Brand new used PC finally found its way home - mine!

[jerryshadoe]

That's freakin awesome!

[spoRv]

Yep. agree!!!

Well, talking about normal PCs, guess from what computer I'm typing this?!? YES, you are right! I can't resist, so I connected it to my son's TV, and here I am...

First impressions: it's noisy... using an HTPC since ten years, fanless, now I note the noise - fans, but in particular HDD... it's quite loud.
Windows 10 Pro? Never seen it before, but I can control (almost) everything without guessing where is this or that... it's kinda XP "reloaded"... easy for an old dinosaur like me, I'm happy!
So, what I did first? Of course, sign in on FanRes - it worked! Then, of course, VirtualDub, AviSynth, Lagarith, MPC BE; connected the 1GB small external HDD, copied the (old versions of) avisynth plugins in the appropriate folder, and I'm ready to make my first project test!

It's not fast... IT'S A ROCKET! Really, with the old PC, open a script with heavy filters takes literally seconds - up to ten/twenty; then, to go forward, or rev, or at any given point, it takes few seconds, four, five maybe... also, play the file is out of question, it will play at maybe 1fps...
With this? Well, open the script takes maybe two or three seconds... go to any given frames, next, previous... next to nothing... play the file? Almost in real time!!!

So, time to test the encoding speed. Now, I can't remember about the exact speed of the old PC with the script I'm testing, but I guess it's in the same range of the latest ones with similar filters, around 0.45 to 0.5fps... with this, BOOM! About 5.5fps... yes, it's true, ten times faster!!!

And this, using the basic video card driver; maybe using the proper, updated one, I could earn something more... going to do that right now...

You know what? I'm happy, and starting to really love this new, fancy PC! :hearts: :hearts: :hearts:

EDIT: sorry, I made a mistake... I saved the avi as uncompressed, with full processing... so, I changed to fast processing, chose Lagarith, set it for multithreading, and speed increased up to almost 7fps!!! More than happy... continue to test...

[jerryshadoe]

I'm jealous... but happy for you

Can't wait for my upgrade too... Should be soon...

[Feallan]

Check in EFI (BIOS) if you have AHCI mode instead of IDE on your HDD. If this PC comes from an enthusiast it should already be taken care of, but if it's not, google a guide on how to change it. Then go to your motherboard's manufacturer, download and install all the drivers - SATA, chipset, etc.

These should make your PC even faster.

[spoRv]

Thanks, I'll take a look!

Also, I read this motherboard can enable the turbo boost on all the cores (3.4GHz -> 3.9GHz), instead of only one!

[spoRv]

OK, today I tried to poke my nose in the UEFI bios; it's very nice - I'm used to the old text ones, with just buttons, now it's all mouse operated, very colorful, nice, and with A LOT of options!

I saw that the BCLK was unlocked, so I tried to increment it at a safe 105 (from 100); also, the RAM clock (which is now set at 1600MHz, but could operate at 2133MHz) was set at its proper speed. Reboot, it seemed everything went well; started encoding with Virtualdub/Avisynth, a small speed increment - around 10%, not exceptional, but still useful. But, around 10 minutes later, system reboot itself...

Can I be sure it's the OC fault? Pretty sure. So now it's operating at the normal default settings. But I would give it another try, just increasing the RAM speed, to see if I can gain something, and if it's stable. Not mandatory, but if I can gain something, it's a welcome improvement.

I can confirm that speed increase is around 10 times, using Avisynth 2.6 x86, Virtualdub 1.10.4, Lagarith, under Windows 10 Pro 64bit. Frankly, I didn't expect so much speed.

I'm pretty sure I can gain a lot using Avisynth MT (or other multithreading filters) but, until now I have no luck with it, maybe because I use some filters which don't work well with it, or because it's buggy (it is); maybe an alternate solution like SoraThread or similar could do; if so, I could expect another great step in speed, but even without using this, for now I'm more than happy - expected just a 4x speed, so a 10x is still two and half times my expectation... may you see the big grin in my face, uh?

