Tuesday, June 10, 2008
To Quad or Not to Quad, That is The Question
Posted by Jason Dunn in "Digital Home Talk" @ 07:00 AM
What About Other Applications?
After running my comparative video rendering tests, I decided to expand my testing and began seeing which applications would really take advantage of those extra cores. Corel DVD Copy 6 was certified for dual-core use, so I tested it to see if it worked with four cores. The results were mixed. Encoding to the Zune profile (1 mbps h.264), overall CPU usage was only about 35%, meaning it was using less than two cores. This maps to what I saw when I was using it with the Core 2 Duo Extreme CPU – it would only use around 65% of the total CPU power. I tried a different profile, this time doing an HD up-convert to 720p WMV (1280 x 720) at 8.6 Mbps. CPU usage was better this time, peaking at 85% - so all four cores were being used. This is because it's using Microsoft's own Windows Media Encoder behind the scenes and it scales very well with multiple CPUs.
I contacted Corel and they explained that while DVD Copy 6 was certified and optimized to work with dual-core systems, it wasn't certified or optimized for quad-core systems. So, basically any use of all four cores (like I saw with the WMV encoding) is a happy coincidence. I hope to see Corel update DVD Copy 6 to be fully compatible with quad-core systems, because there's certainly no shortage of them coming onto the market: my local Best Buy has quad-core Intel systems for under $700. So the hardware is there, but the software isn't quite ready for it. I also edited some raw images with Adobe Lightroom 1.4.1, curious to see if it would be able to utilize all four cores – it wasn't, at least not consistently. If I rapidly moved between the raw images I'd see the CPU usage spike to 58%, but when the raw preview was being generated for an image it only used 28 to 48% of the total CPU power. Considering how much work I do in Lightroom, having full quad-core support would benefit me greatly. I'm hoping that Lightroom 2.0 (now in beta) will address this issue.
Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0 is a video editing application I use quite a bit (though I'm hoping to change that soon), and the results of my tests were similar to what I saw from the other applications. Encoding to WMV used around 80% of the total processor power, so all four cores were being used, though not fully. h.264 encoding was less effective, using up about 35% of the total CPU power. So no love here.
One of my favourite applications lately is Camtasia 5, a superb tool for creating screen recordings like this one. Crunching a 10 minute screen recording to h.264 is a lengthy process, so I was eager to see if Camtasia could scale to the Intel quad-core CPU. Sadly, it doesn't even use two cores – when I was rendering a project to h.264 is only used 25% of the total CPU power, meaning one core. That's really disappointing, because sometimes I'm doing a screen recording of something that's brand new and getting my recording up onto YouTube as fast as possible is critical. I really hope Techsmith (the makers of Camtasia) are working to add multi-core support to Camtasia - it's a waste of my time to have an application only use one-quarter of the CPU.
Going Green: Power Usage With the Intel Q6600
I have a Belkin UPS that has a neat feature: it shows me the exact power draw placed upon it. I decided to see how smart the Intel Q6600 was when it came to power, and was extremely impressed with what I discovered. Check this out:
Pushing the Envelope: Overclocking the Intel Q6600
I couldn't write about a CPU without also writing about my attempts to push it past the stock speeds. I am by no means an expert overclocker, having never installed a water-cooling system (or the more exotic options), but I do try to squeeze a little extra speed out of every CPU that I have. When I started researching overclocking on the Q6600, I discovered that it's quite the darling of the overclocking world. It runs stock at 2.4 Ghz, but there are numerous Web sites with how-to articles pushing the CPU up to nearly 3.4 Ghz, a massive 1000 Mhz improvement in speed. There's a catch though: only certain versions of the Q6600 (called "stepping revisions") are capable of those speeds. The Q6600 I was sent was the original revision and not well known for its overclocking abilities. I figured I'd give it a try anyway!
