EEVblog #726 - Dual Xeon Video Editing Machine Build

[EEVblog]

Dave builds and tests the 24 core dual processor 2.6GHz Intel Xeon E5-2630 v2 video editing machine and benchmarks against his current 8 core i7 3770K machine at 3.5GHz.
This is one hour of PC building and software testing, if you find this stuff boring, don't watch it!
CORRECTION:
The i7 3770K is actually running at 3.7GHz
UPDATE:
Even doing a 1 hour render at 240W consumption, the heatsinks do not even get warm to the touch.

[EEVblog]

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[pickle9000]

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Funny,

Anyway is the plan to use both the systems to render video? That would increase workflow. Get Seppy on desk processing something?

[necessaryevil]

<comment ignore filter now on> 

Too bad! Now you aren't gonna read that I like your video!

The Core i7-3770K has a base frequency of 3.5GHz, but it has a maximum turbo frequency of 3.9GHz. It overclocks itself!

Dave's config. I don't know a few things like the exact type SSD, or the hard drives he will install.

• 2x Xeon E5-2630 v2 [CPU])
• 2xCooler Master Hyper T4 [CPU cooler]
• 24 GB DD3 ECC (2x8GB + 2x4GB) [RAM]
• Super Micro X9DA/E9 [main board]
• Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 [GPU]
• 2x240 GB Kingston [SSD storage]
• Corsair RM650 80+ Gold [PSU]
• Corsair Graphite 730T with extra screw  [enclosure]

[Lightages]

Being anal retentive when it comes to building computers, yes, I was complaining the whole time about your build. Does it make a difference? Only to my ego probably, but.... GET THE AIRFLOW RIGHT!!!!!!

[Stonent]

Just a couple of things:

Make sure you've got the Intel Rapid Storage drivers installed:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/55005/Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Intel-RST-

Even if you're not running RAID, it makes sure Windows 7 is treating SSDs correctly, and also provides early failure warnings on the drives. Hopefully your bios was set to AHCI, IRRT or RAID mode when Windows was installed or the rapid storage drivers may refuse to load.

Also the chipset support software:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/1145/Intel-Chipset-Software-Installation-Utility

[necessaryevil]

Being anal retentive when it comes to building computers, yes, I was complaining the whole time about your build. Does it make a difference? Only to my ego probably, but.... GET THE AIRFLOW RIGHT!!!!!!

Shut up! 

[German_EE]

The engineer in me looks at those big heatsinks suspended in thin air and thinks WRONG, but I can't see any way to deal with them apart from mounting the motherboard horizontally.

Anyway, hyperthreading in Windows 7, this may help:

http://windows7themes.net/en-us/how-to-enable-hyperthreading-in-windows-7/

[woox2k]

Talking about exporting, compressing video many times before uploading them to YouTube. Considering that you are only keeping the files outputted by Handbrake, i think it would make sense to export videos from Vegas with minimum compression. That would make the files a lot larger but if you're going to recompress them with handbrake anyway it should not matter. Exporting raw/minimal compressed videos from Vegas should be faster than compressing them as well.
Even though your videos look pretty good it's a bit odd to think that these files get compressed 4 times before i see them. (Camera > Vegas > Handbrake > Youtube)

PS. 12core Xeon should be a lot faster than a single 4/8core CPU, there must be something wrong with Vegas settings. Remember that HyperThreading does not give 100% boost and in reality you are comparing 12 core CPU against a 4 core one, not 12 vs. 8 you stated in the video.

[necessaryevil]

Hmm.. about minimum compression: remember that upload speeds are lower than download speeds. Also, Dave has pointed out that Australia isn't the best country in the world to get fast internet. On the other hand, Dave has an 8 mbit upload, which is decent and can do about 3 GB/hour.

//edit:
I should have known it was more now, since that video is quite old!

[Corporate666]

Being anal retentive when it comes to building computers, yes, I was complaining the whole time about your build. Does it make a difference? Only to my ego probably, but.... GET THE AIRFLOW RIGHT!!!!!!

What's wrong with the "airflow"?  Looks like it comes in the front, through the CPU coolers and out the back - I don't see anything he could have done differently.

Not to mention, if you look at "pro builders" on Youtube, those that dote over airflow will get the most miniscule of gains from tons of time spent.

[woox2k]

Hmm.. about minimum compression: remember that upload speeds are lower than download speeds. Also, Dave has pointed out that Australia isn't the best country in the world to get fast internet. On the other hand, Dave has an 8 mbit upload, which is decent and can do about 3 GB/hour.

He stated that he recompresses Vegas files with Handbrake before storing/uploading them. I was talking about minimizing compression in the Vegas, it should not really affect the output size of the Handbrake but would make the process a lot faster and better in quality.

[woox2k]

GET THE AIRFLOW RIGHT!!!!!!

This fan configuration he has is perfectly ok for the task, it's not like he's going to overclock those CPU's (even if he could, those Xeons have locked multipliers)

[allikat]

Don't change the heatsink configuration unless you absolutely have to.  Turn on a front fan.  It'll be fine.  If enough air is moving through the system, it won't be in contact with the heatsinks long enough to warm up much. 
A nice logical setup with airflow from front to back is good. Don't mess with it.  If you have any heat issues (which I doubt) then just add a few more intake fans to the case.  In tests, additional intakes (known as a positive pressure configuration) works better than extra exhaust.


