Upgrade i3 6100 to i5 6500

[wazzickle]

The whole purpose of an upgrade is based on a potentially false premise that googling has not been able to discover the answer to - whether 4k playback performance will improve between these two processors. The onboard GPU is the same - HD 530, and with most 4k content, my i3 is performing fine, but with native 4k content, playback isn't 100% with the occasional judder, and a 24gb 4k download was unplayable.

Cooling is also a potential issue. The i5 is rated at 65W TDP, with the i3 at 51W - not a particularly big difference, and my passive-cooling HTPC case is rated to dissipate up to 95W officially, but in reviews they say not to use a processor with greater than 73W. I have doubts as to the integrity of the heatpipes I used (in the link above) as I had to mod them to fit, and under full load my i3-6100 is making it to >90C. I can happily learn to throttle/underclock the processor though.

Last issue is that having been used at 90C, average usage probably 60-70C, the resale value of my i3 is probably reduced greatly?

[EndlessWaves]

The general purpose GPU can be used for decoding (decompressing the video, the most demanding part of playback) but it's not that common. Generally decoding is either done by the CPU or by dedicated decoding circuitry. The latter on your CPU is part of the Quicksync feature (along with dedicated encoding circuitry for streaming etc.) Those playback programs that use quicksync will fall back to the CPU if they come across a format that quicksync can't handle.

A 6500 will have more or less identical quicksync performance but will obviously have more CPU power.

The first thing I'd look at is playback program. When it comes to cutting edge formats like HEVC not all are equal and some popular programs like VLC do lag behind for taking advantage of hardware support. It's entirely possible to go from maxing out the CPU because your current program doesn't support Quicksync to less than 10% usage playing the same video.

[Bone9]

What would you suggest? Kodi?

[DanceswithUnix]

Just wondering, do the judders happen when it hits 90 degrees? If caused by throttling, an i5 would make it worse.

[wazzickle]

The general purpose GPU can be used for decoding (decompressing the video, the most demanding part of playback) but it's not that common. Generally decoding is either done by the CPU or by dedicated decoding circuitry. The latter on your CPU is part of the Quicksync feature (along with dedicated encoding circuitry for streaming etc.) Those playback programs that use quicksync will fall back to the CPU if they come across a format that quicksync can't handle.

A 6500 will have more or less identical quicksync performance but will obviously have more CPU power.

The first thing I'd look at is playback program. When it comes to cutting edge formats like HEVC not all are equal and some popular programs like VLC do lag behind for taking advantage of hardware support. It's entirely possible to go from maxing out the CPU because your current program doesn't support Quicksync to less than 10% usage playing the same video.

Thanks - found some freeware called Neulion DivX Player - haven't seen one of those for more than a decade I think! Will report back once I've tested.

[wazzickle]

Just wondering, do the judders happen when it hits 90 degrees? If caused by throttling, an i5 would make it worse.

No, it seems independent of temperature, only according to the bitrate of the video I'm playing.

[shaithis]

Try install MADVR and then MPC-BE....in MPC-BE, set the renderer to MADVR and enable hardware acceleration.

[wazzickle]

DivX Player smashed it with ~ 2% cpu usage and perfect output, as opposed to 90% usage with vlc and unplayable. So obv gonna stick with the i3, but now would like to work out either how to have VLC enabled with quicksync, or customise DivX or MADVR such that the hotkeys are the same as vlc so my IR setup works. Thanks guys!

[watercooled]

I think hardware-accelerated decoding is disabled by default in VLC so have you checked this? Tools>Preferences>Input/Codecs>Hardware-accelerated decoding.

VLC works quite independently of any system codecs so you'll find that things like GPU driver video effects don't affect playback through VLC like they do with the likes of WMP. It's great for playing back almost anything but generally isn't the most efficient solution for doing so.

[wazzickle]

Just tried that - both automatic and DivX - and neither made any difference. Looking at all the potential settings I'd imagine I could tweak them to improve it but there doesn't seem any point where MPC-BE can do it and I can adjust the hotkeys easily enough.