New PC for PicturesToExe

[Igor]

I've ordered the custom configuration of my new home PC.

My intention was to build a new silent PC and fast for work in PicturesToExe and for video encoding.

CPU: Intel i5 2500S, 4-cores, 2.7-3.7 GHz.

I choosed this CPU, because it's has low power consumption (max. 65W) and it's almost the fastest CPU on the market.

Video card: ASUS Geforce GT 440 with passive cooling (max. 65W).

It was a difficult choice, because it's almost low-end, but the only one video card with passive cooling. However it should work in 1.5-2x times faster than my previous Geforce 8600GT (good video card for 2007). Although this video card is not for modern 3D games, but it's ideal for PicturesToExe. There are no slideshow that can load on 100% this video card. It *really fast* for PicturesToExe, fast for all effects that we plan in future versions of PicturesToExe.

Memory: 4GB

I think it's enough for now.

Power supply unit: Enermax Pro87+ 600W.

I temporarily use another one, but Enermax should arrive to me at the end of this week. In theory Enermax is the most quiet power supply unit on the market. Speed of its fan is only 300-800 RPM. No fan noise or electronical noise.

HDD: Western Digital 1TB Green 5400 RPM.

It's not fastest HDD, but it's a quiet HDD. I plan try SSD later.

CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS10X Quiet.

Large and quiet cooler.

I also replaced all case fans and CPU fan to Scythe Kama Flow2 (900rpm) and Scythe GentleTyphoon (500rpm).

OS: Windows 7 64-bit.

P.S. This new PC on Intel i5 CPU encodes H.264 video in 3 times faster than previous one with Intel Core 2 Duo.

[Igor]

1GB of DDR3 video memory.

I tested with output of HD video file 1920x1080, High quality preset.

PicturesToExe 7 doesn't use fully GPU accelerated video decoding. But we implemented partial computations for video decoding. It allowed reduce CPU loading in 2x times and reduce video memory usage in 2.5x times.

[davegee]

I've had my new PC for a couple of weeks and so far I'm very pleased.

It's silent in operation. I have partitioned the 2Gb HDD into two 1Tb drives (C for OS and Programmes; Z for data) and will add another 1Tb Internal HDD soon for backup. All scratch discs and temp data for NX2 and PS will be on the new drive.

Here's the spec from the manufacturers:

Processor - Intel® Core™ i7-2600 processor (3.4 GHz, 8 MB L3 cache)

Operating System - Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit

RAM - 8GB

Graphics card - Nvidia GeForce GT 545 (3 Gb Dedicated RAM)

Hard drive - 2TB

Optical disk drive - Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner

Memory card reader - 15-in-1 memory card reader

USB - 10 (2 - SS USB)

WiFi - WiFi 802.11b/g/n

Audio interface - 1 audio line in, 1 audio line out, 1 analog audio in, 2 analog audio out

TV output - 1 DVI (VGA via adapter); 1 HDMI

Sound - Onboard / High Definition Audio 5.1

DG

[davegee]

Tom,

When I got my XP Desktop machine X years ago it had an nVidia card with 512Mb of dedicated RAM and people said much the same thing about that.

Bottom line is that I still have it and it's quite a fast machine (for PTE). It has never been really pushed to its limits until recently.

So when I went for my replacement for it the new machine is the equivalent spec X years onwards. It's aimed at gamers I suppose but for NX2 and PTE it's superb.

I'm in the process of comparing a benchmark on the XP, Vista Laptop and the new machine. I should complete it today.

DG

[davegee]

Tom,

I constructed a "benchmark" test project to use on the three machines that I have available. The spec of the new one is given above.

My project was 50 slides using two 1920x1080 images (PS Quality 8) in a 1920x1080 project, ABABABA etc. 5 Minutes duration. 6 Seconds Slide Duration and 1.5 seconds Fade Transition.

No Audio and No Video.

I followed Igor's lead and made an HD Video at 1920x1080 using High Quality preset.(283Mb)

The XP Desktop (Pentium 2 core - 3.0 GHz; 2Gb RAM; nVidia7600GS with 512Mb RAM) did it in 38.58 minutes while the NEW machine did it in 5.1 Minutes.

DG

[Igor]

I noticed that my new PC makes a noise (whistle or almost ultrasound). I discovered that many PCs with Intel i5/i7 CPUs have this problem. The solution is to disable C3/C6/C7 option in the BIOS (the energy-saving option). I hope it can help someone.