Fastest CPU for encoding x264 with Handbrake out of.....

[JonRead]

the following.........

Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield
Intel Corei7 920 D0 Bloomfield
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T AM3
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T AM3

I am fed up with my AMD Phenom X4 940 only giving me 10 to 11fps when using Handbrake to encode 720p x264. It takes 7 hours for a 2 pass movie. Obviously I know the 1090T will be faster than the 1055T, but if anyone has handrake benchmarks for the above CPUs then that would be great, as the 1090T is a fair bit more costly than the 1055T so if only 2fps difference then it is not worth the extra cost.

Will any of the above CPUs get me 25fps or more ? Even then it will still be about 3 to 4 hours. Damn this encoding lark takes so much flipping time :)

[nm]

the following.........

Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield
Intel Corei7 920 D0 Bloomfield
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T AM3
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T AM3

At stock frequencies they should be pretty similar, give or take 20 %. I'd go with the cheapest option.

I am fed up with my AMD Phenom X4 940 only giving me 10 to 11fps when using Handbrake to encode 720p x264. It takes 7 hours for a 2 pass movie.

How about using faster settings and a slightly higher bitrate? For example, settings equivalent to --preset faster should give you about 20 fps on that Phenom X4 while increasing the required bitrate by 10-20 % to keep the same quality as you now get.

Use CRF (constant quality in HandBrake) if you don't need a specific output file size.

[PiPPoNe92]

For a comparison CPU see here:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=3

and here:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=2

[JonRead]

At stock frequencies they should be pretty similar, give or take 20 %. I'd go with the cheapest option.

How about using faster settings and a slightly higher bitrate? For example, settings equivalent to --preset faster should give you about 20 fps on that Phenom X4 while increasing the required bitrate by 10-20 % to keep the same quality as you now get.

Use CRF (constant quality in HandBrake) if you don't need a specific output file size.

Thanks for the tips, I will have to give it a go, I am just so happy with the results I get that I am afraid to change anything, but maybe I should experiment more.


For a comparison CPU see here:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=3

and here:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=2

I notice on those results it shows 66fps for the 1055T when overclocked, I would be bloody thankful if I could get 66fps with my settings, not sure if that will happen though.

[bnshrdr]

I'm sure that the results are unfiltered and the source is fed straight to the encoder. If you are doing things like resizing, changing frame rate, de-interlacing or any other type of preprocessing of the source, most of the time you will see a bottleneck and won't get your full benchmark fps.

[Motenai Yoda]

For a comparison CPU see here:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=3

and here:

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=669&pgno=2

but these tests were done by disabling the turbo mode, so the real speed is not indicated.
eg http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/cpu/2432/phenom-ii-x6-cpu-desktop-a-6-core-anche-da-amd_9.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-desktop-cpu-charts-update-1/Mainconcept-Reference-1.6.1,1385.html

[Audionut]

I would be bloody thankful if I could get 66fps with my settings, not sure if that will happen though.

Knowing what settings you use would help.

I just got this with a core 2 quad @ 3.6Ghz.

x264-64 --tune film --crf 20 --aq-mode 2 --seek 10000 -o f:\speed.mkv f:\saw6.avs
avs [info]: 1280x720p 0:0 @ 24000/1001 fps (cfr)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264 [info]: profile High, level 3.1
x264 [info]: frame I:65 Avg QP:18.40 size: 67233
x264 [info]: frame P:2157 Avg QP:21.18 size: 16139
x264 [info]: frame B:1498 Avg QP:23.03 size: 5519
x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 27.3% 52.1% 6.2% 14.3%
x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 13.8% 69.3% 16.9%
x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 1.4% 3.0% 0.4% P16..4: 44.0% 13.0% 9.2% 0.0% 0.0% skip:29.0%
x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% B16..8: 44.4% 3.0% 0.6% direct: 1.6% skip:50.2% L
0:40.7% L1:53.0% BI: 6.3%
x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:64.9% inter:78.6%
x264 [info]: coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 60.5% 74.6% 39.9% inter: 19.8% 28.9% 1.9%
x264 [info]: i16 v,h,dc,p: 45% 15% 9% 32%
x264 [info]: i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 20% 14% 26% 5% 7% 8% 7% 7% 6%
x264 [info]: i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 24% 17% 13% 6% 9% 9% 10% 6% 5%
x264 [info]: i8c dc,h,v,p: 53% 18% 22% 7%
x264 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:1.2%
x264 [info]: ref P L0: 61.9% 12.8% 17.6% 7.8% 0.1%
x264 [info]: ref B L0: 80.6% 18.4% 1.0%
x264 [info]: ref B L1: 97.8% 2.2%
x264 [info]: kb/s:2446.58

aborted at input frame 13769, output frame 3720
encoded 3720 frames, 28.18 fps, 2446.62 kb/s

I could have seeked to a low motion scene or high motion scene, so the fps value could be off a little.

