CPU 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

Handbrake 1.1.0 - 720p60 x264 6000 kbps FastHandbrake 1.1.0 - 1080p60 x264 3500 kbps FasterHandbrake 1.1.0 - 1080p60 HEVC 3500 kbps Fast

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.

7-Zip 1805 Combined7-Zip 1805 Compression7-Zip 1805 Decompression

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.

WinRAR 5.60b3

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.

AES Encoding

CPU Performance: Rendering Tests CPU Performance: Synthetic, Web and Legacy Tests
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  • steve wilson - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    They do it to make it a fair test. You can easily compare results of other CPU's if you are using the same hardware in the rest of the PC.
  • Meteor2 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link

    I was almost that person asking that question; thank you for pointing out a good answer.
  • Irata - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    It is interesting for the average $ 150- 200 CPU buyer since they most likely won‘t have anything close to a 2080ti in their PC.

    Personally, I also think all reviews should be done using the stock heatsink or alternatively add the aftermarket HSF‘s price to the CPU cost, at least in the low to mid range.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    How does that better help you evaluate the performance? All it does is tell you what you'd see if you spend $1200 on a GPU and then restrict yourself to last decade's favourite resolution. The differences you observe in that state don't translate to meaningful performance difference in practice.
  • TheJian - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Scanned page titles, no OCing, crap benchmarks....Moving along.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    We already know that there's not really any point in overclocking Ryzen. Why waste the time on repeating that?
  • msroadkill612 - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Ian makes an important point imo - the 3600 has been the cheapest foot in the door for zen2. It happens to also be a very muscular 6 core.

    Folks are starting to get that its about balance, & the whole am4 zen ecosystem leaves Intel for dead.

    A little mentioned thing, is intel must run NVME drives thru the chipset - yuk... thats not the same at all - its wasting a lot of what u paid for that boon of a resource.
  • watzupken - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    Performance vs price is certainly the key reason for people to get the Ryzen 5 3600. At least for myself, I tend to get mid tier CPUs as I don't like to spend too much on a hardware. Historically, I would get Intel i5 consistently due to it price vs performance. I feel most people will be on this same boat where we look for best performance to price. In the case of AMD Ryzen 5 3600, it's got an outstanding value since it performs better than an Intel chip at the same price, and you can further overclock it to push performance. Intel chips at this price point means an OC locked chip.
  • johnthacker - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    So basically, as expected, the Ryzen 3 3300X is the 5 3600's equal on anything that's not embarrassingly parallel, but the 5 3600 is far superior on things like encoding, decoding, and compression that parallelize easily.
  • Oxford Guy - Tuesday, May 19, 2020 - link

    "AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Review: Why Is This Amazon's Best Selling CPU?"

    Lame headline. How about this:

    "Stomped: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Has No Intel Competition In Its Price Bracket"

    My headline is more to the point.

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