Intel Core i5-760 and ECS P55H-AK Review

Media Encoding (CPU/GPU)

Video Encoding
Our first media encoding test uses the latest CS5 software from Adobe. This software accesses all of the cores/threads available on our processors and is therefore an ideal application for media enthusiasts. To test performance we run a 1920×1080 file (custom recording) through the encoder set to 1080p 24 HQ using the H.264 Blu-Ray codec within the application.

GPU computing is something which is fast becoming a very important feature on "video" cards. NVIDIA and their partners have released a number of useful utilities for CUDA enabled cards which all help to enhance the performance of day to day tasks. One such program is Badaboom, a small utility which allows us to convert content from one video format to another with assistance from the GPU. NVIDIA are not on their own in this area though as ATI have their own application for video conversion, Avivo Video Convertor which is bundled with their drivers and is free. Using Avivo Video Convertor we converted a short high quality AVI file to the best quality iPod format.

Music Encoding
Our music conversion test takes an 18 track lossless album and converts it using dBpoweramp into 128Kbps Mp3 format. dBpoweramp is a multi-threaded application which allows us to convert a track on each core/thread, at any one time.

In our encoding tests we see a change in performance leadership for video encoding. The six cores on the Phenom CPU allow it to complete the conversion a little over 30 seconds ahead of the i5-760. The same performance order occurs in the music encoding test as well, although when an album is completing its conversion in 50 seconds regardless of the CPU used it is hard not to be impressed.