Optimizing Dual Core

[ryu_joko]

i have P4 DC 2.66ghz, whenever i compress bigfiles or encode large videos, my CPU Usage never reached >70%. is this normal? i thought if i can make my proccess 100%, the compression or encoding will go faster?

is there anyway that i can optimize my Dual Core?

[S.SubZero]

There comes a point where the workload is at its best and there's no point in adding more, or adding more would only make it less efficient.

[ian209]

the only way is probably to use a multithreaded encoder/software.

[Galway no Sora]

If the software you're using didn't fully support, it would not be able to do multithread encoding normally. Even if its fully support, it will not always show you "100%". The processor works showed in Task Manager / Performance is not counted by 1 software only, if you do multithread / multitask, it probably will show 100% as the peak performance of your processor.

[skoreanime]

I'm guessing your hard drive is hitting it's cap before your CPU does. Most people don't realize that encoding and compressing files takes a huge chunk out of your hard drive.

[ryu_joko]

what type of hardisk should i buy to make my encoding faster ?
right now i'm using Maxtor Sata II 80Gb (12gb used)

[skoreanime]

If you want a single drive, Raptor drives. It's a lot cheaper and an overall better value to go RAID0 though with 2 bigger drives. Nearly as fast, lots more hard drive space and a lot cheaper. However, your motherboard would have to support RAID...

[StriderVM]

ryu_joko :

Since you're already using a SATA drive, I don't think its your hard drive that's bottlenecking your system. I mean I only have a 80GB IDE drive and encode a lot of movies, and it's still my processor that's still bottlenecking me......

Here's my suggestions :

Turn off hyperthreading, since for me, Hyperthreading ain't really a real dual core solution and more often slows down applications rather than speed them up. You can usually disable hyperthreading over the BIOS.

[Cid Highwind]

ryu_joko :

Since you're already using a SATA drive, I don't think its your hard drive that's bottlenecking your system. I mean I only have a 80GB IDE drive and encode a lot of movies, and it's still my processor that's still bottlenecking me......

It's not the bus speed that would be a bottleneck, but the harddrive itself, which has very limited read/write speeds.

Here's my suggestions :

Turn off hyperthreading, since for me, Hyperthreading ain't really a real dual core solution and more often slows down applications rather than speed them up. You can usually disable hyperthreading over the BIOS.

I never had a problem with it, or perhaps it was just a placebo effect that the system was able to work at a good pace despite what I threw at it.

[ryu_joko]

btw, i'm using Slysoft - CloneDVD2, to compress a dual layer dvd into single layer dvd takes time about 27 minutes... is this normal ? because my older single core computer need 30 minutes to compress it.

[StriderVM]

Well, depends on your old computer, if it's also a Pentium 4, and doesn't go beyond 1Ghz in speed difference, then more than likely it's normal as well........

As for Hyperthreading, it imitates a dual core, but ain't really dual core, so if a program doesn't use dual core, it wastes like, one fourth of the CPU power, which is similar to his problem. It's just a guess... :p

[ryu_joko]

my old spec : Amd 2.6 ghz (barton Core), 512 DDR pc 3200, 80GB ATA133
compress dvd : 30 minutes
my new spec: P4 DC 2.66 Ghz, 1gb pc 5300, 80 Sata 150
compress dvd : 27 minutes

is this normal ?

[Cid Highwind]

Probably yeah. A Pentium 4 isn't true Duo core, besides, you still have a 533FSB model, which also performs inferior to the 800 FSB version of the Northwood and Prescott. Like said, Hyperthreading doesn't magically make your CPU act as if it has two cores, because physically it's still one core having to do the trick. From my experience HT only helps when it comes to multitasking because it will allow better distribution of resources. I've never had my PC slow down when compressing videos and launching other applications, which is different than what I experienced on my parent's PC, which has the exact same Athlon XP cpu you had.

Actually, I think you might've been better off just getting more Ram for your Barton and saving you the money for the CPU. I don't know how much it cost you, but even €50,- would've been too much for such a meager difference in performance.

[gotmilk70]

People have to factor in that HDD's transfer a lot slower than a lor of DC CPU's can process. I would reccomend a raptor drive or raid as said earlier. But if you like to video encode/decode a lot then you would know that the CPU<->FSB<->MEM<->HDD all take into account. Usually with a (true)DC machine....The HDD being the major bottleneck.

[skoreanime]

Yeah, most people don't seem to realize just how big of a bottleneck hard drives can be. They think that just because it's SATAII, it's fast enough to keep up with the rest of the system...which isn't the case all the time. Todays hard drives aren't limited by their bus speed, but the RPMs of the hard drive itself like Cid stated.

With all the different technologies the computer indutries been throwing at us in the past half decade, you'd think they would've raised the bar from 7200RPM (Raptor drives don't count :p) to something higher...

[gotmilk70]

Its not even just rpm's. Its cache memory, seek times etc. This all takes into efect. Of course with SataII, NCQ is available but its not really ment for that kind of thing. Manufacturers should stop developing faster cpu's and start developing faster HDDS. Todays cpus are fast enough for most home users and some heavy users. Whats the point of your cpu processing 8GB/per sec (for example) of data if your hard drive can transfer only 60MB/per sec?

[ryu_joko]

how can i know either i have a dual core or hyperthreading?

[Galway no Sora]

From the processor type. If you're using Core Duo, then it's a dual core ... but if you're using P4HT, surely it's a Hyperthreading. Oh, there also another type, dual core + hyperthreading ... it's looks like you have 4 core in the Task Manager.

[Cid Highwind]

Its not even just rpm's. Its cache memory, seek times etc. This all takes into efect. Of course with SataII, NCQ is available but its not really ment for that kind of thing. Manufacturers should stop developing faster cpu's and start developing faster HDDS. Todays cpus are fast enough for most home users and some heavy users. Whats the point of your cpu processing 8GB/per sec (for example) of data if your hard drive can transfer only 60MB/per sec?
I'd rather have one company develop faster CPUs while the other focuses on HDDs, I'd hate seeing Intel give up on CPUs and switch to making HDDs, and see Western Digital do the opposite :p

I think we need a new technology to replace the current harddrives though, they're too limited by their physical nature.

how can i know either i have a dual core or hyperthreading?
Look up a tiny application known as CPU-z, it will identify your CPU and give you a lot of information about your memory as well.

[tuanming]

To put it simple, hard drive manufacturers are lagging behind...

[skoreanime]

I think they've been focusing more on SSDs for the past while. The laptop market has grown huge in the past decade. It's not so surprising to see like half the students at my college carrying laptops around.