Over the entire source (131800 frames), with preset slower I got,

x264-64 --preset slower --tune film --crf 20 --aq-mode 2 --keyint 240 --open-gop --fade-compensa
te 0.7 --ipratio 1.1 -o f:\saw6.mkv f:\saw6.avs
avs [info]: 1280x720p 0:0 @ 24000/1001 fps (cfr)
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64
x264 [info]: profile High, level 4.0
x264 [info]: frame I:2154 Avg QP:19.87 size: 49871
x264 [info]: frame P:39318 Avg QP:20.85 size: 20427
x264 [info]: frame B:90328 Avg QP:22.64 size: 7781
x264 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 2.9% 6.8% 18.3% 72.1%
x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 24.4% 68.5% 7.1%
x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 4.2% 10.6% 0.7% P16..4: 47.4% 11.0% 1.9% 0.1% 0.1% skip:24.1%
x264 [info]: mb B I16..4: 0.2% 0.7% 0.1% B16..8: 39.8% 5.2% 1.0% direct: 4.3% skip:48.8% L
0:43.1% L1:50.9% BI: 6.0%
x264 [info]: 8x8 transform intra:69.0% inter:81.3%
x264 [info]: direct mvs spatial:99.2% temporal:0.8%
x264 [info]: coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 60.0% 72.0% 36.3% inter: 16.0% 22.8% 1.6%
x264 [info]: i16 v,h,dc,p: 36% 19% 8% 37%
x264 [info]: i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 14% 11% 7% 9% 13% 13% 12% 11% 10%
x264 [info]: i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 11% 9% 3% 10% 16% 15% 14% 11% 11%
x264 [info]: i8c dc,h,v,p: 34% 27% 21% 18%
x264 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:3.4%
x264 [info]: ref P L0: 49.8% 8.8% 18.3% 6.7% 5.5% 4.2% 3.7% 2.4% 0.6% 0.0%
x264 [info]: ref B L0: 80.3% 9.8% 4.6% 2.1% 1.6% 1.0% 0.5%
x264 [info]: ref B L1: 94.8% 5.2%
x264 [info]: kb/s:2348.01

encoded 131800 frames, 8.92 fps, 2348.01 kb/s

i7's are about 40% faster clock for clock then a core2quad iirc.

[prOnorama]

If filesize isn't that important use CRF and test some x264 presets until you get the desired speed.

x264 --preset faster --crf 18 gets me > 25 FPS on a 720p encode from BluRay source (cropped & resized to 1280 x 544), on a Phenom X4 955 3.2 Ghz, a Phenom X4 940 shouldn't be a whole lot slower (maybe 15%). And of course CRF is only 1 pass so you save time again.

[Soichiro]

As other people have said, use faster settings. If your Phenom X4 is giving you 10 FPS, none of those CPUs will possibly get you close to 25 FPS. You might get up to 15 FPS from one of those CPUs if you're lucky. However, I know you're using ridiculous settings, because my Phenom X4 gives me ~10-11 fps on 720p material and I use settings somewhere between presets slower and veryslow. If you can't stand using slow settings, don't use slow settings. :p

[burfadel]

Probably no point upgrading your CPU now, especially to a Core i7. Its a big expense for a small gain, and the current Core i7's will be out of date at the end of the year. Intel are bringing out new i7's that use all new sockets (both the socket 1360 and 1156 will be replaced). These CPU's have new instructions that x264 may find beneficial.

AMD are bringing out their new CPU's next year, they too use a new socket and will be completely different architecturally to the Phenom's.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yep... faster settings and/or CRF :)

Derek

[outlaw.78]

Probably no point upgrading your CPU now, especially to a Core i7. Its a big expense for a small gain, and the current Core i7's will be out of date at the end of the year. Intel are bringing out new i7's that use all new sockets (both the socket 1360 and 1156 will be replaced). These CPU's have new instructions that x264 may find beneficial.

AMD are bringing out their new CPU's next year, they too use a new socket and will be completely different architecturally to the Phenom's.

Actually AMD next arch bulldozer will use the same AM3 socket as phenom II use

[foxyshadis]

I'm going to move this to PC Hardware, it's better suited there.

I'd have a AMD now if the 890FX wasn't the one and only chipset with AMD-Vi, their price/perf is incredible right now. I can't afford to spend such a premium on a motherboard when I don't overclock and Intel has had it in most mid-range chipsets for years, but I don't want to go with Intel because they've already obsoleted half their line. So I'm stuck with a Q6700 on some Nvidia board without even gigabit, let alone VT-d. The wonders of hardware.