Do GPU's help DVD encoding by any significant amount?

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Dew itt right

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I'm getting ready to build a PC for my bro who makes DVD's from his home videos and back's up his massive DVD collection. Anyway, I thought I saw somewhere that ATI's AVIVO and nVidia's Purevideo technologies have hardware encoding/decoding that put some of the task on the GPU to make the encoding go faster. Is this true and is the time difference significant?

I was currently looking at this ballpark:
Pentium D 820, 915, 920 or equal
2x512Mb DDR2-667 RAM
X1600, X1300, X6600, X6800 or equal with AVIVO/Purevideo

Would I be better off spending the $75 - $100 from the GPU on doubling the RAM? Or maybe getting a faster CPU? Or does the GPU help the encoding time more than the increase in RAM or CPU freq would?

He doesn't mess with gaming so I'm strictly focused on a dual-core setup with the fastest DVD encoding capabilities. Any suggestions...

 
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I have the same questions and I want to hear what people say. I am willing to put money into a faster CPU if that is the only way... but if hardware GPU can help I want to know how.

I wonder if it is something only a quadro or fireGL can do?
 
You'd do better to go with a Core 2 Duo instead of the Pentium D.

Anyways it's yes and no that a GPU can accelerate video encoding. The capability is there and both ATI and NV were suppose to have "hooks" so that encoding apps could take advantage of the onboard Purevideo and Avivo video engines but nothing has happened.

So spend the money on a faster/better CPU then those Pentium Ds you're currently looking at. Go Core 2 Duo with a gig of memory and something like a 7300GT.
 
Yeah, going from a 9250 AGP card to a 7800gt Pcie (Asrock board FTW) resulted in no performance difference when encoding from raw to Divx, or Divx to a Dvd native file :(. Nothing past the margin of error at least (maybe like 10-15 seconds for 12 hrs of video).

Going from the venice 3200 to my 3800 X2 at 2.7ghz cut the time down by about 44%...


Realtime play back of an encoded or raw video file seemed to put less stress on the CPU from the 7800gt upgrade... and so did capturing live video from a software TV card (9$... can't complain)
 
a little OT:

I use aftereffects to do video work, but I am having trouble getting the rendering to use both CPUs fully. Is it the codec's problem or aftereffects you think?

I use xvid, but if I try the multithread divx I get the same performance. it all seems to use only about 60% of my CPU.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Go Core 2 Duo with a gig of memory and something like a 7300GT.
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Kinda blows the whole "budget" thing out of the water! :D I'll double the RAM and maybe get a decent CPU HSF for a little OC action. The Conroe's and their boards are a bit too expensive and young for this build.
 
Dew itt right said:
Kinda blows the whole "budget" thing out of the water! :D I'll double the RAM and maybe get a decent CPU HSF for a little OC action. The Conroe's and their boards are a bit too expensive and young for this build.
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Well thats whats going to help the most.
 
CrimandEvil said:
You'd do better to go with a Core 2 Duo instead of the Pentium D.

Anyways it's yes and no that a GPU can accelerate video encoding. The capability is there and both ATI and NV were suppose to have "hooks" so that encoding apps could take advantage of the onboard Purevideo and Avivo video engines but nothing has happened.

So spend the money on a faster/better CPU then those Pentium Ds you're currently looking at. Go Core 2 Duo with a gig of memory and something like a 7300GT.
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Yep, I pretty much agree with this. This way you can use whatever software package you like the best for enconding DVD's.

The C2D E6300 can be had for around $185 or less.
 
you can get the PD now and get conroe later on... dual core anything will be good.


I wish I had a nice little intel system... a PD would be a cheap way to get in the doorway.
 
gpus dont effect video rendering/encoding;only ram and cpu do. a faster cpu will have faster rendering. gpus arent meant for 3dapps and games hence what the gpu stands for (Graphics Proccesing Unit)
 
Dew itt right said:
I thought I saw somewhere that ATI's AVIVO and nVidia's Purevideo technologies have hardware encoding/decoding that put some of the task on the GPU to make the encoding go faster. Is this true and is the time difference significant?
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Currently your dual-core decision will have a much more significant impact than the video cards. Both nVIDIA and ATI have demonstrated "proprietary" software that demonstrates that some "encoding" tasks could be accelerated but none of the primary software developers (Nero, etc.) have taken advantage of that capability. Currently on AVIVO and PureVideo have been utilized for hardware "decode" acceleration and are almost a must even with Dual-Core when you go to H.264 based content to just get decent frame rates.
 
