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What Handbrake encode performance do you get (mainly i5 2500K users but others welcome)

mrk

mrk

mrk

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I'm looking at near future upgrade options and since my SSD and RAM are now in place I reckon it's going to be the CPU....maybe, although GFX is due an update.

Anyway, up until now I have been encoding BluRays to 720p for my LAN as I don't really require full 1080p just to watch a movie while sat way back (big room :p) on the living room TV as I find 720p just as good but having received Frozen Planet BDs this week I started using 1080p as it deserves it!

I'm using the latest Handbrake and have opted for x264 encoding @ 12Mbps (fixed) and AC3 passthrough for so I imagine audio encoding won't have any hit, but so far during the encode I have been getting an encoding fps of 19.4 average and the actual rate varies anywhere from 15 to 24 so a 48 minute episode took just under an hour to encode.

I've only attempted 1080p encodes previously on my Q9550 and that would have taken 2~ hours for a similar output.

My 2500K is at 4.3GHz and the cores are 100% maxed during encoding so are being fully utilised. Temps are 60-61 max during this time and I can comfortably use my PC to browse the net and watch movies/iPlayer etc no problems, it actually doesn't feel like the CPUs are being maxed at all which I thought was surprising.

What are others on 2500K getting? I'd be interested in hearing what people with i7s and the new SB-e chips are getting as well :)

I'm happy with almost realtime encoding speeds but if a small bump in CPU upgrades can improve it 25% or more then I'd be up for a little upgrade I guess. I don't want to overclock the chip any more as I find 4.3GHz to be an ideal speed for stability, temps and performance combined.

Cheers!
 
Yeah 720p is no problem, I get at least double/triple realtime using the normal h264 profile. I'm looking for comparisons of 1080p encodes, not cropped either, just pure 1920x1080. I'm also using the normal profile for the 1080p h264 encode but the only custom bits being the 12Mbps video bitrate and the AC3 passthrough audio.
 
Hmm QuickSync looks good, I can grab a copy of MC but how do I enable my 2500K to utilise it?

I checked out samples of my encode and the BD original and I can't really tell any difference at all between the two so Handbrake is certainly doing an accurate job or the encode.
 
Ok cool, I've just tried MC 7.1 and it seems fast but there's no log or queue window to see exactly how fast...and also there's nowhere near the amount of customisation like title selection/naming etc that makes Handbrake so useful and excellent.

Sorting out a sample now :)
 
Greg0986 said:
What container are you using? MP4 or MKV?
Click to expand...

MKV.

Here's the sample btw, I cropped this section from the ripped m2ts stream using TSSplitter:
http://robbiekhan.co.uk/root/temp/00001.m2ts (32MB).

And here's the preset I am using, exported:
http://robbiekhan.co.uk/root/temp/test.plist
^Just to to Preset > Import to use it. This way our comparison will use the same parameters.

I converted it just now to start off:
handbrake_avg.jpg
 
Haha thanks :-P

I tried out mc7 too last night and didn't like the choppy playback, it l
was like as if it encoded or all wrong.

Handbrake seems best so far! Might be slower but at least IQ is sublime.
 
2600k has 8 threads I think yep?


The fps difference isn't as large as I was thinking it would be going by those! Although that is stock^^
 
My 2500k is not stock, it's at 4.3GHz but I guess the difference is the extra threads available to the 2600K+ chips!

I wonder how the AMDs do in it
 
drunkenmaster said:
Potentially, with certain options Handbrake only uses 3 thread, afaik the classic benchmark for it pass one uses 3 threads, pass 2 uses either up to 8, or as many as it can, I'm not sure which.

How you overclock a sandy is fairly important. Mrk, have you played with the TDP settings at all in the bios.

I'm running what I think is around 4.4Ghz(cpu-z is saying 3.3Ghz, the not always accurate Asrock overclocking tool says 4.4Ghz, its crashed a couple times recently, can't reboot at the moment to check bios settings as they may have reset.

Either way I'm getting 28.37fps average on that file with that preset on latest Handbrake, sorry thats a 2500k.

What is going to be fairly important to work out is, what hdd/ssd are you running and these guys. First run was closer to 26fps on a raid 0 drive i downloaded the file to, second faster run I did starting and finishing on my SSD, so that's given me pretty much a 10% boost just from doing that.

After running it, it definitely uses 4 threads and would imagine more judging from the 2600k results.

It's faster, but not massively so, personally I wouldn't spend the money on an upgrade unless you literally spend all day encoding, if you set a bunch going overnight it will finish before you wake up anyway be it a 2500k or 2600k.
Click to expand...

TDP settings? I have a P67A-G45-B3 so there are plenty of options and I spent weeks playing around before settling on 4.3GHz for the best balance of performance, silence and thermals. I have 16GB of RAM which is at its stock 1600MHz speed. I do not wish to change my BIOS settings any further as they are perfect tbh.

The test was done on a Force 3 120GB SSD and I only did one run and closed no background apps such as STEAM/Origin etc.
 
Orcvader said:
Damnit, how come yours was slow enough for Handbrake to report the Average FPS? Mine keeps saying 000.0 and a split second after the encode's done... I'm going to try rerun this a few times now...
Click to expand...

Did the file actually encode then? the output gas a filesize and can play?

Edit*

looool!
 
Last edited:
Those are not BluRay sources either though, you'd be transcoding from one lossy format to a near lossless format, my Op was referring to transcoding actual BluRay sources to mkv contained h264 videos!
 
Hmm so a requirement for a standard profile and standard media file large enough to get a decent average figure at the end of it.


Hmmmm.
 
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