Question Handbrake 1.3.3 - Benchmark your System - COMPLETE Overhaul of the test

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Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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A little background...
Handbrake is a ubiquitous encoding application and happens to be one that makes good use of multicore/thread CPU's when encoding x265. x265 is a widely used and efficient compression scheme that requires significant compute to encode. While hardware encoders are faster, at the same bitrates, CPU (software) encode produces better video quality. Of course this assumes the use of lower bitrates as quality for both hardware and software encodes will be indistinguishable at higher bitrates. But the point of the video encode is to get good quality at low bitrates so we are therefore testing software encode.

fps/GHz/core is a representation of how efficient a given CPU core is at encoding the test file using the x265 format. The number is arrived at by multiplying the number of physical cores by the average frequency they are running at and then dividing by the fps from the Handbrake test. It tells us for a given core how many fps can this core encode the test if it was running at 1GHz. We could consider this an "IPC" of sorts for this test but strictly speaking this would be closer to the word "throughput." And as you know many around here are indeed strict with terminology so I will avoid the word IPC at it denotes Instructions Per Cycle and that is not actually what we are measuring.

Some people will go "all out" and try and run their system as close to the limit as possible and others (like me) just run at stock. All of the data is valuable and informative as long as it is collected from each person in the same manner and there for comparable.

I went through all of the results and created a new table. In respecting everyone's time who participated in the old data I am keeping that data on the 2nd page of this post.

Here's the test file: https://4kmedia.org/lg-new-york-hdr-uhd-4k-demo/


1. Use the following version of Handbrake with the built-in h.265 mkv 2160p60 preset
HandBrake-1.3.3-x86_64-Win_GUI.exe
Don't forget to turn on logging in Handbrake so you can retrieve your time. Tools>Preferences>Advanced>Logging
Once this current version is replaced you'll be able to access this version from the following link.
HandBrake: Nightly Builds
Nightly builds of HandBrake
handbrake.fr

2. Report your encoding time, average CPU frequency, and Package Power. If you have a hybrid CPU you can turn off the E's in the BIOS. For E testing turn off all P's except one in the BIOS, clock it down to 800MHz, and then shut it down with Process Lasso. Or just report your score with 1 P at 800MHz and let me know you did that so I can subtract out that P core's (minor) contribution to the encode.

Here's how to report your average clock and package power so we are all doing it the same way.
Handbrake does some housekeeping right after you start encode and when the progress bar gets to 100%.
This could result in lower than actual average clock.
After you start the encode, wait a few seconds until you see the green Handbrake bar appear, then reset the HWinfo counter.
At the end don't wait to grab the screen shot at 100%, just do it sometime after about 95%.

3. CPU Model, and RAM specs
 

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Hail The Brain Slug

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2005
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Got the Optimus block running - Redid the overclock and test.

5950x
4.725 GHz all core overclock
3.960 GHz average effective clockspeed
3800CL16 1:1

encoded 1806 frames in 118.32s (15.26 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
 

tamz_msc

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2017
3,865
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i5-1135G7
2447 MHz average effective clockspeed
99.2% average cpu suage
DDR4-2133CL15
encoded 1806 frames in 850.77s (2.12 fps), 11799.19 kb/s, Avg QP:29.12
 
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mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
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CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
2x16GB DDR4-3200 22-22-22-52
work: average encoding speed for job is 2.353729 fps
encoded 1806 frames in 775.01s (2.33 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
2712 Mhz effective CPU clock speed

It does not use AVX512 by the way, Tigerlake could perform like 3-4% faster using AVX512.
 

tamz_msc

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Jan 5, 2017
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CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
2x16GB DDR4-3200 22-22-22-52
work: average encoding speed for job is 2.353729 fps
encoded 1806 frames in 775.01s (2.33 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
2712 Mhz effective CPU clock speed

It does not use AVX512 by the way, Tigerlake could perform like 3-4% faster using AVX512.
Interesting to note that your average effective clock speed went below the base frequency while mine didn't.
 

mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
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Interesting to note that your average effective clock speed went below the base frequency while mine didn't.

