Help me decide -upgrade

I'm finding the desktop's most challenging task has become transcoding
video to be streamed from hard drive to a Roku box.

Currently have an older MSI NF980-G65 with an AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana
AM3 socket 3.1GHz processor.

Running Win XP so only 3.4Gb usable RAM. More slots available but since
is 32 bit can only recognize this amount.

PlayOn keeps diddling with the software, and CPU use has started running
about 60% continuously when it runs at high resolution. Downgrading the
stream to a lower video quality gets it to about 0.5% processor.

Figure with Microsoft dropping support for XP, and having 3 unused Win 7
licenses it's time to update.

1. All new build with Win 7 fresh install.

2. Update this box with Win 7? If so, adding RAM could be done, how
about a better processor? I worry this would mess up something in
booting, and best to just start fresh. Most of the programs I still use
are from Win 98 and XP days. Using compatibility mode at work doesn't
give the best results, so to me this option doesn't seem a good route to
take.

I love the cold weather; give me a chance to get into trouble playing
with the computer.

Thanks for your ideas.

"pheasant16" wrote in message
...
I'm finding the desktop's most challenging task has become transcoding
video to be streamed from hard drive to a Roku box.

Currently have an older MSI NF980-G65 with an AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana
AM3 socket 3.1GHz processor.

Running Win XP so only 3.4Gb usable RAM. More slots available but since
is 32 bit can only recognize this amount.

PlayOn keeps diddling with the software, and CPU use has started running
about 60% continuously when it runs at high resolution. Downgrading the
stream to a lower video quality gets it to about 0.5% processor.

Figure with Microsoft dropping support for XP, and having 3 unused Win 7
licenses it's time to update.

1. All new build with Win 7 fresh install.

2. Update this box with Win 7? If so, adding RAM could be done, how
about a better processor? I worry this would mess up something in
booting, and best to just start fresh. Most of the programs I still use
are from Win 98 and XP days. Using compatibility mode at work doesn't
give the best results, so to me this option doesn't seem a good route to
take.

I love the cold weather; give me a chance to get into trouble playing with
the computer.

Thanks for your ideas.

Here's the list of CPUs your board supports. Be sure to check the BIOS
version in the right-hand column before buying one:

http://us.msi.com/product/mb/NF980-G65.html#/?div=CPUSupport

You can get an x4 CPU, and that will help if the software you're using
supports multiple cores.

You can do an upgrade, and shouldn't have too much of a problem with it. I
know a lot of people condemn upgrades over clean installs, but in all the
years I've upgraded different OSs, I've only had a real problem once, and
that was from WinME to WinXP.

As for your software, most anything that will run in WinXP will run in Win7
with no problems. Some Win98 programs may have problems, especially early
Win98 programs. Download and run the Win7 Upgrade Advisor from here
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20 and it will
tell you which programs are likely to have problems. It's not a
carved-in-stone absolute, but it's generally pretty accurate.

If you have the installation discs for all your programs, you can try the
clean install route, but personally, I'd try the upgrade first. Be sure to
make a disk image before attempting anything; that way you'll have something
to fall back on.
--
SC Tom

pheasant16 wrote:
I'm finding the desktop's most challenging task has become transcoding
video to be streamed from hard drive to a Roku box.

Currently have an older MSI NF980-G65 with an AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana
AM3 socket 3.1GHz processor.

Running Win XP so only 3.4Gb usable RAM. More slots available but since
is 32 bit can only recognize this amount.

PlayOn keeps diddling with the software, and CPU use has started running
about 60% continuously when it runs at high resolution. Downgrading the
stream to a lower video quality gets it to about 0.5% processor.

Figure with Microsoft dropping support for XP, and having 3 unused Win 7
licenses it's time to update.

1. All new build with Win 7 fresh install.

2. Update this box with Win 7? If so, adding RAM could be done, how
about a better processor? I worry this would mess up something in
booting, and best to just start fresh. Most of the programs I still use
are from Win 98 and XP days. Using compatibility mode at work doesn't
give the best results, so to me this option doesn't seem a good route to
take.

