AutoMKV x264 Encoding

Website: Doom9

We tested x264 compression using AutoMKV version 0.97.1 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.

Handbrake H.264 Encoding

Website: HandBrake

Our test uses Handbrake - an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows - to encode a high resolution MPEG-2 video using the H.264 codec. This primarily tests multi-threaded CPU and memory subsystem performance.


Windows 7 is faster in AutoMKV by several seconds, but is back slower again in Handbrake x.264 encoding. Just like the previous tests the Windows 7 Beta gives a mixed result.

Mulitasking Performance

Website: MPC-HC
Website: 7Zip

To run multiple applications well you need a powerful (ideally multi-core) CPU and plenty of RAM. Our multitasking test performs a massive file backup (with encryption) using 7Zip, while simultaneously playing back a HD movie file using Media Player Classic, making it a seriously demanding test for any PC.


In the multi-tasking test, Windows 7 is a slightly meaty 11 percent faster here than Vista, which could indicate some thread assigning optimisation within the CPU core, but that doesn't necessarily translate into out and out multi-threading improvements.