The effective clock speed is a bit under the base because of the first and last seconds when it isn't fully loaded and the CPU utilization overall is like 98-99%. If you deactivate your CPU Turbo your effective CPU speed should be a bit lower than the base. I did disable the CPU Turbo because it's easier for a stable performance testing.
 

tamz_msc

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Jan 5, 2017
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The effective clock speed is a bit under the base because of the first and last seconds when it isn't fully loaded and the CPU utilization overall is like 98-99%. If you deactivate your CPU Turbo your effective CPU speed should be a bit lower than the base. I did disable the CPU Turbo because it's easier for a stable performance testing.
How do you disable turbo boost? I don't think my BIOS has an option to do that.
 

mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
4,287
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CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
2x16GB DDR4-3200 22-22-22-52
work: average encoding speed for job is 2.353729 fps
encoded 1806 frames in 775.01s (2.33 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
2712 Mhz effective CPU clock speed

It does not use AVX512 by the way, Tigerlake could perform like 3-4% faster using AVX512.


Actually the AVX512 speedup is a bit higher in this test.

AVX512 (asm=avx512)
CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz
2x16GB DDR4-3200 22-22-22-52
work: average encoding speed for job is 2.516485 fps
encoded 1806 frames in 722.67s (2.50 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
2700 Mhz effective CPU clock speed
Total CPU Usage ~96.2% average
 
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Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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tamz_msc and mikk

What laptop models do you guys have? I think it might be nice to have that info in the chart.

mikk,

I'm not quite following the avx thing. Is there a way to enable this in Handbrake? Could you bring me up to speed on this?
 

mikk

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May 15, 2012
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tamz_msc and mikk

What laptop models do you guys have? I think it might be nice to have that info in the chart.

mikk,

I'm not quite following the avx thing. Is there a way to enable this in Handbrake? Could you bring me up to speed on this?


Yes it can be enabled in the video tab with the parameter asm=avx512

It's disabled by default, at least on Tigerlake. I have a Dell Inspiron 15 7506.
 

tamz_msc

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Jan 5, 2017
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tamz_msc and mikk

What laptop models do you guys have? I think it might be nice to have that info in the chart.

mikk,

I'm not quite following the avx thing. Is there a way to enable this in Handbrake? Could you bring me up to speed on this?
I'll do a run later today with AVX512 enabled. My laptop model is a HP 14s-dr2006tu.
 

tamz_msc

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Jan 5, 2017
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Looks like AVX512 gives worse performance due to downclocking:

encoded 1806 frames in 899.81s (2.01 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
Average effective clock speed: 1970 MHz
Total CPU usage: 89% average

But on the flipside IPC or in this case PPC(performance per core) per gigahertz is 0.255, which I believe is the highest so far.

Edit: @Hulk could you add my and @mikk's AVX512 scores as a separate bar in the chart?
 
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dr1337

Senior member
May 25, 2020
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Ive been tweaking my work rig today so I figured I'd give this a go for funsies

5600x all stock with the stock cooler
16gb cl16 running at 3800mhz
Avg. Effective clock 3798 mhz
Avg. total CPU usage 96.8%
Results: encoded 1806 frames in 330.50s (5.46 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
 

Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Looks like AVX512 gives worse performance due to downclocking:

encoded 1806 frames in 899.81s (2.01 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09
Average effective clock speed: 1970 MHz
Total CPU usage: 89% average

But on the flipside IPC or in this case PPC(performance per core) per gigahertz is 0.255, which I believe is the highest so far.

Edit: @Hulk could you add my and @mikk's AVX512 scores as a separate bar in the chart?

Done.
Your efficiency score seems really high compared to the other Tiger Lake and my Kaby Lake R w/wo AVX512. Can you double check that?

And yes, AVC512 loads the heck out of the cores and for laptop systems, which are already thermally constrained the situation gets worse.
I took my Surface Laptop 2 into my 40 degree F garage and the clock went up a few hundred MHz. Then I enabled AVX but couldn't hold the same clock so my score ended up about the same.
My Kaby Lake R is 5% more efficient with this test using AVX512.

One thing I'm wondering is the value in purchasing products higher in the stack for laptops, which as I wrote above are thermally constrained.

