It’s a Cascade of 14nm CPUs: AnandTech’s Intel Core i9-10980XE Review
by Dr. Ian Cutress on November 25, 2019 9:00 AM ESTCPU Performance: Encoding Tests
With the rise of streaming, vlogs, and video content as a whole, encoding and transcoding tests are becoming ever more important. Not only are more home users and gamers needing to convert video files into something more manageable, for streaming or archival purposes, but the servers that manage the output also manage around data and log files with compression and decompression. Our encoding tasks are focused around these important scenarios, with input from the community for the best implementation of real-world testing.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Handbrake 1.1.0: Streaming and Archival Video Transcoding
A popular open source tool, Handbrake is the anything-to-anything video conversion software that a number of people use as a reference point. The danger is always on version numbers and optimization, for example the latest versions of the software can take advantage of AVX-512 and OpenCL to accelerate certain types of transcoding and algorithms. The version we use here is a pure CPU play, with common transcoding variations.
We have split Handbrake up into several tests, using a Logitech C920 1080p60 native webcam recording (essentially a streamer recording), and convert them into two types of streaming formats and one for archival. The output settings used are:
- 720p60 at 6000 kbps constant bit rate, fast setting, high profile
- 1080p60 at 3500 kbps constant bit rate, faster setting, main profile
- 1080p60 HEVC at 3500 kbps variable bit rate, fast setting, main profile
7-zip v1805: Popular Open-Source Encoding Engine
Out of our compression/decompression tool tests, 7-zip is the most requested and comes with a built-in benchmark. For our test suite, we’ve pulled the latest version of the software and we run the benchmark from the command line, reporting the compression, decompression, and a combined score.
It is noted in this benchmark that the latest multi-die processors have very bi-modal performance between compression and decompression, performing well in one and badly in the other. There are also discussions around how the Windows Scheduler is implementing every thread. As we get more results, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Please note, if you plan to share out the Compression graph, please include the Decompression one. Otherwise you’re only presenting half a picture.
WinRAR 5.60b3: Archiving Tool
My compression tool of choice is often WinRAR, having been one of the first tools a number of my generation used over two decades ago. The interface has not changed much, although the integration with Windows right click commands is always a plus. It has no in-built test, so we run a compression over a set directory containing over thirty 60-second video files and 2000 small web-based files at a normal compression rate.
WinRAR is variable threaded but also susceptible to caching, so in our test we run it 10 times and take the average of the last five, leaving the test purely for raw CPU compute performance.
AES Encryption: File Security
A number of platforms, particularly mobile devices, are now offering encryption by default with file systems in order to protect the contents. Windows based devices have these options as well, often applied by BitLocker or third-party software. In our AES encryption test, we used the discontinued TrueCrypt for its built-in benchmark, which tests several encryption algorithms directly in memory.
The data we take for this test is the combined AES encrypt/decrypt performance, measured in gigabytes per second. The software does use AES commands for processors that offer hardware selection, however not AVX-512.
More than a slight regression here in our AES testing - this is probably the most severe of all our tests for how the security fixes have affected performance.
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Korguz - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
ever think that maybe they cant ??sarafino - Friday, January 10, 2020 - link
My guess is that the vast majority of people willing to pay for a Threadripper motherboard, especially a TR4 board, went for the higher core count TR CPU's. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a case of AMD deciding not to waste money on making such low volume SKU.umano - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
I don't think that 10nm intel in 2021 will match or beat amd ryzen 5000. If they will match ryzen 4000 I'd say it's a miracleballsystemlord - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
What happened to the 10980XE in the y-Cruncher MT test?hoohoo - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
@Ian - your price chart are misleading: you are using retail price for AMD and wholesale (ie per 1000 units) price for Intel.The 10980XE will retail with a markup, it will cost 25 or 30 percent higher than the $979 you are using here.
ballsystemlord - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
He can't be certain what the markup will be, so he's using the tray prices. Not that I recommend that, but it's about as fair as he can be for the time being.NetMage - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
"and so we expect our results here to be consummate with most users’ performance" - I certainly hope not. Perhaps you meant "commensurate"?Gonemad - Friday, November 29, 2019 - link
Tiny typo... Sub $1k sheet.:DRAM Capacity 256GB vs. 128MB.
Everybody know memories are in the 128GB order of magnitude... but... yeah... GB or MB?
'Cause we are never sure these days.
- Nitpicking.
sharath.naik - Thursday, December 19, 2019 - link
Message for intel, the only people who are willing to upgrade are those who already invested in the x299 lga2066 socket motherboards. So when you release a 10nm make sure you release at least one on LGA2066 socket. I am done with Intel if they go after the money and do one more socket change to annoy those who stuck with intel despite their stale processes. For it will make more sense to just move to AMD if you need to buy a new motherboard anyway, Atleast they will support the socket for a few generations of CPUs