Media Encoding Tests
LAME 3.97a MT MP3 Encoder

This version of the LAME MP3 encoder is multi-threaded and takes advantage of two threads. 

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 102

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 103

Our LAME 3.97a MP3 encoder has been around for a long time and is really only dual-treaded and as such we don’t even see performance gains going from the dual-core E8500 CPU to any quad core part.  The results are basically based on clock rate at this point so the E8500 is actually running faster than all but two other processors!


Windows Media Encoder x64

WME is a great video encoding application that supports WMV9 HD codecs and more.

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 104

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 105

We have also obviously met our limit in the threadability of the Windows Media Encoder application as we see almost no performance gains going from the QX9770 to the Core i7-965 EE processor.  The entire line of Core i7 CPUs do perform very well but just do not stand out from the existing quad-core CPUs. 


VirtualDub

VirtualDub is a great application for just about any kind of video conversion but our testing we are using the DivX codec to shrink a collection of videos.

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 106

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 107

Our VirtualDub test uses the latest DivX codec and as such is able to take advantage of some of the additional horsepower the Core i7 series provides.  The new i7-965 EE is able to encoding our entire series of Clone Wars cartoons about 27% faster than the QX9770 and even the lowest frequency Core i7 920 is able to best the QX9770 as well. 



Handbrake

Known mainly for its DVD re-encoding prowess, our test uses the Handbrake command line interface.

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 108

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 109

Handbrake is another application that can utilize the additional threads that the Core i7 provides and we see a solid 36% increase in speed going from the QX9770 to the i7-965 EE. 


WinRAR 3.80

Though a stretch to be called a ‘media encoding’ test, the WinRAR benchmark is responsible for testing compression speed.

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 110

Nehalem Revolution: Intel's Core i7 Processor Complete Review - Processors 111

WinRAR is obviously much more sensitive to the clock rate of the CPU than anything else as is evident by incredibly fast score of the Core 2 E8500 processor running at 3.16 GHz. 

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