OT: Interesting article on fast memory

riredale wrote on 4/2/2006, 1:12 PM
As seen here, when it comes to super-fast memory clock speed and/or aggressive memory timing, neither makes a huge difference.

If I read this article right, the best way to make a very fast machine is to invest in (in order of "bang for the buck"):

(1) leading-edge video card (FOR GAMERS, irrelevant for Vegas);

(2) fast hard drive (i.e. WD Raptor 10k rpm, $150);

(2) fast processor (AMD x2 whaterver, $300-$800);

(4) fast memory.

Comments

kdm wrote on 4/2/2006, 1:56 PM
Related to video, I believe memory speed and timing will really only make an incremental difference in rendering, if any, or a realtime process that requires a good bit of memory such as realtime effects rendering in something like Carrera or Boris (software synths for us musicians are where it seems to matter the most, but again, only incrementally compared to cpu speed).

For video, I would probably put the cpu first, along with a well spec'd fast motherboard (NForce chipsets seem to be noticeably faster than VIA at the moment - at least on audio performance tests ), hard drive (obvious for streaming video), memory, then video card (compatibility over gaming features).

I increased my memory from CAS 2.5 in bios to CAS 2, and increased the FSB to 210 from 200. It afforded me one more plugin in an audio performance test, maybe, assuming the test and app runs consistently every time. Not a really big jump.

That's the way I spec'd my last PC for audio/video, and it runs quite well. I did have to sacrifice a little performance to maintain compatibility with a few dsp cards (choosing a VIA chipset over NForce), as some might for video capture cards.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/2/2006, 8:32 PM
> (2) fast hard drive (i.e. WD Raptor 10k rpm, $150);

It’s funny you mention this. Someone asked this question the other day on another forum and I did some testing and concluded that the 10K Raptors are a total waste of money. Here are my findings:

I have a 10K Raptor as my C: drive but I use a RAID 0 of 7200RPM SATA2 drives for HDV editing. I really don’t feel any difference in my system and using a disk speed program here are my measurements:

WD RAPTOR 10K:
Linear Read = 68.32 MB/sec
Random Read = 5.02 MB/sec
Access Time = 5.35ms
Score = 12968

Price per MB: $2.19

WD SATA2:
Linear Read = 60.07 MB/sec
Random Read = 3.42 MB/sec
Access Time = 7.91ms
Score = 7639

Price per MB: $0.40

WD SATA2 in RAID 0:
Linear Read = 121.68 MB/sec
Random Read = 3.41 MB/sec
Access Time = 7.38ms
Score = 16429

Price per MB: $0.40

I believe the Linear Read measurement is probably the most important for reading video files. Based on those measurements the Raptor cost 5.4x more per megabyte but only a 12% gain in speed of linear reads over a regular drive. It is 30% faster at random read and access time so I guess that’s what you are paying the big bucks for. To me, it’s just not worth it by any measurement. If it were (2x) twice as fast maybe you could justify 5x the price. But at 12% linear and 30% random improvement, it just doesn’t seem like it’s money well spent. I would NOT buy a Raptor again unless they came way, way down in price.

I guess if you need the fastest drives regardless of cost, (and I do mean regardless of cost) you could RAID some Raptors and have a slightly faster file system but I would rather put that money somewhere else. My 500MB RAID of 7200RPM SATA2 drives cost $200. The same size RAID of Raptors would cost $1,097!!!

Bottom line: I doubt highly that you will see any significant performance improvement to justify the enormous cost of the Raptors. But some people swear by them so this is just one man’s opinion.

So I have to disagree with the order of this list in the article for Viedographers. WS Raptors definitely not in the “bank for the buck” category no way, no how.

I would say for Vegas Users that list should be:

(1) fast processor (AMD x2 whaterver, $300-$800);

(2) fast hard drive (i.e. RAID 0 of SATA2, 500GB $200);

(3) leading-edge video card (FOR Boris RED, Ulead Cool 3D, etc.);

(4) Understanding wife/significant other ;-)

(5) fast memory.

I do agree with then that faster memory makes little difference and invites headaches and incompatibilities due to the aggressive timings.

~jr
GlennChan wrote on 4/2/2006, 8:45 PM
Raptors were designed more towards the server market, where the server has to grab many small files. In that case, seek time is much much more important than sustained transfer rates (i.e. linear read).

For video editing they aren't that useful as Johnny points out.

2- My own tests show *zero* difference in performance if you change memory timings:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18841

I also tested hard drive speed:
They only make a difference when the render is like copying a file (the ones that are more than real-time). Otherwise, no difference.
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18784
riredale wrote on 4/2/2006, 10:25 PM
Okay, I stand corrected. But my assumption when making the list was that the Raptor would be used as the Vegas program file disk (C:). The actual video files would be on other 7200rpm drives. My thought was that if Vegas and/or the operating system continually needed bits and pieces of this'n that, those pieces would be best served by being on a very fast drive.

I also agree that an understanding wife is of significant importance when dealing with this obsession.

EDIT: Glenn's tests with a RAMdisk showed that even an extremely fast "disk" (ram memory) didn't make that much of a difference for video rendering in general. Very interesting. So it basically boils down to CPU horsepower...
farss wrote on 4/2/2006, 11:56 PM
There's really no right answer.
If you've only got one or two tracks of DV25 with a long chain of FXs then disk I/O bandwidth is going to make very, very little difference.
If on the other hand you've got one track of Sony YUV SD or HD with no FXs then it can make the world of difference. My dual Xeons hardly raise a sweet coming off SATA RAID 0, they really need SCSI RAID 5 to keep up and that costs.
So in that scenario the 10K Raptors in RAID 5 could be considered very cheap. However I do think the price could come down a LONG way on those drives, I don't see any great extra cost in manufacturing unlike the SCSI drives.

Bob.
Jayster wrote on 4/3/2006, 11:18 AM
One thing nobody seems to be considering is capturing video. Slow I/O means dropped frames, which is pretty important in my opinion. If you're capturing HDV (= big files!) and using Cineform to do a real-time conversion (.m2t >> .avi), you don't want a slow I/O system. If someone tried doing this with highly fragmented, 5400 RPM, USB-connected drive, they'd probably get quite frustrated.

I've read things that said having slow memory is like dropping a step on the CPU frequency, but I have nothing to support (or dispute) this.

In every case, it seems like any component could be a bottleneck, which would then make the other components practically irrelevant. And even in a well-balanced system, it seems that different scenarios could cause a different component to be the bottleneck. But for what we do it seems like the CPU is #1. And the others are all important, too.