I love the cold weather; give me a chance to get into trouble playing
with the computer.

Thanks for your ideas.

http://www.playon.tv/faq

"Transcoding just means converting the format of some media to another
format. PlayOn is a transcoding media server. PlayOn takes media from
online websites, which is often in formats like Windows Media, Flash Video,
or H.264, and converts it to a format that your video player can
understand, like MPEG because this is a reliable standard.

Some devices have more advanced codecs -- this just means that they
can play the fancier Flash and H.264 videos. The PlayOn server will
know in these cases if it can just pass the video along as is, without
transcoding it to another format. When we say "real-time transcoding",
we just mean that the PC is downloading the video from a site like Hulu,
and converting it on-the-fly to another format, and then sending it to
your device. It sounds simple, but it's really not.

This is why PlayOn's video streams a "live" video streams. In this case,
"live" does not refer to a live broadcast, but rather to your
PC transcoding and streaming the video in real-time."

So that's why it is using some CPU.

*******

The 445 Rana was, for its time, one of the most cost effective processors.
It was a recommendation on the Tomshardware site at one time, for one
of their builds.

To get that kind of information, you can use the PassMark benchmark
results, to view cost effective processing. This is the entry for
your current processor. There are some higher Rana processors in the
list now, and it looks like the 445 was taken out of the list.

AMD Athlon II X3 445 PassMark = 2607

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_alltime.html

( http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ )

Or, just start with the high-end chart, and eyeball a good one there.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Skimming through the Newegg list, this one is the cheapest quad
I see in the list, for an Intel processor. It's socket LGA1155.
It doesn't have a built-in GPU, which means the motherboard, you'd
need to move over your current PCI Express video card.

Intel Core i5-3350P @ 3.10GHz Passmark = 6,199 $179

The next one up from that, is the i5-4430 for $189. It has
built-in graphics and QuickSync. In some cases, depending on
tool flow, that can speed up a transcoding job, as the built-in
graphics has programmable shaders and can do decoding.

http://ark.intel.com/products/75036/...-GHz?q=i5-4430

Intel Core i5-4430 @ 3.00GHz Passmark = 6,293 $189

It's ten bucks more, but then you don't need to move over
the video card, to get the system up and running. You would
add a video card, if you played Crysis perhaps. For web
surfing, email, and Sim City, the built-in graphics may be
fast enough.

When an Intel processor has internal graphics, they give it
a goofy name, like HD 4600. This table, decodes the name
into things like execution units or EU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...ocessing_units

The HD4600 is 20 EU, and the only level higher than that, is
some processors with a 40 EU unit. (One of which I don't
see for sale at retail.)

When an advert says "Intel graphics" but doesn't go into details,
that may imply it is weak. I then use the ark.intel.com site
to check into the details.

If you won the lottery, you could get one of these. That would
be getting close to 4X of your Rana. This is four cores, eight threads.
Going more expensive than this, doesn't usually make too much sense.
I can find a processor for ~$4600 for a server, but you wouldn't
find your PlayOn would work better because of it.

Intel Core i7-4770K @ 3.50GHz Passmark = 10,156 $325

http://ark.intel.com/products/75123/...90-GHz?q=4770k

*******

For AMD, the cores are arranged in pairs, like heavyweight hyperthreading.
So when I see Eight-Core, I assume Four-Core, with a kind of hyperthreading.
I then use the Newegg list, to pick a price in the same ballpark
as the others above. The Passmark value, helps compare to the
Intel ones.

AMD FX-8350 Eight-Core Passmark = 9,067 $199 Socket AM3+
AMD A10-6800K (Quad) APU Passmark = 5,090 $139 Socket FM2
AMD FX-6350 Six-Core Passmark = 7,013 $139 Socket AM3+

The one with the APU, that's for built-in graphics. A motherboard
with Socket FM2, will have graphics connectors on the back. As
in the Intel case, the processor and its GPU, will have programmable
shaders, to accelerate some kinds of video things. Getting details
though, on exactly what things will be accelerated through DXVA,
is difficult.

