Anyone try 12GB on core i7 (3 x 4GB)?....and media encoder upgrade suggestions

[BlackDragon24]

I'm in the process of building up a home media library of all of my CD's, DVD's, and Blu-ray movies. I had originally keeping all of the movies and tv shows in their raw form from the DVD/Blu-ray, but its just too much space. So I'm re-encoding everything using x264 and chipping file sizes down.

I run a core i7 920 processor that runs overclocked at 4200 mhz 24/7 with power saving features. I currently only have 3x2GB of memory. It is 24hr prime stable. I use a 160GB Intel G2 SSD for my boot drive/OS/progams, a WD 640GB black for scratch, and a 1TB and 2TB WD black for final storage.

Encoding DVD quality shows and movies is a cinch once you figure out the interlacing. I encoded 7 seasons of family guy O/N with great results. However, when working with HD material it slows down to a crawl.....a 2-pass encode on a blu-ray movie can take 6-8 hours. Oh yeah, I'm using xvid4psp for all of my encoding, an open source program. It is clear that higher-bit rate encodes go much more slowly.....1000kbps of 480p material is encoding around 100fps and, while 8000kbps of 1080p material is 8-10fps.

So I'm looking to speed things up. Looking to go inexpensive first and then if necessary, make major upgrades. A memory upgrade seems logical. Was curious if anyone has had any success with a good 3 x 4GB memory or maybe even a 6 x 4GB memoy kit. I know that 4200mhz might be a pipe dream once I start adding more memory but I am ok with that. I'd also be willing to upgrade the software to something that might take better advantage of the memory available, and eventually, if the prices come down, throw a 970 in there to get 4 more cores.

Anyways, sorry for the rambling. Just looking for advice.

Cheers

BD24

[Hardware]

I think you need to look closely at what part is the bottleneck before you start upgrading. If the CPU is the bottleneck adding more RAM will not help. If that turns out to be the case you may want to look at sandy bridge CPUs. They have hardware support for video encoding and decoding so they'll be faster. A 2500k will be ideal.

[BlackDragon24]

Ended up trading my 6GB kit for a 12GB kit on one of the forums and couldn't be happier. Didn't help out much with encoding video as that is indeed a cpu bottleneck, but it certainly helps out with photoshop 64 bit.

Gonna look into getting a 970 for this rig when they come down in price. I don't see myself "upgrading" to sandy bridge. Waiting for LGA2011.

[AeroSim]

I think you need to look closely at what part is the bottleneck before you start upgrading. If the CPU is the bottleneck adding more RAM will not help. If that turns out to be the case you may want to look at sandy bridge CPUs. They have hardware support for video encoding and decoding so they'll be faster. A 2500k will be ideal.

Actually, I agree with both of you. Especially HD encoding- you can't have enough of either with today's tech. I also agree with waiting for LGA2011 and QPI- but I think sticker shock may be your biggest deterrent here, but ....

I think waiting to see how AMD bulldozer will stack up and compete. It may mitigate pricep. I'm sure a mid-point bargain will turn up somewhere that will give a decent performance margin over whatever we have today. I'm not all that sold on doing Intel right now. My app is a bit different from yours, but I still have heavy requirements- and a company budget if I want to play those margins away from home.

Still, HW may have something- I'd do 2600k cause $ not that big of an issue for me, but- you may be just playing with percentages here at this point.

Just rambling on too ....

[BlackDragon24]

^^^I recently petitioned for a 970 from the "company budget."

I can generally get them to purchase anything I need computer-wise because of the nature of my work...I don't ask for graphics cards and the like, and I can't ask them to buy me an SR-2 or something ridiculous like that because I have a couple of off-site blade servers to play with to do my heavy work (pity I can't use them for my encoding stuff...it would get me in trouble )...but most of my high end equipment is thru them. It's nice, for sure.

So if LGA2011 turns out to be as advertised, I'll be first in line. Right now a 970 that can run @ ~4200mhz will run roughshod over a Sandy Bridge @ ~4600 in the encoding department.