QuickSync Benchmarks

About QuickSync Benchmarks

What is this?

This is a community-driven database of Intel Quick Sync Video benchmark results. Quick Sync is Intel's hardware video encoding/decoding technology built into most Intel CPUs since Sandy Bridge (2nd generation).

The benchmarks test hardware transcoding performance using FFmpeg inside a Jellyfin container, measuring:

  • FPS - Frames per second throughput
  • Watts - Power consumption during encoding
  • Speed - Real-time multiplier (2x = twice real-time)
  • Efficiency - FPS per watt (calculated)

Test Types

Test Description
h264_1080p_cpu CPU-only H.264 encode (baseline comparison)
h264_1080p Quick Sync H.264 encode at 1080p
h264_4k Quick Sync H.264 encode at 4K
hevc_8bit Quick Sync HEVC 8-bit encode at 1080p
hevc_4k_10bit Quick Sync HEVC 10-bit encode at 4K

Running the Benchmark

To contribute your own results:

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ironicbadger/quicksync_calc.git
cd quicksync_calc

2. Run the benchmark

# Run benchmark (results upload automatically)
./quicksync-benchmark.sh

# Run with your identifier to track your submissions
QUICKSYNC_ID="my_homelab" ./quicksync-benchmark.sh

# Skip result upload
QUICKSYNC_NO_SUBMIT=1 ./quicksync-benchmark.sh

Requirements

  • Docker
  • Intel CPU with Quick Sync support
  • intel-gpu-tools package (for power measurement)
  • jq (for JSON parsing)
  • bc (for calculations)

CPU Score Methodology

Each CPU receives an overall score (0-100) calculated from three weighted components:

Component Weight Description
Performance 40% Percentile rank of average FPS compared to all CPUs for each test type
Efficiency 35% Percentile rank of FPS per watt (energy efficiency)
Codec Support 25% Percentage of available test types the CPU has completed

Formula: Score = (Performance × 0.40) + (Efficiency × 0.35) + (Codec Support × 0.25)

Score Interpretation

  • 90-100 - Excellent: Top tier performance and efficiency
  • 70-89 - Good: Above average across most metrics
  • 50-69 - Average: Typical performance for its generation
  • 30-49 - Below Average: Limited in some areas
  • 0-29 - Limited: Older or constrained hardware

Note: Scores are calculated dynamically and updated automatically as new benchmark results are submitted. Percentile rankings are relative to all CPUs in the database.

Hardware Codec Support

Not all Intel CPUs support all codecs. Here's a quick reference:

Architecture H.264 HEVC 8-bit HEVC 10-bit AV1
Kaby Lake - Comet Lake (7-10th) ✓ ✓ - -
Tiger Lake - Raptor Lake (11-14th) ✓ ✓ ✓ decode only
Arc GPUs ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake (Ultra) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

Privacy

This project collects only:

  • CPU model - Hardware information, not personally identifiable
  • Benchmark metrics - FPS, watts, speed
  • Submitter ID (optional) - Your chosen identifier for filtering your results

IP addresses are used transiently for rate limiting only and are never stored. No cookies, no tracking, no personal data.