This is part seven of a comprehensive look at HP’s EliteBook 8740W Mobile Workstation. If you’re new to this, please start at day one.
Yesterday we took at look at DCC benchmark performance using SpecviewPerf. The numbers were astonishingly high for a mobile platform, outclassing even “powerhouse” desktop workstations that are definitely not portable. That’s all well and good if you’re a CAD/CAM designer, an architect, or a 3D modeler, but what about video editing professionals?
Today we’re going to look at Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 performance using the Mercury Playback Engine as well as run it through CineBench 11.5.
The CineBench 11.5 test was not that impressive, to be honest. Of course, that’s typical with all workstation GPUs because they’re not designed nor are they optimized to run real-time rendering of 3D—that’s more the realm of enthusiast (gamer) GPUs such as the AMD Radeon series or NVIDIA GeForce parts.
The CPU test was not great. This is a mobile part and it simply cannot compete with the others in the test suite (especially those monster Xeons). The OpenGL test was slightly better. It performed on par with mid-range enthusiast parts such as the AMD Radeon HD 4850 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX280M. If OpenGL performance is critical to your workflow, take note.
Now, on to the Premiere tests. First, if you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, you absolutely need to pause right now, go read Bobby Miller’s excellent review and explanation of Mercury Playback Engine, and then come back here.
Essentially, when you render video without Mercury Playback Engine, you are using the CPU (in this case, an Intel Core i7 Q740) to render your project. Enabling Mercury tells Adobe applications, “Hey, I have a huge, highly specialized number-crunching GPU supercomputer here doing nothing, if you’d like to use that to do some of the work.” Adobe applications such as Premiere Pro will then hand off some of the rendering to the NVIDIA Quadro 5000M.
So you see that with supported GPUs, Mercury Playback is a huge leap forward in performance for applications. Luckily, with a minor tweak, CS5 does indeed support it on this particular GPU.
The test project was simple. I took two clips recorded on a 1080p AVCHD camera at 30fps, placed them in sequence, and applied a simple box fade transition. I exported them using Premiere Pro CS5’s “YouTube Widescreen HD” preset. The results:
With MPE turned off, the render took a touch over seven minutes. With MPE enabled, four minutes, twenty-one seconds. That’s about an 82% increase in performance. Extrapolate that out to your larger rendering projects and you have a stupendous difference.
I’ll say that another way, and I’m not using hyperbole here: If you’re doing video for a living, you absolutely need to have a Mercury Playback Engine-enabled workstation.
There are certainly drawbacks to using a laptop for video work: storage space being primary, as well as the inherent danger of “oops I dropped it” or “it got stolen.” A single 7200 RPM hard drive isn’t ideal for real-time video work (serious video editing workstations have striped disk arrays, or may use esoteric drive technologies such as SAS or FibreChannel.) But if you have a need for that kind of power, you’re already in a studio.
I’d like to say the typical line, “This setup would be simply beautiful for smaller video shops, indie filmmakers, serious hobbyists, or students,” but the simple fact of the matter is that this is starting to dip its toes into professional territory. A professional could use this workstation on the road, and render video clips or even entire projects on-site.
To conclude this effusive rant, I’ll simply say this: Having something mobile, in the form factor of a slightly large laptop, that contains the dark sorcery of a very high-end workstation-class GPU such as the NVIDIA Quadro 5000M, is a stunning achievement, and HP should be very, very smug right now.
Let’s cut to the chase: All work and no play makes Brian a dull boy. Tomorrow I’m going to play some games. Yippee! I’ll see how this sucker handles 1920×1200 gaming with a bunch of my favorites, and yes, we’ll even see if It Plays Crysis™.
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