[m0bbed]

Hi,
does XBMC gets better performance with a quadcore? I have a Intel Q9550 wich runs 4x 3650 MHz. The question is if this would be better than an Intel E8400 which runs 2x 3750 MHz.

I'm not sure wheter XBMC uses multi core. The new Dharma build has a setting called "post-processing"

Maybe this could benefit from a quad Core?

thanks in advance
m0bbed

[R_N_B]

More valuable with the Dharma builds is the graphic card. The GFx will do 99% or the real work. The CPU is basically good for navigating around the skin (user interface). I am using stock E8400 and E5200 with cheapo HD4550 cards and have perfect 1080p playback and speedy (near instantaneous) menu interaction.

[burritoboy9984]

More valuable with the Dharma builds is the graphic card. The GFx will do 99% or the real work. The CPU is basically good for navigating around the skin (user interface). I am using stock E8400 and E5200 with cheapo HD4550 cards and have perfect 1080p playback and speedy (near instantaneous) menu interaction.

I believe xbmc only uses 2 cores. So the other 2 would be of no use. With that said, if you are using windows and had background tasks, you could set affinity to split 2 for xbmc and 2 for other stuff.

-Erik

[poofyhairguy]

Yeah, FFMpeg (the decoding backend of XBMC) only uses two cores, but honestly if you are still using CPU decoding in the age of great GPU decoding you are doing it wrong.

For the interfaces it doesn't matter either. My Dual Core Atom Ion box (that is about as powerful as a single core Core 2 Duo level desktop Celeron I have) is MUCH snappier on the XBMC interface than my Core 2 Quad box. Why? Because the ION box has a SSD.

The only reason a quad core is better if you are doing transcoding to your PS3/iPhone/etc. For just HTPC purposes a dual core is the most many will need...

[R_N_B]

poofy just don't go there with SSD - man alive how did I survive without one. I put a Crucial C300 64GB into the downstairs HTPC last week and boy does it change the whole experience. Here in the UK they were on special for £113 incl shipping. Should have got two or three more. Added zip like nothing before. Still have the crappy HD4550 card in and it is a speed machine.

[poofyhairguy]

You are right R_N_B, the week after I got my first SSD for my Netbook, everything in the house got one. Putting an SSD in my XBMC Box is still one of the smartest things I ever did- it boots faster than my Blu Ray player!!

There is nothing better to help non-playback XBMC performance than getting a SSD. I would take a single core SSD equipped front-end any day over a quad core with a regular HD.

[topfer]

As an example, and for the sake of simplicity, let's pretend we have a single-threaded video encoder. Using this application under a quad-core environment, you can encode four videos at once in the same amount of time as a dual-core takes to encode two videos, assuming the same video file and clock frequency.

_____________

Vlc Player Download

[m0bbed]

Hi,
I already have an SSD an also have a Nvidia G210 to use DXVA2.
I just wanted to know whether there is an advantage by using a quad Core.

Thanks fo the answers, mates....

m0bbed

[Flomaster]

im going to guess from the answers in this thread there is NO advantage in the running of XBMC.

-=Jason=-

[R_N_B]

@ Flomaster There is no advantage to the running of XBMC to have a quad core CPU if you have a video card that is doing 99% of the work. Quite right.

The only time that there could be any benifit would be as was stated above if you have heaps and heaps of other stuff running at the same time. Since HTPC type rigs tend only to run media application that is not an issue.


*****


topfer Video encoding is not the main topic under discussion, unless you mean something else by encoding. Systems that do video encoding are hugely helped by powerful CPU's that can crunch the processes involved. They very memory intensive and fully use the large capacity on die cache found with top of the range CPU's and also benefit from really fast hard drives. CPU's with multi core and multi thread ability of course play a huge role depending on the type of rendering (encoding) that is happening and software used. However even in that field there is a move to offload most of the extreme computations to the video cards due to their parallel processing ability. If your question is about something else it would profit you to start your own thread and someone really clued up could answer it more fully.

[burritoboy9984]

@ Flomaster There is no advantage to the running of XBMC to have a quad core CPU if you have a video card that is doing 99% of the work. Quite right.

The only time that there could be any benifit would be as was stated above if you have heaps and heaps of other stuff running at the same time. Since HTPC type rigs tend only to run media application that is not an issue.


*****


topfer Video encoding is not the main topic under discussion, unless you mean something else by encoding. Systems that do video encoding are hugely helped by powerful CPU's that can crunch the processes involved. They very memory intensive and fully use the large capacity on die cache found with top of the range CPU's and also benefit from really fast hard drives. CPU's with multi core and multi thread ability of course play a huge role depending on the type of rendering (encoding) that is happening and software used. However even in that field there is a move to offload most of the extreme computations to the video cards due to their parallel processing ability. If your question is about something else it would profit you to start your own thread and someone really clued up could answer it more fully.

RNB, he was just trying to make a comparison. It wasn't a very good one unfortunately

-Erik

[R_N_B]

oops sorry