x264 HD Benchmark v3.0

x264 HD Benchmark tests the processor's performance when converting a small 720p HD movie clip into a x264 file. It runs the encoding process four times with two passes on each encoding run and returns results in frames per second (FPS). Since video encoding is done in frames, higher frame rate translates in lower time needed to finish encoding, and in the results table you'll find average results of all eight encoding runs.

Entering AMD territory now, and Phenom II X6 1090T is going for its first kill. Yes, these are simulated benchmarks but the raw performance of six physical cores in 1090T simply cannot be ignored. Beating i7 870 is a great result, giving us a first hint where the strongest points of this processor are.

Handbrake 0.9.4

Handbrake video encoding utility is small, free, easy to use and works great when encoding DVDs to MKV files. For this test the first three chapters of the "U2 Go Home" DVD are encoded to MKV format using the Regular - High preset. It uses x264 codec with AAC audio codec. Needed time in seconds is measured, how long it takes the CPU to encode the video. As you can see from the graphs it scales almost perfectly with multithreaded CPUs.

Again, great results from 1090T, beating all three Core i7 processors, with even bigger margins.

Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate v5.1.26

Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate is great when you need to do a lot of day-to-day small video encoding from one format to another. It has an extremely wide range of encoding presets and supports almost every known video format. For this test the HD H.264/MPEG4 AVC preset is used to encode a 1080p high definition movie trailer clip.

With around the cores at around 30% loaded, 1090T manages to get just a mediocre boost from Turbo Core, just enough to put it in front of X4 955 which is clocked at 3.20 GHz.

DivX Converter 7.2

A long time ago DivX was the format almost everyone used every day and now, finally it’s getting the x264 codec with its 7.2 version. Too little, too late and with bad multithreading support, but still used by a wide range of users.

Similar situation as with Xilisoft Converter, most of the cores sit idle and 1090T has to rely on its Turbo Core feature to push it to the top. Luckily, here the results are much closer to where they should be.