why does the results of x264 benchmark of the new six cores cpu so close to amd x4: AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE -68.95 fps AMD Phenom II X6 1055T -69.09 fps are all 6 cores working very puzzling results anyone???
The x264 HD Benchmark 3.0 doesn't "force" the use of all available cores. It will behave like the actual x264 encoder and use as many cores as possible. However, in some cases (especially with 6 core processors), the cores may not be fully utilized. The purpose of this benchmark is to simulate video encoding using the x264 benchmark. It will give you the actual encoding speed using x264, not what might possibly happen if the processor used all its cores at maximum speed.
it should be mentioned that six cores are not all used with * remark from what i now x264 threads=0 should use all cores
You are not looking at the stock speed of AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE. This is the average result of both at stock speed. AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE 3.2 GHz 44.97 AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8 GHz 48.09 Despite the clock speed differences, 6 core is still faster.
I am looking at stock speed first pass and your example just makes my case 10% 4 fps more that is lame
This is why I'm never a fan of many cores or multithreading. In real life, very few applications take advantage of multi core. But then again, you are looking at clock speed deficit on the 6-core.
Yes, the x264 encoder will use all available cores. But if you monitor the CPU utilization during the benchmark run, you will see that in some cases (very fast multi-core CPUs), the cores are not fully utilized. This is due to some kind of bottleneck, most likely insufficient memory bandwidth. But the fact of the matter is this will be exactly the same situation the real encoder would face.
memory has nothing to do with it the code of x264 is not able to use all 6 cores and should be updated . faac the AAC converter uses 50% of cores on dual core cpus beacuse its code is not uptodate
Are you sure? We specifically updated the benchmark with this version of the x264 encoder (latest version at that time) because it fully supported multi-core processing. Also, I've seen the encoder maximize all cores of a CPU but fails to do that when the same CPU is greatly overclocked. Obviously, the encoder is waiting for something other than the CPU. Yes, we are looking to update the encoder soon, as they continuously make improvements to the encoder. Not necessarily with multi-core processing per se but overall encoding performance. However, we cannot just update at every juncture as this would prevent us from making proper comparisons of the results.
Frankly speaking most applications these days still uses MAXIMUM 4 cores ...Another why is to disable the 2 cores of the X6 and try running the benchmark again, see what results it gives . woo,i should redo the benchmark again XD....running my system @ 3.6Ghz atm ;D
I DONT SEE FOR NOW REAL REASON TO BUY 6 CORES AMD OR INTEL UNTIL I SEE IN MOST benchmarks 40% OR MORE improvement OVER HIGH END QUAD CPUS
Well i would say future proof? it really depends on oneself,i don't really get my hardware base on benchmarking or anything..
I agree. Unfortunately, most apps and games will not be able to make use of the extra cores. The x264 encoder is one of the few apps that can make use of 6 cores but in certain situations, even it cannot fully use all 6 cores.
I'm always of the opinion that the more cores the merrier. It's just one of those things you'll find use for in your own way. To put it simply, it's like comparing 2 cars, assuming they're roughly the same except for a slight increase in price and cost with one having say 30 percent more horsepower, even if you aren't the sort to race around at ungodly hours on empty roads, that extra power is nice to have. Plus, people keep thinking about cores in a single application context, and their performance in a single app. I think we've been multitasking long enough to know that more cores simply allows you to do more, and that's pretty much what I aim for, the ability to do more, comfortably. Getting too old to keep up with benchmarks haha. I just want everything to run smoothly as a trudge away at the PC.
Unlike you, I'm beginning to disable HT on my i7, and I even tried to disable 2 cores just to see how much performance I lose. Surprisingly, it is a very small gap especially on my most commonly used applications, and I hardly do any encoding. The world has moved on, and there IS a replacement for displacement. Turbo charging and super charging is becoming very common on normal road cars today. I'm not saying that dual core and beat quad core at all times, but a fast dual core and beat a slower quad core in many apps and games. Unfortunately, my i7 upgrade makes literally no difference to my daily usage compared with my overclocked C2D E8400. Multithreading apps are still very uncommon today despite the hype many years ago.
