Intels Ivy Bridge CPU

[wagsy 0]

You will be able to get super fast video encoding out with Intels new Ivy Bridge CPU soon.

If you are lucky enough to use a video editing program that takes advantage of Intels on board Quick Sync engine then you will be able to render out H.264 files for internet or Blu_Ray straight from the timeline super fast.

Current i7 Sandy Bridge CPU users say it takes them about 24 minutes to render out a file from a 60 minute HD timeline.

The new Ivy Bridge should get that down under 20 minutes easy.

 

So looks like I'm up for a new motherboard, ram and CPU.

[SimonSpear 65]

Current i7 Sandy Bridge CPU users say it takes them about 24 minutes to render out a file from a 60 minute HD timeline.

The new Ivy Bridge should get that down under 20 minutes easy.

 

Gulp.

 

I've just rendered out 9 x 44min files from ProRes to H264 and it took all week!

 

I guess my mac is a little ancient now as it is nealy 5 years old, but that is a HUGE difference.

[Pete L 48]

Wow, that is impressive!

[wagsy 0]

Yep it sure is, watch this video using a Sandy Bridge CPU and QuickSync.

 

Best thing is it will only cost me like $800 for new CPU, ram and motherboard.

You poor Apple boys lol

[Davide DB 492]

If you are lucky enough to use a video editing program that takes advantage of Intels on board Quick Sync engine then you will be able to

 

[Drew 0]

Gulp.

 

I've just rendered out 9 x 44min files from ProRes to H264 and it took all week!

 

I guess my mac is a little ancient now as it is nealy 5 years old, but that is a HUGE difference.

Simon

1 week? That's like a holiday!

 

Unfortunately, Macs don't have anything equivalent in processing H.264. Even CUDA in Adobe 5.5/6 on a Quadro 4000 + 12 core processors can't beat it because it's a dedicated H.264 encoder chip in the Intel built-in GPU. And it's not like Mac Pros will be getting updates anytime soon, IF they are even updated at all.

Intel Quick Sync is the fastest encoder for H.264/mp4. Adobe/Intel have a beta plug-in that quasi works on WIN7, Apple's own Compressor still uses Qmaster with OpenCL and doesn't show a roadmap for using the built-in processor. It's probably because of the code bridge necessary to use a discrete GPU with the Intel GPU, and how a program chooses and/or combine it for encoding.

Of course, encoding and realtime is only part of the equation(albeit a big part). UI intuitiveness, efficiency of being able to do things like layers, efx, text/graphics motion etc are all part of an editing suite.

[A.Y. 15]

Unfortunately, Macs don't have anything equivalent in processing H.264. Even CUDA in Adobe 5.5/6 on a Quadro 4000 + 12 core processors can't beat it because it's a dedicated H.264 encoder chip in the Intel built-in GPU. And it's not like Mac Pros will be getting updates anytime soon, IF they are even updated at all.

Intel Quick Sync is the fastest encoder for H.264/mp4. Adobe/Intel have a beta plug-in that quasi works on WIN7, Apple's own Compressor still uses Qmaster with OpenCL and doesn't show a roadmap for using the built-in processor. It's probably because of the code bridge necessary to use a discrete GPU with the Intel GPU, and how a program chooses and/or combine it for encoding.

 

All of my Macs have BootCamp/Windows XP or 7 installed, so that I can run PC-only video and 3D software on them in addition to the Mac apps - best of both world. Are you suggesting that Intel makes a Mac and a PC version of their i7, i5, and i3 processors so booting an Intel Mac into Windows I still won't be able to take full advantage of the Sandy-Bridge features now or the Ivy-Bridge features in the future?

Edited April 29, 2012 by A.Y.

[Davide DB 492]

Are you suggesting that Intel makes a Mac and a PC version of their i7, i5, and i3 processors so booting an Intel Mac into Windows I still won't be able to take advantage of some of the Sandy Bridge features now or the Ivy Bridge features in the future?

 

you need a processor with integrated GPU aka I7 2600K where the k indicates the integrated GPU. The mainboard must have the GPU connectors onboard. Otherwise you need a third part sw like lucid virtu.

 

GV commercial choices are unexplicable. For the official presentation ofthe sandy bridge platform Intel used Edius showing the hardware h264 encoding. Now if you go on the Intel quick sync page, Edius is not even cited in the list of sw using this technology.

 

@Wagsy with 800$ you get the entire pc. I got a i7 2600k, Asrock mb h67, 8 gb of RAM, a cheap ati GPU and a 90gb sd drive and a 2tb disk

[A.Y. 15]

you need a processor with integrated GPU aka I7 2600K where the k indicates the integrated GPU. The mainboard must have the GPU connectors onboard. Otherwise you need a third part sw like lucid virtu.

 

Thanks for the explanation!

 

What type of real-world performance difference one will notice between say an i7 2600k and i7 2600 without overclocking? 10%, 20% or a lot more? Will overclocking still cause the machine to crash more often nowadays?

