Video Transcoding Performance

x264 HD 3.03 Benchmark

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 Benchmark - 1st pass - v3.03

x264 HD Benchmark - 2nd pass - v3.03

In the second pass of our x264 test we see a nearly 14% increase over the 2600K. Once again, there's no replacement for more cores in these types of workloads but delivering better performance in a lower TDP than last year's quad-core is great for more thermally conscious desktops.

Software Development Performance

Compile Chromium Test

You guys asked for it and finally I have something I feel is a good software build test. Using Visual Studio 2008 I'm compiling Chromium. It's a pretty huge project that takes over forty minutes to compile from the command line on a Core i3 2100. But the results are repeatable and the compile process will stress all 12 threads at 100% for almost the entire time on a 980X so it works for me.

Build Chromium Project - Visual Studio 2008

Ivy Bridge shows more traditional gains in our VS2008 benchmark - performance moves forward here by a few percent, but nothing significant. We are seeing a bit of a compressed dynamic range here for this particular compiler workload, it's quite possible that other bottlenecks are beginning to creep in as we get even faster microarchitectures.

Content Creation Performance Compression & Encryption Performance
Comments Locked

195 Comments

View All Comments

  • Bateluer - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link

    Until AMD goes out of business. Then Intel gets lazy again, and the price of even a mid range CPU creeps back up above 600 dollars. You might be too young to remember the 500 dollar price tags on the first gen P3s, when Intel had no effective competition from AMD.

    Its not in the consumer's best interests for AMD to die off.

    And, FYI, their GPUs are top notch and excellent, across the entire market. Downside is, they're basically carrying the company right now and that's not sustainable.
  • m.amitava - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link

    This sans guy is hilarious!!

    Lets prod him a bit more and really get his fanboi juices flowing :)

    AMD is the best!!!!! yaaay....Intel sucks they'll go out of business sometime next week :D
  • Azeraph - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link

    it doesn't really matter if the igp isn't that great most people don't buy them for their graphics power.I get the feeling that maybe intel is just putting them out there to keep it's base solid against AMD,Not that it needs it and i'm an amd fan. i found something the other day that will possibly change how tomorrows processors will use light instead of electricity.

    http://scitechdaily.com/penn-researchers-build-a-c...
  • m.amitava - Tuesday, March 6, 2012 - link

    ain't he cute ? :)...I hope he's not a bot...that would break my heart
  • Galvin - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link

    Please
  • mattgmann - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link

    it would be cool to see a 4ghz clocked nehalem shuffled in the mix. I'm sure I'm not the only one rocking an i7 9xx wondering how much actual productivity gains are to be had with the new tech. I personally don't like to upgrade until the new gen's retail performance out-does my previous overclocked performance by a solid 15%.
  • svata - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link

    Is the bug with true 23.976 fps playback fixed?
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridg...
  • sicofante - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link

    I understand that will be part of the new chipsets which haven't been tested here, but I'm also very interested. As a matter of fact, I have a few HTPC customers waiting for Ivy Bridge for this sole reason.
  • vlado08 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    I don't find the silence about 23.976 fps playback very promising. This is new chipset "Keep in mind that this is a preview using early drivers and an early Z77 motherboard" .... "Intel Z77 Chipset Based Motherboard"

    I find three possibilities:
    1. They are not going to fix it with Ivy bridge.
    2. They are not ready with the drivers.
    3. They are ready and everything is fine but keeping silen becoause they need to sell old chips.

    It didn't left much. We'll see.
  • Assimilator87 - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 - link

    Intel's always the best, EXCEPT WHEN THEY'RE NOT! Athlon 64. Since AMD's sticking with Bulldozer's base architecture for at least a couple generations, they won't be competitive for a while, but that doesn't mean they'll never be competitive.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now