Video
Quality & Performance Comparison
| Feature | Intel Arc (A380/A750) | NVIDIA NVENC (Turing/Ampere/Ada) | AMD AMF (RX 6000/7000 series) | Apple VideoToolbox (M-Series) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H.264 Quality | ⚠️ Decent, sometimes worse than NVENC | ✅ Best hardware H.264 encode | ❌ Worst of the four (soft, blocky at low bitrates) | ✅ Good, slightly worse than NVENC |
| HEVC Quality | 🏆 Best HEVC encoder (great balance of size & quality) | ✅ Good, but slightly worse than Arc & Apple | ❌ Worse than NVENC & Arc | ✅ High efficiency, great file sizes |
| AV1 Encode | ✅ Great AV1 encoder (best file sizes) | ✅ Best AV1 encoder (high quality) | ✅ Better than AMF HEVC, but worse than Intel/NVENC | ❌ No AV1 hardware encoding |
| Encoding Speed | ⚡ Faster than VideoToolbox, slower than NVENC | ⚡ Fastest of all | ⚠️ Slower than NVENC, but improved over past AMF versions | ⚡ Fast, but not as fast as NVENC |
| Power Efficiency | ✅ More efficient than NVENC (~20W) | ❌ High power usage (~40-50W) | ❌ High power draw, less efficient than Arc/NVENC | ✅ Best (low power, passive cooling) |
Best Choice for Transcoding
- 🏆 Best Overall: Intel Arc (A380/A750) → Best HEVC & AV1 quality, best file sizes
- 🔵 Best for NVIDIA Users: NVENC (Turing/Ampere/Ada) → Fastest encoder, great H.264 & AV1
- 🔴 AMD AMF: RX 6000/7000 Series → Still lags behind NVENC & Arc, worst H.264
- 🍏 Best for Mac: Apple VideoToolbox (M-Series) → Good quality, very power efficient
Additional Notes
NVIDIA Architectures & Cards
- Pascal (Quadro P620, P2000, P400, GTX 10-Series) – Better than VideoToolbox, but lacks newer NVENC optimizations
- Turing (RTX 1650 Super, RTX 20-Series, Quadro T-Series) – Best for H.264 encoding, good HEVC
- Ampere (RTX 30-Series, A4000, A5000, A6000) – Good balance of speed & quality
- Ada (RTX 40-Series, RTX 5000 Ada, L40) – Best NVENC performance, great AV1 support
AV1 Encoding
- Best AV1 hardware encoders: NVIDIA Ada (RTX 40-Series) & Intel Arc
- Intel Arc AV1 produces the smallest file sizes but may need tuning for best quality
- AMD AMF AV1 is better than its HEVC encoder but still behind Intel & NVIDIA
Intel Arc (A-Series) has the best hardware HEVC compression, but driver issues can impact performance
AMD AMF has improved but is still behind NVENC and Intel for quality at lower bitrates
Recommended GPUs & Expected Performance
| GPU Model | Encoding Performance | Power Efficiency | Recommended For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Arc A380 | ✅ Excellent AV1 & HEVC | ⚡ Moderate (~20W) | Best quality AV1 & HEVC |
| Intel Arc A750 | ✅ Excellent AV1 & HEVC | ⚡ Moderate (~20W) | Budget AV1 encoding |
| NVIDIA RTX 40-Series (Ada) | 🏆 Best AV1 & H.264 | ❌ High (~40-50W) | Fastest encoding speeds |
| NVIDIA RTX 30-Series (Ampere) | ✅ Great H.264 & HEVC | ❌ High (~40-50W) | Reliable all-around encoding |
| NVIDIA RTX 20-Series (Turing) | ✅ Best H.264 | ⚠️ Moderate (~30W) | Older but solid for H.264 |
| AMD RX 6000/7000 | ⚠️ Slower than NVENC & Arc | ❌ High power draw | Only if no other option |
| Apple M1/M2/M3/M4 | ✅ Good HEVC & H.264 | 🏆 Best (low power) | Mac users needing efficiency |
| Quadro P400/600/620 | ✅ Decent NVENC | ⚠️ Moderate | Budget NVENC encoding |
| Quadro P2000 | ⚠️ Decent but aging | ⚠️ Moderate | Basic NVENC encoding |
| GTX 1060 6GB | ⚠️ Older NVENC | ⚠️ Moderate | Entry-level encoding |
| GTX 1660 SUPER | ✅ Solid NVENC | ⚠️ Moderate | Budget-friendly encoding |