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Transcoder: i7-5775C versus i7-6700K (QuickSync)

I am trying to decide between these 2 CPUs as the basis for building a Wowza server that would be exclusively used for transrating 720p H.264 video from as many live stream sources as the system would support. I have looked at the benchmark page that only describes the Xeon E3-1285 V3 CPU. I don’t think the job necessarily requires a Xeon server CPU as I have 2 servers running successfully on earlier i7 generation chips. I don’t think there is anything particularly special about the Xeon’s transcoding performance compared to the equivalent desktop chips.

The i7-6700K is the latest 6th generation CPU that runs at 3.9Ghz and has the HD Graphics 530 GPU. I believe this is the fastest processor with a built in GPU for QuickSync.

The i7-5775C is only a 5th generation CPU and runs at 3.7Ghz but it has the Iris Pro Graphics 6200 with a massive 128MB eDRAM cache.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that Intel intends to produce a socketed 6th generation processor with the same powerful GPU as the i7-5775C, which is an odd decision.

I have seen benchmarks that are heavily dependent on QuickSync showing similar performance, some tilting towards one processor, some tilting towards the other.

I’m wondering if anyone has advice, or better yet experience, that is specific to the Wowza transcoder that would indicate one would be a better choice than the other. I don’t have the financial resources to build both systems and figure it out for myself!

Hi,

It’s hard to propose one over the other. The benchmark page is still a good starting point for determining transcoder performance. You can see that a server with a high spec CPU (server 8 in the matrix) can comfortably handle a large number of transcodes in “default” (i.e. CPU-only) mode. GPU acceleration using QuickSync is most beneficial when the CPU horsepower (and expense) isn’t available.

Paul