Handbrake benchmark Mac Mini 2018 vs Mac Mini M1, results!

[winna]

I tested an entire BD disc and these are the results

Mac Mini 2018 6-core i7 8 G RAM
Mac Mini M1 16 GB RAM



H264

Mac Mini 2018: 53 min 59 sec
Mac Mini M1: 32 min 46 sec

H264 Video Toolbox

Mac Mini 2018: 10 min 44 sec
Mac Mini M1: 11 min 28 sec

H265

Mac Mini 2018: 1 h 28 min 47 sec
Mac Mini M1: 1 h 39 min 31 sec

H265 Video Toolbox

Mac Mini 2018: 11 min 04 sec
Mac Mini M1: 9 min 32 sec

Temperatures during H265 test. Long list M1, short list 2018

 

[Deccr]

Nice comparison. The real kicker is power consumption differences, the M1 is beating the core i7 probably using only about 10% of the energy.

 

[Jimmy James]

I’ve been doing video conversion on a Core2Duo. Looking forward to the mini later this year.

 

[starmax]

What quality settings are you using for the M1 hardware encoding?

I found them backwards on my M1. For example, CQ 16 is a pretty high setting for software or even AMD/NVenc hardware encoders (on Windows). But on my M1 it’s trash. I have to go up to CQ 70+ to get similar quality. Normally the lower the setting number the better the quality...

 

[Miat]

Thanks for this.

That RAM difference must be a significant factor. How much difference would there be if the Intel Mini had 16GB, or more?

 

[starmax]

Thanks for this.

That RAM difference must be a significant factor. How much difference would there be if the Intel Mini had 16GB, or more?

I have found that Handbrake is not a very RAM hungry application. RAM speed does improve its performance, but 8GB of RAM is more than enough.

 

[labyrinth153]

Are you using the native arm version of handbrake?

 

[winna]

Are you using the native arm version of handbrake?

Of course

 

[winna]

Thanks for this.

That RAM difference must be a significant factor. How much difference would there be if the Intel Mini had 16GB, or more?

There would be no difference at all

 

[winna]

What quality settings are you using for the M1 hardware encoding?

I found them backwards on my M1. For example, CQ 16 is a pretty high setting for software or even AMD/NVenc hardware encoders (on Windows). But on my M1 it’s trash. I have to go up to CQ 70+ to get similar quality. Normally the lower the setting number the better the quality...

I used 5500 kbps mkv with DTS passthru on all tests