AMD fixes HandBrake scaling, Threadripper now up to 215% faster
HandBrake finally uses more Threadripper cores.
AMD says it helped fix two threading bottlenecks in HandBrake, the open-source video transcoding tool. The changes are now part of HandBrake 1.11.0 and newer versions.
The fix targets high-core-count CPUs. AMD found that HandBrake was not scaling properly beyond 64 logical processors. On some systems, this meant that adding more CPU resources did not always make the encode faster. In some lower-resolution tests, performance could even drop by up to 60%.
The second issue was tied to how HandBrake split work across CPU threads. Some jobs were too small, so the CPU spent too much time managing tasks instead of doing the actual transcode. This was seen mainly in 720p workloads, where scheduling overhead can take a larger part of the total processing time.
Source: AMD
Threadripper improvements
According to AMD, the new thread management improves performance by up to 181% on Ryzen Threadripper PRO systems and up to 215% on Ryzen Threadripper systems. AMD tested HandBrake CLI 1.11.1 against HandBrake CLI 1.6.1, with a Radeon RX 9070 XT used in both test platforms.
AMD Threadripper PRO results
- Perfume H.264 720p +181%
- Perfume HEVC 10-bit 2160p +151%
- LG_8K HEVC 8-bit 4320p +149%
- LG 8K 60fps HEVC 10-bit 4320p +145%
- Perfume HEVC 10-bit 1080p +91%
AMD Ryzen Threadripper HEDT results
- Perfume H.264 720p +215%
- LG_8K HEVC 8-bit 4320p +203%
- LG 8K 60fps HEVC 10-bit 4320p +105%
- Perfume HEVC 10-bit 1080p +73%
- Perfume HEVC 10-bit 2160p +63%
On the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX 96-core system, AMD reported gains of up to 181%. On the Ryzen Threadripper 7980X 64-core system, gains ranged from 16% to 215%, depending on the workload. The largest uplift came from the Perfume H.264 720p test.
Now, if only people could actuall afford Threadripper systems…
Source: AMD