Tracking down details on built-in AMD graphics is harder. It took
several Wikipedia articles, to narrow down the Radeon HD 8670D
inside the 6800K one. The core config is 384:24:8. I'm having trouble
matching that to a $50 video card, for comparison purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_HD_8000_Series

As usual, you can arrange to get a bit more horsepower from AMD,
if picking carefully. If you want to go higher than the Intel
ones I picked out, there is the one at $199. And the one for $139 is
slightly better in that benchmark, than the Intel ones.

Figuring out what motherboard to use for the AMD, will similarly
be a chore.

*******

The OS you use, is a separate issue. You could install WinXP for
now, for example, or even dual boot WinXP and Windows 7, for
comparison purposes. Windows 7 is not Windows 8, which is one
of its best features. Will some software stop working ? If you
use the x64 OS, then 16 bit installers won't work. If you use
the 32 bit version of Windows 7, it runs 32 bit and 16 bit code,
but would be limited by memory license, to 4GB.

You could try to find an evaluation version of Windows 7,
and do some testing on that. Just to see what programs
do or don't load. Perhaps look for an "install only" license
key, which won't activate. Take a value from this page,
Google it, and see what the people say about using them.
I haven't tried this, YMMV, etc. You should get the
usual activation warnings. This way, you wouldn't be
using up a Windows 7 key, until you're sure you want it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../jj612867.aspx

Paul

SC Tom wrote:


"pheasant16" wrote in message
...
I'm finding the desktop's most challenging task has become transcoding
video to be streamed from hard drive to a Roku box.

Currently have an older MSI NF980-G65 with an AMD Athlon II X3 445
Rana AM3 socket 3.1GHz processor.

Running Win XP so only 3.4Gb usable RAM. More slots available but
since is 32 bit can only recognize this amount.

PlayOn keeps diddling with the software, and CPU use has started
running about 60% continuously when it runs at high resolution.
Downgrading the stream to a lower video quality gets it to about 0.5%
processor.

Figure with Microsoft dropping support for XP, and having 3 unused Win
7 licenses it's time to update.

1. All new build with Win 7 fresh install.

2. Update this box with Win 7? If so, adding RAM could be done, how
about a better processor? I worry this would mess up something in
booting, and best to just start fresh. Most of the programs I still
use are from Win 98 and XP days. Using compatibility mode at work
doesn't give the best results, so to me this option doesn't seem a
good route to take.

I love the cold weather; give me a chance to get into trouble playing
with the computer.

Thanks for your ideas.

Here's the list of CPUs your board supports. Be sure to check the BIOS
version in the right-hand column before buying one:

http://us.msi.com/product/mb/NF980-G65.html#/?div=CPUSupport

You can get an x4 CPU, and that will help if the software you're using
supports multiple cores.

You can do an upgrade, and shouldn't have too much of a problem with it.
I know a lot of people condemn upgrades over clean installs, but in all
the years I've upgraded different OSs, I've only had a real problem
once, and that was from WinME to WinXP.

As for your software, most anything that will run in WinXP will run in
Win7 with no problems. Some Win98 programs may have problems, especially
early Win98 programs. Download and run the Win7 Upgrade Advisor from
here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20 and
it will tell you which programs are likely to have problems. It's not a
carved-in-stone absolute, but it's generally pretty accurate.

If you have the installation discs for all your programs, you can try
the clean install route, but personally, I'd try the upgrade first. Be
sure to make a disk image before attempting anything; that way you'll
have something to fall back on.

The 1090T gets you to roughly 2x the Rana. If you can find one.
Some of the slower hex core ones, were more available.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Passmark = 5,708

To go higher than that, you'd switch motherboards.

Depending on the design, stuffing an infinite number of cores
inside a CPU, isn't always a good idea. Due to bandwidth limitations,
and architectural compromises, the processors don't always scale nicely.

As an example, a Q6600 consisted of two processor silicon dies,
in a common package (four cores total). For cache coherency,
snoop traffic had to travel over the shared FSB (the FSB that also
connects to the chipset). The end result is, in some situations, the
Q6600 only achieves about 87% of the theoretical speedup. It's not
as good as a processor, where all the cores are arranged on
one piece of silicon.

