Benchmarking and performance questions.

[rongaudier]

Hello, I'm new to this board and am not really into tweaking for the sake of tweaking, but I suspect that the new system I just got is not performing any where near where it should be, and I'd like some help in figuring out why.
I'm not into gaming, but I do play around with video. I had hoped my new system would be considerably faster at processing video than my old system, but so far I'm dissapointed.
Here is what I have:

Cyberpower PC Dragon 8000
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3
Video card: AMD Radeon HD6850 1GB DDR5 PCIE
Ram: 16GB DDR3/1600
Cooling: ASETEK 510LC Liquid Cooling
HDD: 2TB SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB

I ran passmark and got a score of 2300 which was very low compared
to other comperable systems.

Is there an obvious bottleneck based on the hardware I listed or is there some tweaking I need to do to get it up to speed?
What about different benchmark programs, any suggestions.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

 

[EarthDog]

Did you make an apples to apples comparison with 'processing a video'?

What did your other system score on Passmark? Most systems in passmark are overclocked, are you?

Kind of hard to tell you how its performing when you havent given us a base to start with... kind of hard to judge performance yourself when you dont have a baseline.

Oh.. welcome!!!

 

[rongaudier]

Thanks for your input, however, I don't think comparing my current system to my old system would be an "apples to apples" comparison. My old system is a 6 year old athlon II with 2 gigs of ram. I think comparing what I have now to that would be like comparing a Model T to a Mustang.

What I do have for a "baseline" is my current passmark score. I am pretty sure my machine is not running near its full potential as it still takes basically all day to make a 40 minute DVD (converting from avchd).
What I would like to do is perhaps try some different benchmarking software and compare my baseline to similar machines here, and perhaps look at what you guys have done to make improvements. I'm concerned that the bios settings may not be correct for the processor, but I'm afraid to mess with them as I don't really know what I'm doing. ASUS included overclocking software with the motherboard, but I understand that using software is not the best method for overclocking. I'm also afraid of doing permanent damage to my processor.

I'd like to hear any suggestions from the wizards on this board.

Thanks

 

[rongaudier]

I ran PC Mark 7 and got a score of 2805
Here are the results: http://3dmark.com/pcm7/126057

 

[EarthDog]

What I meant by that was on your old system it took xx minutes to encode this avchd vid. On your new system it to xx minutes.

Like I said with passmark, people overclock to get the best scores so make sure you are comparing to systems with like speed.

PCmark07, same thing. Use the site's compare and make sure you are compating your CPU against another like cpu at the same speed.

 

[Bobnova]

Depending on the video transcoder you may only be using a single core, at that point your new cpu isn't that much faster than your old one (it's faster, just not faster like zomg). I would try a different encoder that uses all available cores. I bet that goes a lot faster.

 

[rongaudier]

Bobnova, I think your onto something. I didn't even know about video transcorders. A quick search got some interesting results. I'll advise of the outcome. Thanks.

 

[Bobnova]

You betcha.
There should be a transcoder of some sort that uses your GPU, AMD's newer drivers usually come with one (at least sort of). If you can find one that uses your GPU you will be blown away by the speeds.
If not using all six CPU cores will make you happy too.

 

[rongaudier]

I had never considered it could be a software problem. I have since ditched Adobe Premier Elements 8 and plan to install Cyberlink PowerDirector 9 Ultra.
This program is optimized for a 64 bit system like mine, and makes use of all available cores in the processor.
Something else I didn't know, 32 bit software can only utilize a max of about 3gb installed ram. The 64 bit can use all 16gb I have available. I'm expecting this alone would make a noticeable difference.
I'll let you all know how it works out once I get it installed and play around with it awhile.

 

[EarthDog]

Holy cow... nice catch Bobn!!!

 

[rongaudier]

Confirmed, software change did the trick. Now about 10 times faster to convert from avchd to mpeg2 and burn.
Thanks for the tip.

 

[Bobnova]

Awesome, glad it's all squared away!