Yup, best way to speed up encoding is with a dual core CPU and 2 gigs of ram. The encoding process is PURELY a CPU process. It does not use the GPU.
 
Actually guys, you can speed up the encoding process if you have a good GPU. At least with a Radeon X1K series you can. I am not sure about the speed difference VS the cpu but I am pretty sure it is faster. If you have a Radeon X1K and want to encode any sort of video file using the GPU then you have to use the bundled Avivo video converter. To do that do the following:

Switch the interface in the ATI Catylist Control panel to "Basic" ( I know you guys are all 1337 so its probably on "advanced" for you guys)

Select "Avivo Video Converter" under the "Easy Wizards" tab

Follow the wizard. Convert to any file format you desire (well most of the major ones MPEG2, MPEG4 etc.)

This way the encoding will be handled by your video card, and the faster your video card is the faster the encoding will be. Again I am pretty sure it will be much faster than the CPU but I havent tested it yet. Oh and there is probably a way of doing this using nVidia cards, but I dont know the exact method.

I suggest the best X1K card you can afford for the best results.
 
GPU doesn't help encoding... But it does help decode to play the movie back...

If you want encode... Go with a dual processor... Preferably Conroe or high clocked pentium D.... Conroe is the fastest of course..
 
Yashu said:
a little OT:

I use aftereffects to do video work, but I am having trouble getting the rendering to use both CPUs fully. Is it the codec's problem or aftereffects you think?

I use xvid, but if I try the multithread divx I get the same performance. it all seems to use only about 60% of my CPU.
Click to expand...


If your using 60% it must be using 30% of each core. I havent read any other statements really, and i don't know if this helps; but i ran 2 towers of hanoi programs (recursive) and one would utilize 50%, when i fired the 2nd up, it used the other 50% (it sent that programs instructions to my 2nd core while the first core worked on the first time i fired it up) the 2ghz 3800+ x2 beat the intel 3ghz single core machines by exactly double when running 2 towers of hanoi programs simultaneously.
 
Dew itt right said:
Kinda blows the whole "budget" thing out of the water! :D I'll double the RAM and maybe get a decent CPU HSF for a little OC action. The Conroe's and their boards are a bit too expensive and young for this build.
Click to expand...

A Conroe will be MUCH faster than a Pentium D at encoding. If it's really important for this PC, then it's definitely worth the extra cash.
 
Zero82z said:
A Conroe will be MUCH faster than a Pentium D at encoding. If it's really important for this PC, then it's definitely worth the extra cash.
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The world's not going to end if his DVD's take a couple more minutes to encode or anything, it's just the most labor-intensive task he does with his PC and He wants one that'll do it quicker. Just trying to spend his money efficiently. What he basically sadid is that he want to be able to encode them faster and he also wants to be able to listen to music, IM, and surf the web while theyre encoding. Right now he's got a 1.0GHz Compaq so really any new system would be an improvement!
 
Dew itt right said:
The world's not going to end if his DVD's take a couple more minutes to encode or anything, it's just the most labor-intensive task he does with his PC and He wants one that'll do it quicker. Just trying to spend his money efficiently. What he basically sadid is that he want to be able to encode them faster and he also wants to be able to listen to music, IM, and surf the web while theyre encoding. Right now he's got a 1.0GHz Compaq so really any new system would be an improvement!
Click to expand...

If that's all he wants to do and not really play games, I'd invest the money into getting a better CPU and more ram... instead of a better video card.


You can get a Core 2 Duo E6300 for a little over $100US and throw in some extra memory and he'll be ripping those DVDs like a real pirate. :D :D :D
 
Zefram0911 said:
You can get a Core 2 Duo E6300 for a little over $100US and throw in some extra memory and he'll be ripping those DVDs like a real pirate. :D :D :D
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where? I usually see them around $190, which isn't even close to $100.
 
nevermind.. I was looking at 100 pounds.... oops! i'd still go with something like the E6300 though. if he's not gaming... the E6300 will cut his encoding time by at least 25%... probably more though.
 
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