Simply put, x264 HD Benchmark is a reproducible measure of fast your machine can encode a short HD-quality video clip into a high quality x264 video file. It's nice because everyone running it will use the same video clip and software. The video encoder (x264.exe) reports a fairly accurate internal benchmark (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encode and it also uses multi-core processors very efficiently. All these factors make this an ideal benchmark to compare different processors and systems to each other.

You'll notice that the whole thing is pretty simplistic since I have no programming skills to speak of. The test simply consists of the needed executables and the video file all driven by a batch file that'll kick off the x264 encode and write a "results.txt" that you can upload along with your machine specs for omparison purposes.

The new x264 encoder supports the following features :
1. 8x8 and 4x4 adaptive spatial transform
2. Adaptive B-frame placement
3. B-frames as references / arbitrary frame order
4. CAVLC/CABAC entropy coding
5. Custom quantization matrices
6. Intra: all macroblock types (16x16, 8x8, 4x4, and PCM with all predictions)
7. Inter P: all partitions (from 16x16 down to 4x4)
8. Inter B: partitions from 16x16 down to 8x8 (including skip/direct)
9. Interlacing (MBAFF)
10. Multiple reference frames
11. Ratecontrol: constant quantizer, constant quality, single or multipass ABR, optional VBV
12. Scenecut detection
13. Spatial and temporal direct mode in B-frames, adaptive mode selection
14. Parallel encoding on multiple CPUs
15. Predictive lossless mode
16. Psy optimizations for detail retention (adaptive quantization, psy-RD, psy-trellis)
17. Zones for arbitrarily adjusting bitrate distribution

Do note that we intend to 'freeze' this version to use only revision 1342 of the x264 encoder so that all results using this benchmark can be compared with each other. Changing the x264 encoder every time there is a new update will skew the results as each version performs differently.
However, we will periodically update the compilation with the latest CPU-Z to allow for more accurate reporting of the CPU features as CPU-Z does not affect the results.
We will perform another major update of the benchmark when improvements in the x264 encoder are significant enough to warrant a new revision, and a new slew of results.

Limitations: Requires AVISynth

The license of this software is Freeware, you can free download and free use this diagnostic software.