Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 15:08:45 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: multimedia@FreeBSD.org Subject: Best processor for multimedia? Message-ID: <20050708053845.GL19707@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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--3xQkynibq3FKlJyM Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 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 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 =46rom 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 -- The virus contained in this message was detected by LEMIS anti-virus. For further details see http://www.lemis.com/grog/lemis-virus.html Finger grog@FreeBSD.org for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. --3xQkynibq3FKlJyM Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFCzhFlIubykFB6QiMRAvA4AJ0aVfhKgcG2G/+7ci6NYH5Q3+g0KACZARqZ VD2ELCNHBA6Sjngg8OSKjCE= =i90S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --3xQkynibq3FKlJyM--
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