x264 HD Video Encoding Performance

Graysky's x264 HD test uses x264 to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.

 

x264 HD Encode Test - 1st Pass - x264 0.59.819

Video encoding and other thread heavy tasks are best suited for AMD's more-is-better core strategy. You get six cores on the 1100T and three with the 455, in both cases the competing Intel part doesn't stand a chance. In the second encoding pass the Athlon II X3 is over 30% faster than the Pentium G6950. Without unlocking additional cores, the Phenom II X2 565 BE doesn't impress here.

x264 HD Encode Test - 2nd Pass - x264 0.59.819

PAR2 Multithreaded Archive Recovery Performance

Par2 is an application used for reconstructing downloaded archives. It can generate parity data from a given archive and later use it to recover the archive

Chuchusoft took the source code of par2cmdline 0.4 and parallelized it using Intel’s Threading Building Blocks 2.1. The result is a version of par2cmdline that can spawn multiple threads to repair par2 archives. For this test we took a 708MB archive, corrupted nearly 60MB of it, and used the multithreaded par2cmdline to recover it. The scores reported are the repair and recover time in seconds.

Par2 - Multithreaded Par2cmdline 0.4

The Phenom II X6 is competitive in our Par2 test, the Athlon II X3 455 is significantly faster than the Pentium G6950 and the Phenom II X2 565 falls short of its target. Rinse and repeat.

7-Zip Benchmark Performance

Included in 7-zip is a pure algorithm test that completely removes IO from the equation. This test scales with core count and as a result we get a good theoretical picture of how these chips perform. Note that the actual 7-zip compression/decompression process is limited to 2 threads so there's no real world advantage to having more cores.

7-Zip Benchmark

3D Rendering Performance Gaming Performance
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  • silverblue - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 - link

    You've overclocked your 870, but to what speed?
  • mapesdhs - Monday, December 20, 2010 - link


    (sorry for the delay! Been busy fighting snow...)

    it's currently at 4270MHz (203.3 x 21) with HT on, ie. see:

    http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1507189

    With my original 860, I couldn't get it over 4018 and to reach that
    I had to use a much higher Vcore:

    http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1295195

    Like I say though, this is a gaming rig but so far I've yet to find
    a game/test which benefits from HT. Tests/benchmarks aside
    however, the games I'll actually be playing are Oblivion, Stalker,
    CoD4, Red Faction Guerilla, Borderlands, Haxw2 and CoD WaW
    (mostly the first two initially). If these don't gain from HT either,
    then I'll just turn it off and move the clock up to 4444 to give
    better frame rates. I could run it higher I'm sure given the lowish
    Vcore, but there's just no need.

    Oh, here's the CPU-Z with the CPU at 4444 and HT is off:

    http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1506944

    Full benchmark results available later today (Ungine Heaven,
    Tropics and Sanctuary, Stalker COP, X3TC, Cinebench,
    3DMark06 and Viewperf; Vantage, AvP and 3DMark11 results
    coming later when I can do them). Comparisons atm cover 8800GT
    (single and SLI), GTX 460 1GB (single and SLI) and, where my
    friend has been able to contribute, Radeon 4890 (single and CF)
    along with his own GTX 460 SLI results.

    Ian.
  • Jamahl - Tuesday, December 7, 2010 - link

    Anand your gaming benchmarks are pathetic, when are you going to use proper games? You fine well know that you are benching massively cpu bound titles. Get it sorted or put them into your cpu benchmarks.
  • kevith - Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - link

    It's a CPU review...
  • Vengeful Giblets - Saturday, January 15, 2011 - link

    Sometimes I wish that I could find curiosity articles, but I know that these comparisons consume a lot of time so I understand why such articles don't exist. Perhaps I shall do my own comparisons and post the results? Hm.

    Anyway, I'm finally upgrading my system. I've loved this Q6600 quad core and it's still a fantastic processor, but it's become my gaming system's bottleneck. Of course, it's not like I can simply jump up to the next CPU so it was time to overhaul the whole rig. Ouch. Just ouch. I rather dislike doing that. On the bright side, I won't need to do this again for another few years. :) Maybe I should begin saving now... Heh...

    I'm curiously wondering what kind of performance gains I'm going to see when moving from the Intel Q6600 2.4 GHz quad core to the X6 1100T 3.3 GHz hexacore. Actually, I expect it to operate in triple core 3.7GHz mode most of the time, because how often will I actually using all six cores? Probably about as often as I've used all four cores lol!

    This is going to be a heck of a jump in raw speed alone, then factoring in the technology improvements (not just the cores, but the whole package) since the Q6600's era and I'm hoping for a very noticeable improvement. Granted, everything else is changing too.

    Intel did fine by me with its $300-some Q6600. Fine indeed. It has been awhile since I've ran an AMD rig, but I hope that AMD does just as well with its $270-some 1100T.

    I sure wish that motherboard manufacturers made this easier on us consumers. Hopefully one day we'll look back on this need to own a different board for everything and see it as the dark ages that it is.

    Oh well, at least my new motherboard will be AM3 compatible.

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