 

Yep it sure is, watch this video using a Sandy Bridge CPU and QuickSync.

 

Very cool, will look for this type of hardware/software features when upgrading in the future!

Edited April 29, 2012 by A.Y.

[Drew 0]

All of my Macs have BootCamp/Windows XP or 7 installed, so that I can run PC-only video and 3D software on them in addition to the Mac apps - best of both world. Are you suggesting that Intel makes a Mac and a PC version of their i7, i5, and i3 processors so booting an Intel Mac into Windows I still won't be able to take full advantage of the Sandy-Bridge features now or the Ivy-Bridge features in the future?

 

 

I believe only the Mac Book Air/Pro have the Intel HD 3000GPU which is the Quick Sync engine. I actually never tried to see if Quick Sync worked.... something to test!

 

Edit:

 

It does work with the beta 6.5 Edius. Interesting.

[Davide DB 492]

What type of real-world performance difference one will notice between say an i7 2600k and i7 2600 without overclocking? 10%, 20% or a lot more? Will overclocking still cause the machine to crash more often nowadays?

 

They are exactly the same processor with or without the integrated Intel GPU. So there's difference from the CPU point of view. You could OC both but it depends on the MB chipset you have. For OC, the Z68 is the best.

Although OC is safe within a certain range, key factors for a stable and fast editing setup are mainly GPU and I/O subsystem (SD disk for OS and maybe RAID0 configuration for data disks).

With the Quick Sync technology, Intel turned the tables unleashing the CPU power (actually the integrated GPU) for a demanding task as encoding/decoding. Also if you have a powerful discrete GPU the MB is able to route this task internally.

 

QS was launched with the Sandy Bridge platform. Nvidia and AMD were taken unaware and they took one year to implement something similar. The AMD solution is still not working while the Nvidia solution (NVEnc) works but only on High End GPU like the new GTX680.

In the meantime Itel updated its technology: the Ivy Bridge platform has a new version that again sweep away the competing solutions:

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-br...70k,3181-7.html

[wagsy 0]

Great info guys.

 

@M43user -$800 that's because of the $300 Motherboard I want, here in Australia we get ripped off big time for stuff.

 

Still on a old set-up (Q6600) here, I am rendering out H.264 files for the net all the time so this is going to speed up my work flow quite a bit.

Guys with Sandy Bridge set-ups are getting 4 layers of native AVCHD real-time, so should be better with the new Ivy Bridge.

Looks like they run hotter than the Sandy Bridges when overclocked though, time will tell.

[wagsy 0]

Update.

Well $700 later I now have the new Ivy Bridge (8 core CPU ) running with EDIUS 6 up from an old Q6600 quad CPU.

Here is what I can do now just using single SATA drives.

 

4 Tracks of Native Canon (DSLR)1920/1080 25p video files playing back in real time in pips at full resolution on the timeline.

 

Rendering out from a 60 second Native Canon (DLSR) 1920/1080 25p timeline with colour correction and graphic- logo plus audio track.

With quick sync turned off it took 2 minutes and 40 seconds to render out the 1920/1080 25p @ CBR 12mbps for the internet.

With Quick Sync on it took 30 seconds :-)

Quality of the two output files was perfect.

To render out a PAL 720/576 MPEG2 @ CBR 8mbps with AC3 audio for a DVD it took 30 seconds. :-)

 

Photoshop and Lightrroom are super fast with images too.

The computer will play 3 x Native Canon files on my 3 screens at full screen at the same time too lol

[Ferg42 13]

All very useful info, Wagsy. Sounds like my current PC is similar spec to your old one, so good to know the sort of performance improvements I could expect by updating it.

Cheers

[wagsy 0]

Yes if you have a Sandy Bridge then not much in it but if you are using an older CPU then its huge.

 

Here are some more tests, I have to get a larger fan as overclocking seems to heat it up pretty quick.

 

Made from time lapse images, I dumped a 5184/3456 Canopus HQX 25p, (406 mbps) file to the 1920/1080 25p timeline and zoomed in to fill the width.

It can play it real time just, CPU is maxed out though, not bad from single SATA drive.

 

Next I dumped 6 x HDV 1440/1080 files and one native Canon 1920/1080 mov ontop and put them all into pips.

Timeline played it back in real time lol

All 8 cores maxed out at about 94% so no point in going RAID really.

 

Rendering out H.264 files is about 50% or more faster than real time. IE 1 minute of edited timeline takes less than 30 seconds to render out a file.

My work speed has just increased heaps now, you can not beat if for quick turn around of projects.

Feel sorry for those left in the land of transcoding to other hard drive sapping editing codecs :-)

[SimonSpear 65]

Looks like a super fast solution. How does it handle avchd?

