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RAID & AMD- HW relative effect-(CPU,GPU,RAM,Chipset,etc)

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In building a PC for a Avermedia 6000 series card (or any Avermedia DVR card) what components most impact FPS? Image Quality? (assuming image quality is derived from more than just the DVR card itself)?

 

How would you rank the following in terms of importance (ranked 1- 5, use X to indicate no bearing on FPS or image):

 

1) CPU

1a) Clock Speed

2) CPU Cores & Hyperthreading (assuming software is multi-threaded.)

 

2) GPU

3a) GPU Class (Ati HD4000, HD5000, HD6000 etc)

3b) GPU Ram size and/or speed

 

3) Chipset (i.e x58)

4a) Southbridge (PCI bus speed)

 

4) RAM

5A) Amount (more than 4GB?)

5B) Speed

 

5) HDD

5A) 7200 RPM

5B) RAID-0

Edited by Guest

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In building a PC for a Avermedia 6000 series card (or any Avermedia DVR card) what components most impact FPS? Image Quality? (assuming image quality is derived from more than just the DVR card itself)?

Things will vary a bit depending on the specific DVR manufacturer and how they do things, but in general, your biggest choke-point for high FPS will be disk I/O, followed by CPU speed.

 

How would you rank the following in terms of importance (ranked 1- 5, use X to indicate no bearing on FPS or image):

 

1) CPU

1a) Clock Speed

2) CPU Cores & Hyperthreading (assuming software is multi-threaded.)

Most DVR software I've seen actually recommends disabling hyperthreading. I don't know of any that will actually take advantage of multiple cores, either.

 

2) GPU

3a) GPU Class (Ati HD4000, HD5000, HD6000 etc)

3b) GPU Ram size and/or speed

GPU should have NO bearing on performance - it's really only a factor when doing 3D graphics, something that's not needed for DVRs.

 

3) Chipset (i.e x58)

4a) Southbridge (PCI bus speed)

This is mostly just a concern because some cards (or their drivers) don't get along well with some chipsets. As long as the DVR package lists the chipset on their "supported" list, one should be as good as the next.

 

4) RAM

5A) Amount (more than 4GB?)

5B) Speed

RAM speed will make negligible difference. Amount should have no effect on FPS, as long as you have enough for proper operation of the OS and DVR. The main place you'll see a difference with more RAM is if your system maintains a search database, and you should be fine as long as there's enough RAM for it to load the entire database.

 

Anything over 3.5GB will require a 64-bit OS to take advantage of anyway, at which point you have to be sure your DVR package supports 64-bit operation.

 

5) HDD

5A) 7200 RPM

5B) RAID-0

RAID0 will help disk I/O if you find yourself maxing it out, but will cause its own hit on system performance if done in software - use a motherboard or add-on card for hardware RAID if possible. Of course, all the performance in the world won't do you any good if you lose one of the drives, and thus the entire array with it...

 

If you want stupidly fast I/O, look into 10,000 rpm drives. SSD is still inordinately expensive for the space you get, and there's a lot of debate over its long-term reliability for repeated continuous read/write operation.

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Matt Omnigeek... Thank you! You provide some excellent insights....

 

Interesting points about cpu hyper-threading (HT) & multi-cores). Leads me to wonder following.....

 

----Does Avermedia NV 7.x software recommend hyper-threading (HT) be disabled ?

 

----If the Avermedia software SW does not use HT, why would they would specify "i7" req. for max FPS in there literature?

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Matt Omnigeek... Thank you! You provide some excellent insights....

 

Interesting points about cpu hyper-threading (HT) & multi-cores). Leads me to wonder following.....

 

----Does Avermedia NV 7.x software recommend hyper-threading (HT) be disabled ?

 

----If the Avermedia software SW does not use HT, why would they would specify "i7" req. for max FPS in there literature?

 

 

I just send avermedia a question on their 64 bit software and if it's a multithreaded app optimized for multiple core cpu's

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I have a bunch of 10,000rpm 50GB UW320 SCSI drives out of a file server, sitting in a box... pity they're so small as to be of limited use... now THOSE were *FAST*

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yeah even those raptors .. like 75GB was wayyy expensive!

I think the 150GB one cost over $300 at the time

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just got a response from avermedia - the DVR app is NOT multi threaded... SO it's at least using one core for video and the other core (assuming dual core) for all other things. This is still fine by me as i went from a single core machine VERY slow to do anything else.. to a dual core and then all other functions worked just like normal. Very big difference, And all video is good and nothing is laggy with the dual core.

 

So no biggie on my side.

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Based on the excellent advice received from THIS FORUM,

 

i set up a NV6480 under Win7x64 OS (RAID-0 - two Velociraptors 150) DVR Recordings are on separate volume in RAID-0 also (two WD Black 320GB 2.5"). Controller is a Areca-1210. (all drivers are older so TLER could/is enabled)

 

Also using AMD CPU for first time (with NV 7.7.055). AthlonIIx4-630 on a Gigabyte 890GPA MB 6GB RAM. ATI Radeon HD 4550 video 512MB ram.

 

So far so good. Would not have tried without dedicated HW RAID controller (Arc-1210 w. Intel IOP 334 w/256MB DDR on controller).

 

No use wasting Horsepower & electric of an i7 if the software can't use the extra cores (virtual = HT).

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