DivX 6.8 Encoding

Website: Divx.com

We tested video encoding performance using VirtualDub-MPEG version 1.6.15 and DivX 6.8 with multi-threading enabled and SSE2 or SSE4 enabled where appropriate. We did a two-pass encode of a 15-minute 276MB MPEG-2 digital TV recording with a target file size of 100MB.

While this benchmark does use SSE4, which is currently unique to Intel's 45nm processors, the latest DivX 6.8 has enhanced multi-threading support and also uses SSE2 enhancements, which applies to all of the processors tested.

Although Intel has admitted to bit-tech that it throws out some "best case scenario" numbers to the press, we took our usual MPEG-2 digital TV recording that we use for our XviD tests and DivXed it instead using the same VirtualDub we always do.



DivX 6.8 uses the SSE4 extensions present in the Intel 45nm Penryn CPUs, so Wolfdale is optimised to use this feature which, in addition to its larger cache and larger memory bandwidth, helps it quite significantly. This is to a point where again all these features see the Wolfdales at the top of the pack.

The general rule of thumb was that more cores were still better - the 65nm quad-core Intel CPUs outperform the 65nm dual core parts.

Article Addendum, 9th April 2008: After reviewing the Phenom B3's we realised that the original data for the Phenom X4 9600 and 9500 in this article was false and we have retested them.

AutoMKV x264 Encoding

Website: Doom9

We tested x264 compression using AutoMKV version 0.90 and x264 to to compress a 1.1GB DVD VOB file into 350MB MP4 file using a two-pass encode and we used a 112kbps LAME encoder to compress the audio. The whole process is dependent on both single and multi-core performance and the entire encoding time was recorded.

There's quite a shift to using MKV or MP4 wrappers for x264 content now, especially for movie content and those in the large anime fansubbing community. x264 doesn't have the same SSE enhancements as DivX 6.8, but the benefits of extra cache and better memory performance should still show notable improvements.


x264 encoding doesn't have the SSE4 optimisation like DivX 6.8 does, although it is still multi-threaded. Here the quad-core CPUs are still greatly favoured--all of which massively outperform the dual-core parts. Of those dual-core parts though, the Wolfdale chips are pretty much at the top of the pack, making better use of the available memory bandwidth and extra cache.