PC World - USA (2019-08)

AUGUST 2019 PCWorld 33

4-percent win over the 4.6GHz Ryzen 9. A win

is a win, but most are likely to say big whoop.

ENCODING PERFORMANCE

These next tests are for those who edit or

transcode video. First we use the latest version

(1.2.2) of the free and popular HandBrake app

to convert a UHD 4K video that was originally

encoded in MPEG4 in a .MOV container using

the H.265 preset at the same resolution. The

original file is about 6.3GB in size, which

compresses down to about 600MB. HandBrake

loves CPU cores and threads, and it typically

scales nicely as you up the core count.

The Ryzen 9 3900X finishes an impressive

43 percent ahead of the Core i9-9900K on our

conversion. Even on the Ryzen 9 3900X, it’s a

beefy 30 minutes to finish the conversion.

It’s another big, big win for the Ryzen 9

3900X for CPU-based encoding. But we’d be

remiss if we didn’t also mention that the one ace

the Core i9-9900K has up its sleeve is

QuickSync encoding. Rather than using the

outrun the Core i9 by about 32 percent. And
yup, the body blows keep coming.
We run V-Ray Next, which is another renderer
from the Chaos Group. The result? About 31
percent in favor of the Ryzen 9 over the Core i9.
What about the free and popular 3D
modeler Blender 2.80, using the intensive
Gooseberry test file? How about 43 percent
in favor of the Ryzen 9 over the Core i9.
We’ll close off the 3D tasks with the oldie,
but goodie POV-Ray 3.7
benchmark. The Persistence of
Vision Raytracer is an open-source,
free tool that has roots in the Amiga
platform. Using the application’s
built-in test, we saw the Ryzen 9
about 44 percent faster than the
Core i9 in multi-threaded mode.
POV-Ray also has a single-
threaded benchmark, in which the
Core i9 and its 5GHz clock ekes out a

The 5GHz boost clock of the Core i9 gives it a very
slight edge over the Ryzen 9 in POV-Ray when set
to test a single thread.

Ryzen 9 3900X Zen 2 (12/24)

Core i9-9900K

Coffee Lake R (8/16)

Ryzen 7 2700X

Zen+ (8/16)

POV-Ray 3.7 1T

(Pixels per second)

LONGER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

488

508

409

Ryzen 9 3900X Zen 2 (12/24)

Core i9-9900K Cofee

Lake R (8/16)

Ryzen 7 2700X Zen+

(8/16)

HandBrake 1.2.2

4K Transcode from MP4 to H.265 MCE/PBO Off (Sec)

SHORTER BARS INDICATE BETTER PERFORMANCE

1,845

2,830

3,671

The Ryzen 9 3900X easily wallops the Core i9 when doing a

4K encode using the H.265 codec.