Also: You do not need heatsinked memory. You only need heatsinks on memory for looks and/or if they're going to be over-volted. Since you're not going to overclock the system, just buy memory that will fit under your CPU heatsinks, with fast base clock numbers. IE DDR3-1333 (Aka PC3-10600) or higher. Don't worry about timing stats,

Intel chips like fast memory speed (AMD chips prefer fast cycle timings) for maximum speed.
Your software is the issue here Dave. It's not using your GPU correctly with either current AMD or Nvidia cards.  I think they may be buying into the bandwagon of requiring professional grade cards for video rendering (Nvidia's Quadro and AMD's FirePro). Nvidia for certain has cut the processing power of their consumer cards in half for the past few years, which will definitely have an impact on render performance.

I don't have any kind of sensible solution here, the only way to get more render performance involves going to a pro grade card, and one that will match or exceed your current consumer card will cost thousands.

Other thoughts: Supermicro make awesome dual CPU boards. Every dual chip board I've ever used (from Pentium 2 days onwards) has always been Supermicro, and they've been rock solid reliable.

[bktemp]

Talking about exporting, compressing video many times before uploading them to YouTube. Considering that you are only keeping the files outputted by Handbrake, i think it would make sense to export videos from Vegas with minimum compression. That would make the files a lot larger but if you're going to recompress them with handbrake anyway it should not matter. Exporting raw/minimal compressed videos from Vegas should be faster than compressing them as well.
Even though your videos look pretty good it's a bit odd to think that these files get compressed 4 times before i see them. (Camera > Vegas > Handbrake > Youtube)

Are there any good codecs for intermediate storage?
There are some lossless codecs but they have a bad compression ratio (only around 2-5 times smaller than uncompressed data). Using those the hard drive limits the speed.
H264 compresses well, but needs a lot more processing power. Is there a way in between? Since Handbrake is faster on the new machine, finding a better output format for Sony Movie Studio could solve all the problems.

[woox2k]

There are some lossless codecs but they have a bad compression ratio (only around 2-5 times smaller than uncompressed data). Using those the hard drive limits the speed.

Dave did buy 2 SSD drives, 1 for the OS and the other for rendering videos. He could use that render drive just to keep lossless files exported from Vegas before compressing them in Handbrake and later storing compressed videos on normal rotating (slow) drive.

[george graves]

Talking about exporting, compressing video many times before uploading them to YouTube. Considering that you are only keeping the files outputted by Handbrake, i think it would make sense to export videos from Vegas with minimum compression

I didn't watch the video all the way through, but he's exporting to a file, and then using handbrake? Is that correct?

[woox2k]

I didn't watch the video all the way through, but he's exporting to a file, and then using handbrake? Is that correct?

Yes

[dexters_lab]

Hmm.. about minimum compression: remember that upload speeds are lower than download speeds. Also, Dave has pointed out that Australia isn't the best country in the world to get fast internet. On the other hand, Dave has an 8 mbit upload, which is decent and can do about 3 GB/hour.

He stated that he recompresses Vegas files with Handbrake before storing/uploading them. I was talking about minimizing compression in the Vegas, it should not really affect the output size of the Handbrake but would make the process a lot faster and better in quality.

minimizing compression or outputting higher quality from vegas will increase render time

[EEVblog]

I am watching at SD 480 and like your previous video I still see blocky artifacts throughout the video. I do not see them at HD. Watch a 480 SD version Dave and I'm sure you too will see it. I have tried 3 machines Linux, XP Win7 all Firefox.
If you have recently changed something I suggest changing it back for your SD throwback viewers.

I simply upload a full HD version Youtube and it does the rest making the lower res versions, always has, always will. Youtube have been known to change and re-process the videos all the time. If it's just my videos doing this I'd be very surprised.

[EEVblog]

Since Handbrake is faster on the new machine, finding a better output format for Sony Movie Studio could solve all the problems.

If I had one I'd already be using it. I've tried many including frameserving and they had all had little issues that don't make them usable.

[EEVblog]

On the other hand, Dave has an 8 mbit upload, which is decent and can do about 3 GB/hour.

I have 20Mbit upload, but do have a monthly cap that could be an issue if I'm not careful.

[dexters_lab]

Dave, out of my own personal curiosity, would i be able to get a copy of the two source files and the project file for your test clip?

just wanted to compare rendering speed to my setup now i have the gpu working

[dexters_lab]

I am watching at SD 480 and like your previous video I still see blocky artifacts throughout the video. I do not see them at HD. Watch a 480 SD version Dave and I'm sure you too will see it. I have tried 3 machines Linux, XP Win7 all Firefox.
If you have recently changed something I suggest changing it back for your SD throwback viewers.

I simply upload a full HD version Youtube and it does the rest making the lower res versions, always has, always will. Youtube have been known to change and re-process the videos all the time. If it's just my videos doing this I'd be very surprised.

It is only the last two of yours I have noticed this on. If you haven't changed anything then I don't know what to suggest. No one else here has responded to confirm my experience is more widespread than just me. No-one did either on the LG TV teardown either. I'll do a bit more checking to see if it happens now on earlier videos.

I pasted a picture on that LG TV teardown thread and it shows a time  so that should make it simple for you to verify if you can reproduce  my report. Remember SD 480 not HD HD is fine. It is prevalent during the first minute too.

i have seen it too, but it's youtube. i believe they render as many as 16 different versions once it's uploaded

[max-bit]

Performance GPU :
Radeon R9 290 SP: 4,8 Tflops DP:  606 GFlops
Radeon HD 7970 SP: 3,8 Tflops DP:  950 GFlops
Radeon HD 7990 SP: 8,2 Tflops DP:  1,9 TFlops !!!