I put together a self-contained x264 video encoding benchmark. Techarp kindly agreed to host the file and results at this URL.

Basically, you run the test encode and it will report back frames-per-second values for your machine @ it's clock/overclock level. You can run it at your stock settings and at your overclock settings to see how your machine compares to others in the database.

The database is small right now (as of 08-sep), but as you guys report in results, I will populate it. My goal is to have a representative set of data for many different chips and chipsets. Hopefully, we'll get some Penryn and Phenom data when they become available. Also, if anyone out here has some of the high end AMD chips, please contribute. Instructions and the file are at that url.

Also, please report your results here in this thread. I will keep the data at that url to keep things simple.

Thanks all.

1 week and no takers...?

I used the benchmark yesterday, and ran it on several diffirent settings.

x264 encoding bench 533 3-3-3-9
x264 encoding bench 533 4-4-4-12
x264 encoding bench 533 5-5-5-15

x264 encoding bench 667 3-3-3-9
x264 encoding bench 667 4-4-4-12
x264 encoding bench 667 5-5-5-15

x264 encoding bench 800 3-3-3-9
x264 encoding bench 800 4-4-4-12
x264 encoding bench 800 5-5-5-15

I ran this benchmark, cause a lot of people always wan to know if its verry use full to buy them selves cas 3 of cas 4 memory, instead of the much cheaper cas 5. And I must say, this benchmark works great! Thumbs up! Great job!

Cool dude, glad you found it useful. That's a nice data set you generated there. Timings aren't such a big deal for x264 I would say based on it. I'll added these data to the table... can you tell me what your northbridge chipset is and also what o/s you ran?

As of 20-Sep-2007, we have data on over 100 Intel-based systems and on over 40 AMD-based systems. There are a few trends I picked-up on while browsing through the database. I put them into a single table and color coded them to make them easier to see. If you see a trend I missed, lemme know and I'll add it to the table.

Request: we don't have a single example of a machine that has both WinXP and WinVista on it. If you have a dual-boot setup, it would be cool to see the difference the O/S makes. Another missing trend is a 32-bit O/S vs. the same O/S that's 64-bit.

On to the table:



Yellow: Nearly 1:1 increase by adding an additional processor to a dual-chip MB
Orange: Some operating systems seem to handle x264 more efficiently than others
Red: Insignificant gain by upping the DRAM speed by 50 %
Blue: For the most part, these chips scale in a pretty linear fashion
Green: Tighter/looser memory timings have a pretty insignificant effect
Purple: Keeping the same over-all clock speed using a different combo of multiplier and FSB can give pretty insignificant gains

Again, I only gave this a once-over look; please point out any trends you see that I missed and also don't forgot about the O/S request!

Thanks again to all who contributed!

Updated the Intel table. It now contains several Yorkfield ES chips including:

Xeon E5330 (Dual board)
Q9550
Q9350

Updated the tables with another 45 nm chip: the QX9650 -- both at stock levels and @ overclocked to 4.2 GHz! With it, and the others (Xeon E5330 (Dual board), Q9550, and Q9350) there is now data on 4 different 45 nm chips.

One thing that I found striking about these new chips is that they are only marginally faster than their 65 nm counterparts when encoding x264 (about 5-6 % faster with all other factors being equal or close to equal). Have a look at the general trends table for the Kentsfield vs. Yorkfield comparison at the official host.