Intel is the first GPU manufacturer to offer AV1 encoding capabilities in its Arc graphics range. Thanks to YouTuber EposVox, who tested the technology on an Arc A380 graphics card, we were lucky enough to see the coding in action. The YouTuber found AV1 to be very effective for video streams that produce low bitrates. It outperforms all H.264 hardware encoders, such as the NVENC encoder from competitor NVIDIA.
Intel AV1 Encoder outperforms NVIDIA’s rival NVENC H.264 video codec
Many YouTube videos that are viewed daily have adopted the new AV1 encoding, especially in the last few years of development. Intel’s AV1 video encoding was originally developed by the Alliance for Open Media as a free, open source video encoding format in 2015. The format is revolutionary in theory and is free, allowing it to be more accessible for use by consumers over the Internet. AV1 produces smaller file sizes than the H.264 format, offering significantly greater compression capability.
Over the past few years, AV1 has been increasingly adopted in video streaming platforms and used more widely in graphics card architectures such as the NVIDIA RTX 30 series, AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, and more recently in Intel’s iGPUs. Sony has also integrated the technology into the PlayStation 4 Pro gaming console system.
In content creation, especially streaming, AV1 has not seen full use, even with video encoding available. Current graphics engines do not offer support for AV1 encoders. With software assistance, the system’s processor can use the AV1 codec. However, hardware that can properly accelerate AV1 encoding has never been developed, with the exception of Intel’s latest Arc graphics cards.
In the video above, EposVox put Intel’s AV1 encoder and tested the technology against several H.264 encoders. Included in the tests were AMD’s AMF, Intel’s Quick Sync, NVIDIA NVENC, and software options available in streaming packages such as OBS streaming software.
The YouTuber uses Netflix’s VMAF comparison tool, which allows the user to analyze video quality with a score from 0 (which would be considered unwatchable) to 100 (the best video quality imaginable). The benchmark compares video quality to uncompressed video and is tested at 3.5MBps, 6MBps and 8MBps.
The video used is footage from the game Battlefield 2042. At 3.5MBps, Intel’s AV1 video encoder scored 83 points, while at 6MBps it reached 90 out of 100 available points. On the other hand, NVIDIA NVENC scored 71 at 3.5MBps, but 8MBps achieved 85 points. AMD and its AMF encoder were similar to NVIDIA, and Intel’s Quick Sync encoder reached 76 and 87, respectively. Intel currently uses the Quick Sync encoder on the Alder Lake platform.
The benchmark test produced by EposVox shows that the Intel AV1 video codec has sixteen percent better performance than NVIDIA and AMD.
OBS offered surprising results with its H.264 software-based preset encoder, x264 VerySlow. The integrated software offers 78 points at 3.5 MBps and 88 at 6MBps. However, for streaming, this is not a usable format, so streamers should avoid the setup altogether.
As EposVox has educated users on streaming in general, it should be noted that 3.5 MBps is more accessible to viewers and the sweet spot when using Intel and AV1 encoding. It produces more affordable stream quality while using fewer resources than competing companies.
News Sources: Tom’s Hardware
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