AMD Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-Series: Three CPUs tested!

Handbrake H264

Handbrake H264 performance is strong from Threadripper Pro, given the high core counts.

But the hierarchy of performance is not particularly positive as a single instance of Handbrake simply cannot saturate 64-or-more threads for our X264 workload.

Handbrake H265

And that is even more the case for H265 conversion, whereby our specific task really struggles to saturate 32-thread and higher CPUs.

Of course, if you have different source media, then this may be a different equation for you.

In this scenario, the obvious solution is to run multiple instances of Handbrake for the video conversion tasks. And this is something that I have done successfully for many years of using Threadripper systems.

Spooling up multiple instances of Handbrake doesn’t improve individual conversion time, per say. But it does allow more conversions to be completed in a given timeframe, thus increasing the work queue throughput.

7-Zip Compression and Decompression

7-Zip performance is incredibly strong, despite being limited to 64 threads of operation. Here, the ludicrously-high memory bandwidth is helping alongside the sizable number of cores and ample cache.

The performance improvement from the 16-core Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X to the 24-core Zen 3 Threadripper Pro 5965WX emphasises my previous point about the platform-wide scenarios whereby workstation-grade hardware can show value.

Once again, 7-Zip being limited to 64-threads gives ample opportunity for this workload to run close to full speed whilst also running another hefty workload at the same time.

For example, we ran two instances of Handbrake with different conversion tasks alongside 7-Zip.

While none of these workloads saturate 128 threads by themselves, combined they can force full utilisation of the 64-core Threadripper Pro 5995WX. And they do this with minimal slow down to any of the workloads, thus resulting in a real throughput increase for a user’s tasks.

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