I started out with the CPU and RAM at stock speeds and stock voltages, and was able to push the system bus speed from 266 mhz (2.394 Ghz) up to 300 mhz (2.7 Ghz) without requiring any extra voltage. It ran stable at 2.7 Ghz, but to get it up to 310 mhz bus speed (2.79 Ghz) I had to lock the Kingston HyperX RAM in at 2.2 volts. Windows Vista would boot when the bus speed was set at 320 mhz, giving me an overall speed of 2.88 Gz, but when I ran Passmark's BurnIn Test, it would bluescreen. Keeping it locked at 320 mhz, I began inching up the CPU voltage +25 mv at a time (the RAM was still set at 2.2 volts). I got up to +200 mv over standard, which was 1.48 volts (the CPU can handle up to 1.5 volts), and the system still wasn't stable so I backed off completely on the voltage. Scaling back 1 mhz bus speed at a time, I ended up with a stable bus speed of 318 mhz, with an overall CPU speed of 2862 Mhz. At that speed, I was running 462 Mhz above stock, and within spitting distance of the Intel X6800 running at 2.93 Ghz. It passed all manner of torture tests at 2.86 Ghz, but a few days after setting that speed I was editing some photos in Lightroom while simultaneously ripping a DVD and my system crashed. I scaled it back to 315 mhz bus speed, 2835 Mhz, and it's been stable ever since.
Quad-Core: It's What's For Dinner
Despite my mixed results with the various software applications I tested, I'm extremely impressed with the results of moving from my Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme CPU to the the Core 2 Quad CPU - especially when you consider the fact that the original price of the Core 2 Extreme process was north of $1200 USD while the Q6600 can be had for just over $200 USD. Even if you give up 500 mhz in speed, that's $1000 that can be used for other components - or a second computer. Once you factor in the overclocking, if you're comfortable with doing that, the Q6600 looks even better - overclocking closes the speed gap and still gives you the extra cores for processing. So if you don't want to upgrade your motherboard and move to one of the new 45nm processors, the Q6600 is a great product worth considering over whatever dual-core CPU you have now.
I hope that 2008 is the year when we see application after application add support for four or more processors - multi-core processing is definitely the future, and it's frustrating to be held back by developers who are unwilling or unable to bring their applications up to date. In the meantime, I love watching Intel continue to crank out better and better CPUs. It's a great time to be a geek!
Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He dreams of someday processing HD video at 10x real-time speeds.
After running my comparative video rendering tests, I decided to expand my testing and began seeing which applications would really take advantage of those extra cores. Corel DVD Copy 6 was certified for dual-core use, so I tested it to see if it worked with four cores. The results were mixed. Encoding to the Zune profile (1 mbps h.264), overall CPU usage was only about 35%, meaning it was using less than two cores. This maps to what I saw when I was using it with the Core 2 Duo Extreme CPU – it would only use around 65% of the total CPU power. I tried a different profile, this time doing an HD up-convert to 720p WMV (1280 x 720) at 8.6 Mbps. CPU usage was better this time, peaking at 85% - so all four cores were being used. This is because it's using Microsoft's own Windows Media Encoder behind the scenes and it scales very well with multiple CPUs.
I contacted Corel and they explained that while DVD Copy 6 was certified and optimized to work with dual-core systems, it wasn't certified or optimized for quad-core systems. So, basically any use of all four cores (like I saw with the WMV encoding) is a happy coincidence. I hope to see Corel update DVD Copy 6 to be fully compatible with quad-core systems, because there's certainly no shortage of them coming onto the market: my local Best Buy has quad-core Intel systems for under $700. So the hardware is there, but the software isn't quite ready for it. I also edited some raw images with Adobe Lightroom 1.4.1, curious to see if it would be able to utilize all four cores – it wasn't, at least not consistently. If I rapidly moved between the raw images I'd see the CPU usage spike to 58%, but when the raw preview was being generated for an image it only used 28 to 48% of the total CPU power. Considering how much work I do in Lightroom, having full quad-core support would benefit me greatly. I'm hoping that Lightroom 2.0 (now in beta) will address this issue.
Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0 is a video editing application I use quite a bit (though I'm hoping to change that soon), and the results of my tests were similar to what I saw from the other applications. Encoding to WMV used around 80% of the total processor power, so all four cores were being used, though not fully. h.264 encoding was less effective, using up about 35% of the total CPU power. So no love here.
