Video Processing

To test the processors performance during work with video content we used three tests: transcoding of an HD MPEG-2 video into H.264 format using x264 codec, transcoding of an HD MPEG-2 video for viewing on Apple iPhone using Cyberlink MediaShow 5 and exporting of a video clip into H.264 Blu-ray format in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 video editor.

These three different applications for video content creation and processing have one thing in common: they are all well optimized for multi-threading. Therefore, the more cores (preferably real, rather than virtual ones created by Hyper-Threading technology) there are, the better. That is why in these tests Core i5 and Core i3 from the new Clarkdale family lose to the “real” quad-core Phenom II X4 and Core 2 Quad. However, it is due to Hyper-Threading technology that these processors indisputable defeat not only the dual-core Core 2 Duo and Phenom II X2, but even a triple-core Athlon II X3. Pentium G6950 without Hyper-Threading support performs pretty weakly here, even though it is also a Clarkdale.