Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
The P67 leads in Lame MP3 encoding, but loses to both Gigabyte and ASRock in iTunes. The difference is trivial and does not correlate to the Z68’s activated internal GPU.
Applications that use Intel’s integrated video decoder benefit greatly from the Z68’s ability to activate it. The P67 instead uses the Nvidia decoder in the above chart.
Curious about both GPU-assisted and software-based encoding and decoding, we tried every combination before presenting the optimized results above. The P67 platform employs Nvidia's CUDA-based encoding in MediaEspresso, but enabling its hardware decoder actually hurt performance. Thus, it was tested using software decode.
On the other hand, Intel’s GPU encoder was only slightly faster than software encoding. The superb performance seen above is mostly due to its extra-powerful decoder. The best transcoding times come from having both enabled.
Anyone lacking either of these features will want to know the transcode time via software-only mode. MediaEspresso slowed to 1:13, while MediaConverter slowed to 1:30. It appears CyberLink has done a better job of optimizing for GPU acceleration.
Relying on software encoding, HandBrake and MainConcept show negligible performance differences between motherboard models.
