Desktop for handbrake

figrin_dan

Hi,

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I have been gifted a desktop pc to run handbrake (and nothing else!)
It has a Gigabyte V58A-UDR3R motherboard, 6GB RAM, i7 [email protected]
The graphics card has just expired. I don't recall the model but it was very large, with a black plastic cover and used its own power supply (Looks like a radeon rx 5700 but a different brand)

I replaced the graphics card with another old one (GV-NX66T256DE ) but it makes a loud buzzing sound when running handbrake so I guess it's not up to the job.

Is it worth spending money on a new graphics card bearing in mind the system was taking about 7-8 hours to convert a 2 hour h264 file to a h265 file?
If so, could you please recommend one? I looked at the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050e but have no idea if it's overkill - I only have a VGA monitor.

Or would a new low end pc be a better option?
Thanks

EndlessWaves

That'll just be the cooling system, or possibly a bit of coil whine. You can't mechanically over-stress a computer part like a graphics card.

The only reason to consider it not up to the job would be if it's producing results too slowly for you.

I believe Handbrake supports VCE/VCN on Windows and Linux and NVENC on Windows and experimentally on Linux. Those being the video encoding hardware on AMD and nVidia cards respectively.

                                                HandBrake Documentation — AMD VCE                                                                        HandBrake Documentation — Nvidia Nvenc                       
So handbrake can use a card to do the decoding and encoding. To encode to HEVC you'll need a fairly recent card though as it's a new format.

On the AMD side any of the 2016 and newer chips should support it, so the cheapest option would be the RX 550 or maybe some old RX 460 stock.

I believe nVidia stripped it from the GTX 1030 so the 1050, 1050ti and 1650 would be your main candidates on the nVidia side, or the GTX 1650 Super/GTX 1660 if you wanted the B-frame support (if Handbrake can use it).

A monitor with only VGA inputs will complicate things as the both GPU makers dropped support a couple of years ago, so you'll probably need to do a bit of hunting to find a card with a VGA output. It may be simpler to buy a converter box - or a newer monitor.

figrin_dan

Thank you, that's helpful stuff! So it sounds like it's worth keeping the old pc running.

The card has no fans so it could be coil whine but it's a very loud buzz/squeal (ie unbearable). Before all the local dogs start barking I can see the encoding time estimate is similar to before. An H264 encode also buzzes but takes a longer time to start buzzing and starts off intermittantly. I'm convinving myself any modern card with a fan should be fine.

If I want to experiment and see if Linux runs this faster I should be looking at the RX550.

I could probably find an HDMI display but I wonder if I keep the old card connected too would that work or would it still make a noise?
Thanks again

EndlessWaves

From what I understand coil whine is a resonance-type of effect where the power flow causes the components to vibrate at an frequency we can hear as sound. With different power flows around the components causing different vibrations.

6600GT doesn't have any encoding hardware, and as far as I know handbrake doesn't have any CUDA support to use the main GPU as general purpose processor to encode. So the 6600GT should be under the little or no load for both. Has the system been upgraded to Windows 10? Task manager should show how much load the parts of the GPU are under.

There's a chance it'll continue to do it with another card in the system, but if you're buying a new card for the encoder anyway you don't lose anything by trying.

Although are you sure it's the card making the noise? If it's the motherboard then that could be trickier to eliminate.

I can't see any V58A-UDR3R motherboard but if it's the X58A-UD3R then that has a second PCI-E 16x slot so you could try moving the card into that one and see if things change.

I don't use handbrake so I can only go off what's on the handbrake website in terms of support, but it does sound like the support for AMD's encoder is more mature on Linux.


In terms of a newer system Intel introduced 8-bit HEVC encoding with the Skylake processors in 2015 (Up to Main 5.1). You can pick up a basic Skylake system second hand for under £100 these days.

Intel's encoding hardware is known as Quicksync, it's by far the most widely supported of the three. The handbrake page for it is here:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        HandBrake Documentation — Intel QuickSync Video                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                handbrake.fr

figrin_dan

Thanks again. You've pointed me to a mistake I've made!
The Task Manager has no GPU display so I guess that means the CPU is doing all the work. The CPU is showing as used 99% with a very high power usage. This reminded me that I had set an alarm in the BIOS for if the temperature goes over 70 degrees C. That was the noise!

Switching the alarm off stops the noise but I was worried about temperature so installed Core Temp which shows all 4 cores at 96-100 degrees C (Never more than 100). I'm not sure if I trust that as there is no heat coming from anywhere. Even after a few minutes when I can feel a bit of heat the Core Temp numbers haven't changed.

Either way I'm hoping a new graphics card will share the load and speed things up.

EndlessWaves

The lack of GPU display in task manager is probably just due to the drivers on the old card not supporting the newer features.


Those temperatures are perfectly normal. The CPU is a little flake of silicon the size of a fingernail so it doesn't take much energy to heat it up.

If it didn't have a big heatsink attached you could do it with just a few watts. Even with the cooling system we're talking ~100W. About the same as a couple of hot water bottles. In a tower case with air being blown through that's just not enough heat to raise the surface temperature noticably in a few minutes.


You can't really 'spread the load' because software like a video converter is designed to complete the task as fast as possible. Put in a faster CPU and it'll be used just as much but the conversion will be done faster.

The CPU use may go down if the speed of the encode is limited by the hardware encoder, but you've still got one bit of processing hardware working at full utilisation, it's just a different bit.


A processor does have a thermal limit at around those temperatures and it'll reduce clock speed to stay under that, called throttling. So if yours is never going over 100°C it may be throttling and losing a bit of performance. Check the clock speeds when under load and up to temperature and see if it's running at 2.8-2.9Ghz.

If it's substantially less (~1Ghz) then there may be an issue with the cooling system.

It is common to run CPUs at close to the temperature ceiling as higher temperatures don't have much effect, but reducing temperatures requires either higher fan noise or a more expensive heatsink.

The PC will shut down if it can't reduce clockspeed enough, there's no danger of damage from higher temperatures.