One of my favourite applications lately is Camtasia 5, a superb tool for creating screen recordings like this one. Crunching a 10 minute screen recording to h.264 is a lengthy process, so I was eager to see if Camtasia could scale to the Intel quad-core CPU. Sadly, it doesn't even use two cores – when I was rendering a project to h.264 is only used 25% of the total CPU power, meaning one core. That's really disappointing, because sometimes I'm doing a screen recording of something that's brand new and getting my recording up onto YouTube as fast as possible is critical. I really hope Techsmith (the makers of Camtasia) are working to add multi-core support to Camtasia - it's a waste of my time to have an application only use one-quarter of the CPU.
Going Green: Power Usage With the Intel Q6600
I have a Belkin UPS that has a neat feature: it shows me the exact power draw placed upon it. I decided to see how smart the Intel Q6600 was when it came to power, and was extremely impressed with what I discovered. Check this out:
- With all four cores firing at 100% load, power load was 235 watts
- With three cores at 100%, one idle, power load dropped to 228 watts
- With two cores at 100%, and two idle, power load bounced between 210 watts and 220 watts
- With one core at 100%, and three idle, power load was 196 watts
- With all four cores idle, power load was 159 watts
Pushing the Envelope: Overclocking the Intel Q6600
I couldn't write about a CPU without also writing about my attempts to push it past the stock speeds. I am by no means an expert overclocker, having never installed a water-cooling system (or the more exotic options), but I do try to squeeze a little extra speed out of every CPU that I have. When I started researching overclocking on the Q6600, I discovered that it's quite the darling of the overclocking world. It runs stock at 2.4 Ghz, but there are numerous Web sites with how-to articles pushing the CPU up to nearly 3.4 Ghz, a massive 1000 Mhz improvement in speed. There's a catch though: only certain versions of the Q6600 (called "stepping revisions") are capable of those speeds. The Q6600 I was sent was the original revision and not well known for its overclocking abilities. I figured I'd give it a try anyway!
I started out with the CPU and RAM at stock speeds and stock voltages, and was able to push the system bus speed from 266 mhz (2.394 Ghz) up to 300 mhz (2.7 Ghz) without requiring any extra voltage. It ran stable at 2.7 Ghz, but to get it up to 310 mhz bus speed (2.79 Ghz) I had to lock the Kingston HyperX RAM in at 2.2 volts. Windows Vista would boot when the bus speed was set at 320 mhz, giving me an overall speed of 2.88 Gz, but when I ran Passmark's BurnIn Test, it would bluescreen. Keeping it locked at 320 mhz, I began inching up the CPU voltage +25 mv at a time (the RAM was still set at 2.2 volts). I got up to +200 mv over standard, which was 1.48 volts (the CPU can handle up to 1.5 volts), and the system still wasn't stable so I backed off completely on the voltage. Scaling back 1 mhz bus speed at a time, I ended up with a stable bus speed of 318 mhz, with an overall CPU speed of 2862 Mhz. At that speed, I was running 462 Mhz above stock, and within spitting distance of the Intel X6800 running at 2.93 Ghz. It passed all manner of torture tests at 2.86 Ghz, but a few days after setting that speed I was editing some photos in Lightroom while simultaneously ripping a DVD and my system crashed. I scaled it back to 315 mhz bus speed, 2835 Mhz, and it's been stable ever since.
Quad-Core: It's What's For Dinner
Despite my mixed results with the various software applications I tested, I'm extremely impressed with the results of moving from my Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme CPU to the the Core 2 Quad CPU - especially when you consider the fact that the original price of the Core 2 Extreme process was north of $1200 USD while the Q6600 can be had for just over $200 USD. Even if you give up 500 mhz in speed, that's $1000 that can be used for other components - or a second computer. Once you factor in the overclocking, if you're comfortable with doing that, the Q6600 looks even better - overclocking closes the speed gap and still gives you the extra cores for processing. So if you don't want to upgrade your motherboard and move to one of the new 45nm processors, the Q6600 is a great product worth considering over whatever dual-core CPU you have now.
I hope that 2008 is the year when we see application after application add support for four or more processors - multi-core processing is definitely the future, and it's frustrating to be held back by developers who are unwilling or unable to bring their applications up to date. In the meantime, I love watching Intel continue to crank out better and better CPUs. It's a great time to be a geek!
Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He dreams of someday processing HD video at 10x real-time speeds.
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