Jerry, I'm sorry... hope the replacement parts will be soon to your home, so you can speed up your rig as well!

[spoRv]

The speed improvements over the old PC, using Avisynth through Virtualdub is around 10, 12 times. Incredibles!
I made two small tests with multithread plugins, without success, so I gave up (for now).
Now I'm encoding The Thing; CPU usage is around 18%, and the strange thing is that I can play lossless files (Lagarith) flawless, while AVC encoded are stuttering... probably I should install a codec pack.

Windows 10 pro is a breeze to use - for an old dinosaur like me, at least, who is used to Windows XP since a long time... I always hated Windows Vista, never loved particulary Windows 7 or 8, so I'm quite happy with this latest OS. Tempted to use Linux - I used it few years in a laptop - but would stay with the more compatible one for now.

Overclock: I give up, really doesn't need it; thought also about a CPU upgrade in the next future, but at 250€, which is half the price of the PC, is not very clever to spend that amount and gain maybe 10-15% speed - unless I'm able to sell my own CPU for 200€, but I don't see many potential users interested in this, and at this price... maybe I should put it in the market right now, hoping to find someone who would grab it, but still, I'm a bit scared to take out the cooling system, the CPU, find another GOOD one, put it in, thermal paste, cooling system back... never done before...

Hard disk: really needed, a 6TB would be ideal, but if I can spot two 3TB at good price, or even a 4TB 5900rpm like mine, they will be a good solution; SSD could wait, as RAM (16GB are plenty), video card (more than enough).

But, as the case is half empty, I thought to buy some expansion cards, to take company to the poor video card, which is alone there... so, a capture card would be interesting - even if I have two of them, one mounted, they are PCI-X... a PCI-E version of the Aja Xena/Kona LS(e) could be grabbed for next to nothing, and it is very good; also, a good audio card like the ESI Juli@ PCI-E, albeit still not cheap in comparison to a brand new one, could be obtained for less than 100€, with good luck.

[spoRv]

Thinking about HDD configurations...

SSD could wait for the moment - I'd like to have more space for the same price.
Actual drives (in this and the old PC): 250GB 7200rpm, 2TB 7200rpm, 4TB 5900rpm, 600GB 10000rpm.
The VelociRaptor (10000rpm) is quite noisy, but fast... I think I'll use it for the OS.
250GB is a bit a waste of space, but, as there are 6 free slot, may be handy for something - still figure out for what, though...
4TB, despite "only" 5900rpm, is quite fast - more or less like the 2TB 7200rpm. A new HDD is needed in every case, at the others are almost full...

So, new configuration could be:
C) 600GB 10000rpm OS and softwares
D) 2TB 7200rpm SD sources
E) 4TB 5900rpm HD sources
F) (new HDD) lossless encoding, final project storage

This is because often I use two sources, and having them on different disks should speed up the task, I think.

[zoidberg]

Because ssds are smaller and run cooler they don't need to be mounted in the same way as platter drives, I've always just put them in empty optical drive bays or card reader slots.

[MrBrown]

Because ssds are smaller and run cooler they don't need to be mounted in the same way as platter drives, I've always just put them in empty optical drive bays or card reader slots.

SSDs are quite expensive.
I just got my two new HDDs for my upcoming PC. (I have to get a new one, my recent one is starting to fail more often. Already killed 2 Graphic Cards in the 9 Years of using, and from the 8 GB Ram, just 4 are still living. The Motherboard has its bug, it won't start up proper every time, but due to the fact, that I somehow lack of time playing fancy new games, it won't be any fancy gaming machine. Just a dual core with on board Graphics. So I may do some retro gaming with emulation, and older games.)

One System SSD with 512 GB, that was 70 Euro more expensive than the 2 TB 2.5" SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Disc) for data.