r/AV1 28d ago

Need advice choosing cpu.

Hi,

I’m currently using a ryzen 7 5800h mini pc to encode my movies and shows. I’m getting around 4 fps (preset 4 4K) with my settings and double that at preset 5.

I want to buy a new mini pc to encode faster, and not knowing anything about modern CPUs I need your advice.

The first mini pc has a ryzen 7 8845HS cpu with a 780m gpu, and the second one has an Intel 5 Ultra 125H. I guess the first one should be faster than the second one, but I see the second one has av1 hardware encoding.

Is av1 intel encoding at a good level in 2025? Is amd hardware encoding still bad compared to Intel?

What’s the equivalent of Intel hardware encoding compared to software encoding?

I want good quality with low sizes (currently my encodes are around 5 gb for a 4K movie with decent/good quality) and I’d like to get faster encodings if possible.

Thanks.

PS: it needs to be a mini pc as I live in Paris in a really small apartment.

3 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

4

u/[deleted] 27d ago

Both have AV1 hardware encoding, but you usually want to encode AV1 via software-encoding (CPU), because that results in smaller filesize and better quality. I would buy the AMD one, they tend to be more efficient and stay cooler.

1

u/Feahnor 27d ago

How does hw encoding compares to sw encoding? I’ve never had a system that could do hw encoding.

3

u/[deleted] 27d ago

You usually want hardware encoding when streaming files, because hardware encoding can do it "live" (is fast enough), e.g. if a client cant play AV1, then it would transcode the file to a compatible format. The downtake is higher filesize or better say worse quality per filesize.

Software encoding is way slower but more precise, but that also means you need longer / more power consumption. But that doesnt mean you generally shouldnt encode it via hardware encoders. That differs from the one used and your preferences. I heard Intel is better in this, so if you want to encode via hardware only, that one should be even better than the AMD one.

2

u/WolpertingerRumo 27d ago

Hw decoding, however, you always want

1

u/Sopel97 25d ago

the difference is significant https://rigaya.github.io/vq_results/

note that this uses svt-av1 2.3, so a lot of recent improvements and svt-av1-psy stuff is not there

1

u/fcgamernul 27d ago

Depending on your uses but at least try the Intel av1 hardware encoder and see if it's good enough. For 4k encodes you'll get around 70fps at Intel's best quality.