Let's consider the following CPUs.
downupmax
1135G79002.404.20
1165G71.22.804.70

In a laptop that can let's say dissipate 15W how much faster under full load with all cores loaded will the 1165 operate vs the 1165? Or will they both be constrained at the same point?
Now I realize that the higher binned 1165 should have a voltage/frequency curve that allows for higher frequency at lower voltage and hopefully power but who knows if you are really getting what you are paying for?

I would assume the single core clocks are more attainable since less power overall needs to be dissipated. But again no one seems to test this with two identical laptops, one with fastest CPU and one with slowest.
 

tamz_msc

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@Hulk, the efficiency is high because the clock speed is so low, though you're right I should double-check and will probably do so if time permits.

The main reason for downclocking is the fact that this is an all-core load, which is not what you'd want while running AVX-512, and the fact that tau on my laptop is set pretty aggressively. Too bad I can't disable Turbo Boost like @mikk can on his Inspiron.
 

Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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@Hulk,
The main reason for downclocking is the fact that this is an all-core load, which is not what you'd want while running AVX-512, and the fact that tau on my laptop is set pretty aggressively. Too bad I can't disable Turbo Boost like @mikk can on his Inspiron.

I'm sorry to be a drag but I'm not totally following here. Can you break it down for me a bit more please?
 

mikk

Diamond Member
May 15, 2012
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And yes, AVC512 loads the heck out of the cores and for laptop systems, which are already thermally constrained the situation gets worse.
I took my Surface Laptop 2 into my 40 degree F garage and the clock went up a few hundred MHz. Then I enabled AVX but couldn't hold the same clock so my score ended up about the same.
My Kaby Lake R is 5% more efficient with this test using AVX512.


Kabylake shouldn't be there in the AVX512 list because it does not support AVX512, it's just for Icelake-U, Tigerlake-U or Skylake-X. You can check this in the log:

x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast LZCNT SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 BMI2 AVX2

This is what you should get on a Skylake based device. And this is Tigerlake-U:

x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast LZCNT SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 BMI2 AVX2 AVX512
 

Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Kabylake shouldn't be there in the AVX512 list because it does not support AVX512, it's just for Icelake-U, Tigerlake-U or Skylake-X. You can check this in the log:

x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast LZCNT SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 BMI2 AVX2

This is what you should get on a Skylake based device. And this is Tigerlake-U:

x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast LZCNT SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 BMI2 AVX2 AVX512

I know AVX2 is basically half the speed of AVX512 so that's what's going on here right?

x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast LZCNT SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 BMI2 AVX2
 
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tamz_msc

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I'm sorry to be a drag but I'm not totally following here. Can you break it down for me a bit more please?
Tau refers to the amount of time the CPU spends in PL2 before dropping to PL1. It is a part of Intel's TDP spec and is set by OEMs depending on the thermal capabilities of the laptop/desktop design. In DIY space motherboards, especially high end ones, typically ignore it, allowing you to run at PL2 all the time as required.
 
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Noid

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Sep 20, 2000
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encoded 1806 frames in 170.10s (10.62 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09

5900X
2x16 32GB 3800 Cas18

This is BOOST mode.

I think an All Core test should be next.
 

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Hulk

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,100
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85.9 percent
encoded 1806 frames in 170.10s (10.62 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09

5900X
2x16 32GB 3800 Cas18

This is BOOST mode.

As you can see in my screenshot avg core speed is 4.2 GHz.

I think an All Core test should be next.

Thanks for submitting your score. We're reporting average effective clock not average clock. Reset just after Handbrake starts encoding and then report the average effective clock value right before it finishes encoding. Would you mind doing this?
 

Noid

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Sep 20, 2000
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encoded 1806 frames in 170.24s (10.61 fps), 11820.04 kb/s, Avg QP:29.09

Average Effective Clock screenshot at 93% done.

Which " average " column number you want ... is questionable....
Averages ... of averages ... are not accurate.

This test is not pushing the limits of this chip.

I'm expecting an ALL core OC of 4.65 GHz
( not testing yet )
Will submit when All Core found.

( this is a BOOST score )
 

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