I have just built the a setup with the following.
MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) motherboard
i7 2600K with Intel HD3000 graphics (using the latest Intel 8.15.10.2509 driver)
16Gb G-Skill PC3-12800 RAM
AMD HD3450 256K video card (this was given to me).
Hitachi 3Tb 7200K Hard disk (HDS723030ALA640)
Corsair Force 3 120Gb SATA 6 SSD that I keep the video files on and render to.
Windows x64 Ultimate (Service Pack 1)
PDR9 Ultra64 (9.0.0.3305)
Test objective - to see the difference between encoding using the discrete graphics card and the Intel HD3000 graphics card.
I have produced a 33.23 minute video of kids rugby with one title at the beginning.
I made a H.264 file in the pre-sets for iPod which makes a 2.53Gb file.
1) Using the AMD discrete HD3450 video card – 16:15 mins
2) HD300 GPU with Hardware Video Encoder – 6:25 mins
3) HD3000 GPU with Hardware Video Encoder & Quick Sync -7:33 mins
4) HD3000 GPU with Hardware Video Encoder & Quick Sync & CPU Overclocked at 4190Mhz – 6:22 mins
What I can't do is this test with a more powerful discrete card which is a pity. As I don't play games I can't see the point in spending a whole wad of cash to buy a powerful graphics card.
What say you guys?