[wagsy 0]

Yep sure is, I just did my first project with it, normally it takes 25+minutes to render out a 7 minute H.264 file this time it took 2 minutes and 30 seconds :-)

 

Just dumped 4 tracks of AVCHD 1920/1080 @ 18mbps to the timeline, all being pulled from a single STATA drive.

All the files were playing back in PIP 4 corners of the screen. :-)

 

CPU runs at 98%, time to get a good fan and overclock this thing.

[jonny shaw 16]

What a sec.......and why am I using a over priced silver box called a MacPro

 

I was already leaning this way but I think that this has finally pushed me over the scales.

 

Wags, where do you get all your PC stuff from I fancy a DIY project to build the mother of all PC's

[A.Y. 15]

MacBook Pros and possibly iMacs with Ivy Bridge are widely expected to be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June when most of the big items appear traditionally.

 

Screen shot of a Mac Pro with an Ivy Bridge Quad-Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz benchmarked on OS 10.7.3 had surfaced, fueling speculations on the next-generation Mac Pro.

 

Time to upgrade, I guess!

[wagsy 0]

Hey Jonny, cause it looks good and you are paying for that little APPLE logo. :-)

I will make a screen video of it doing its things when I can.

 

I get my stuff from http://pccasegear.com

They are very good and stuff has arrived at my door the next day some times up here :-)

Its seems to be very easy to overclock, the chip is now running at 4Ghtz with the stock fan easy.

Going to get a V8 cool master should get me high 4's then.

[Davide DB 492]

MacBook Pros and possibly iMacs with Ivy Bridge are widely expected to be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference in June when most of the big items appear traditionally.

 

Despite having a Ivy Bridge or a Sandy Bridge Proc/MB you NLE must support the Quick Sync feature. As said before also the Sandy Bridge platform has QS capabilities but the NLE must explicitly support this technology.

The HD4000 GPU inside the new I7 Ivy Bridge is still an entry level GPU compared to many NVidia and ATI cards but the Quick Sync makes the difference.

From what I see googling around Premiere CS6 still have to incorporate QS technology. Maybe using the Intel plugin something changes:

 

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3666908

 

Same story for FCP and Vegas.

 

BTW I read that Philip Bloom (he is a Mac guy) switched from FCP to Premiere... Full story here:

 

http://philipbloom.net/2012/05/08/cs6/

 

Bye

[wagsy 0]

O I am so disappointed, I can only play 4 tracks of Native Canon 1920/1080 25p mov's files real time.:-)

But I guess 3 of the tracks were being key framed around the screen at the same time so not too bad.

 

Does Premier Pro play back full res now days or does it still drop the preview quality to keep up?

[A.Y. 15]

Which NLE currently support Quick Sync? I'd like to test them.

 

PC-only NLE is not a problem since all of my Macs have BootCamp/Windows installed.

[Davide DB 492]

Which NLE currently support Quick Sync? I'd like to test them.

 

PC-only NLE is not a problem since all of my Macs have BootCamp/Windows installed.

 

Edius 6.x for sure. I'm using it as Wagsy.

 

I know that also TMPGEnc uses QS also if it's not a proper NLE

[Drew 0]

Quick Sync is only good for en/decoding MPEG2/4 based codecs. It does not help with delivery codecs like Pro Res, HDCAM/R or DNxHD etc. If your output is only H.264, MPEG2 (HDV, XDCAM HD), MPEG 4(AVCHD, AVC I etc), then using Quick Sync can improve output up to 30% faster, depending on what kind of effects are used. This is tests on Adobe CS5.5 using the Intel Quick Sync SDK. Basically, the more effects tossed in like color correction, MBS etc, the less difference there. I'm not sure if it's because of the developmental software not being optimized for the various plug-ins etc.

 

Wags, even an 4 core i7 Bloomfield will run 4 layers of H.264 .mov full res real time in a sequence on CS6, with color correction even, with a CUDA card. No sweat on a 12 core. The Edius 6.5 (beta copy) can't do .r3d with source setting, which is an important element in dealing with .r3d files. CS6 can.

 

Jon, since you are dealing in 4k now, if you have a 12 core or even 8 core XEON, perhaps you should think about looking for a Nvidia Quadro 4000 card instead. It still won't let you do .r3d in realtime (you'll need a Red Rocket for that!) but if you deal with 2k conversions, it works well. Without a Red Rocket, you'll get pretty decent playblack but not realtime. If you are thinking of switching to Windoze, you will definitely need to stick with Nvidia CUDA since CS6 doesn't allow the use of OpenCL Gpu acceleration in Windoze.

 

As for Speed Grade, still needs to be rendered out from PP to SG, but not back. One can load directly into SG but will have to be rendered out back to PP. That's a pain. The UI is pretty simple but I feel the power of Resolve is so much better plus it's FREE!!! It is slower on the encode though.

 

 

Edit: Just tried 5 layers of H.264 from ALL-I off the MBP using CS6 OpenCL acceleration.