-slot or tiny/sff and you need a half-height card? Also, what power supply do you have? More details please, will help us make the best recommendation for you.

 

[FS]

I have an Antec Sonata III w/ 500 Watts PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129024 It's sitting in a cabinet so the airflow is not optimal but it's been running cool and quiet with the Arctic cooler at medium speed for over 2 years now. I have thought about of getting a graphic card that can fully offload 1080p videos but the heat & noise factor has kept me away *till now*

I won't be playing any video games on this machine and the low end cards would not help with video encoding, as you mentioned as well, so I was opting for the CPU upgrade route.

 

[dqniel]

There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be able to watch 1080p video with your current setup. If your PC is set up to play the video by offloading to the integrated graphics... then don't. Just use software decoding which will utilize the CPU, which is plenty fast for the task.

As for encoding/transcoding, a Core 2 Quad would almost certainly be helpful for that, but I feel that the increase in performance seen wouldn't be worth the money unless you can do a trade or sell your E8400 first.

 

[Zorkorist]

I watch 1080p (and laugh at the quality) on my E6500

You have plenty of power for normal computing, which today, includes DVR functions.

-John

 

[FS]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess I'll wait till I can afford to upgrade to an i5 2500k setup instead of spending more on the current one. Sandybridge's IGP is looking awesome and it's gonna be enough for my graphic needs.

@dqniel, I looked at the settings in Nvidia control panel and the settings are player-centric. ie; vlc would use its settings, and MPC-HC would use its own. I have noticed that VLC has more hiccups with higher bitrate content than MPC-HC but that's not to say that MPC-HC is handling it well. Anyway, I'll go through the Settings/Preferences in both players tomorrow to see if there is any improvement to be found there.


Now that I've put aside CPU and GPU upgrade on the side, I would seriously like to consider upgrading the RAM to 4GB(page file gets used pretty often as memory usage peaks 2GB and cpu comes to a halt ... even little things like PS3 Media Server bring it to a halt). The issue however is that my mobo has 2 slots and both of them are occupied with 2 x 1GB sticks. Another one is that I am using Win XP SP3 32bit.

Would I even be able to use 4GB (2 x 2GB in dual channel) of memory with my current setup ? If 32bit OSs can only utilize less than 4GB THEN, is it possible to, maybe, use 512MB for integrated graphics instead of it getting wasted(not getting used)

PS: Would it make sense to go with used memory sticks ? ... looked up online and paying over $50 for new and outdated memory just does not compute. Maybe $35 and below would be the right price, right ?

 

[nenforcer]

Getting just about any discrete video from either nVidia or AMD will give you the hardware acceleration you are looking for.

Since your not interested in gaming you could with something like the Geforce GT 210 / 220 / 430 / 440 or AMD Radeon HD 5670.

 

[FS]

^ Seems like any decent discrete card that can fully offload from CPU is ~$50 -75 and on top of that they add too much heat and noise which is hard to tolerate for a single purpose device(at least in my case, it is). So, I have decided to just upgrade the memory* for now and then go with a full upgrade to i5 2500K as soon as it starts to make some financial sense.



* Just started a thread in FS/Trade Section, http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=31374161

 

[maddie]

^ Seems like any decent discrete card that can fully offload from CPU is ~$50 -75 and on top of that they add too much heat and noise which is hard to tolerate for a single purpose device(at least in my case, it is). So, I have decided to just upgrade the memory* for now and then go with a full upgrade to i5 2500K as soon as it starts to make some financial sense.



* Just started a thread in FS/Trade Section, http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=31374161

I suggest you fully investigate how much power is saved by offloading video to even a low end discrete video card before making such pronouncements.

 

[Vette73]

I have an Antec Sonata III w/ 500 Watts PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129024 It's sitting in a cabinet so the airflow is not optimal but it's been running cool and quiet with the Arctic cooler at medium speed for over 2 years now. I have thought about of getting a graphic card that can fully offload 1080p videos but the heat & noise factor has kept me away *till now*

I won't be playing any video games on this machine and the low end cards would not help with video encoding, as you mentioned as well, so I was opting for the CPU upgrade route.

Get A 5450 with DDR3. Most are fanless and cause very little heat but will handle 1080p easy.

Microcenter has a DDR3 5450 for $28 AR right now.

 

[ElFenix]

^ Seems like any decent discrete card that can fully offload from CPU is ~$50 -75 and on top of that they add too much heat and noise which is hard to tolerate for a single purpose device(at least in my case, it is). So, I have decided to just upgrade the memory* for now and then go with a full upgrade to i5 2500K as soon as it starts to make some financial sense.



* Just started a thread in FS/Trade Section, http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=31374161

just get a fanless one...


Q8400 will nearly double encoding performance. but unless you can find one for under $50 it's not worth the effort.

 

[jtisgeek]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess I'll wait till I can afford to upgrade to an i5 2500k setup instead of spending more on the current one. Sandybridge's IGP is looking awesome and it's gonna be enough for my graphic needs.

@dqniel, I looked at the settings in Nvidia control panel and the settings are player-centric. ie; vlc would use its settings, and MPC-HC would use its own. I have noticed that VLC has more hiccups with higher bitrate content than MPC-HC but that's not to say that MPC-HC is handling it well. Anyway, I'll go through the Settings/Preferences in both players tomorrow to see if there is any improvement to be found there.


Now that I've put aside CPU and GPU upgrade on the side, I would seriously like to consider upgrading the RAM to 4GB(page file gets used pretty often as memory usage peaks 2GB and cpu comes to a halt ... even little things like PS3 Media Server bring it to a halt). The issue however is that my mobo has 2 slots and both of them are occupied with 2 x 1GB sticks. Another one is that I am using Win XP SP3 32bit.

Would I even be able to use 4GB (2 x 2GB in dual channel) of memory with my current setup ? If 32bit OSs can only utilize less than 4GB THEN, is it possible to, maybe, use 512MB for integrated graphics instead of it getting wasted(not getting used)

PS: Would it make sense to go with used memory sticks ? ... looked up online and paying over $50 for new and outdated memory just does not compute. Maybe $35 and below would be the right price, right ?

Buying ddr2 right now will be wasteful try to get some very cheap used or use to to wait till you upgrade everything.

 

[FS]

The DDR3 card is OOS at Microcenter. Worth getting the following one instead - it's DDR2 - for $19.99 after rebate: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0352334

or the DDR3 equivalent w/ 1GB memory from Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...tem=14-102-882


I would still consider upgrading the memory, so if any of you have it please contact me. Thanks

 

[Ado6]

YHPM Regarding 4gb DDR2 800 set