The AMD hex core may have suffered from that kind of issue as well.
Where for some computing tasks, you weren't getting a full six
cores worth of effort. At least with AMD, they're all on the
same silicon die, sn it's not off-die snoop traffic killing it.
But things like memory controller or multi-level cache, sometimes
those aren't really good enough for the number of cores smooshed on
top.

Even the Intel hex core ones, they don't scale as well as they might.
In the same family, an Intel hex core, isn't 50% faster than a quad
core running at the same clock. It might only be 35% faster.

What I find funny about some of this, is how long ago some
of this was known. I remember when I joined my computing
group at work, and was joking around with my boss, and
mentioned using a lot of processors in the product, he
said at the time, "the fun stops at four". And it's funny
how we still see shades of that, to this day. Back then though,
the designs were terrible, and it wasn't a surprise things
"went asymtotic at four". I would have expected better, when
all the cores are on the same chip, you can have as many
busses as you like, and so on.

Paul

pheasant16 kiavan02 yahoo.com wrote:

Figure with Microsoft dropping support for XP, and having 3
unused Win 7 licenses it's time to update.

Definitely. I loved Windows XP compared to prior versions, but all
good things must come to an end.

1. All new build with Win 7 fresh install.

Well, yeah, if you can afford it. Especially if you currently have
no backup hardware for your current hardware. Very useful to have.
So you can use many of the parts as backups if you don't use them
in the new install.

Also, something critical. Make incremental backup copies of your
windows drive C, using Macrium Reflect. Just select "Create an
image of the partitions required to backup and restore". Couldn't
be easier and it works like a charm. Put the backup copies on your
inexpensive and oversized secondary drive D where you keep data.
It's a whole new world.

pheasant16 wrote:
I'm finding the desktop's most challenging task has become transcoding
video to be streamed from hard drive to a Roku box.

Currently have an older MSI NF980-G65 with an AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana
AM3 socket 3.1GHz processor.

Update:

Thanks for the ideas.

Decided to try a cpu upgrade first.

Found a 1090 Thuban on ebay (oh-oh).

Will have to flash the bios to get 6 core support. Bricked an old
pentium system many years ago doing this, so may end up with a
completely new system yet.

MSI has several methods of flashing. The M-Flash utility looks pretty
straight forward.

Any caveats learned colleagues?

pheasant16 wrote:
pheasant16 wrote:
I'm finding the desktop's most challenging task has become transcoding
video to be streamed from hard drive to a Roku box.

Currently have an older MSI NF980-G65 with an AMD Athlon II X3 445
Rana AM3 socket 3.1GHz processor.

Update:

Thanks for the ideas.

Decided to try a cpu upgrade first.

Found a 1090 Thuban on ebay (oh-oh).

Will have to flash the bios to get 6 core support. Bricked an old
pentium system many years ago doing this, so may end up with a
completely new system yet.

MSI has several methods of flashing. The M-Flash utility looks pretty
straight forward.

Any caveats learned colleagues?

There are 349 reviews listed here. This one is a sample.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130236

"Charlie
7/17/2012 10:48:24 PM

Pros: 6 Core support.
Dualx16 SLI
I bought this 17 months ago and it still works great.
I used MFlash in the bios to update bios, had ZERO
problem doing so. Didn't require a different cpu
in the socket to flash, flashed with my x6 1090T installed.

You have to "Load Optimized Defaults" after flashing bios,
I think many are forgetting to do this and then yes it
does not work. after you load the defaults you can tweak
to your needs."

I think I would flash upgrade while the old processor
is still in the socket. The advice is still good though
(flush the CMOS RAM with some sort of "Load Defaults" thing).

I'd rather do it with the Rana, as then the Thuban is
likely to start working as soon as you plug it in. That is
better than inserting the Thuban first, and taking a chance the
system won't start up.

Generally, BIOS flashing programs work best, if the
file containing the new BIOS, is stored locally. And
the manual for your motherboard, seems to talk about
a FAT formatted USB pendrive as the source of the
BIOS upgrade file. That's safer than some of the
"network download" style flashers.

Paul