For my use case, Intel ended up being a great option as QuickSync Video (QSV) starting from Version 7 (Ice Lake / 10th gen) supports VP9 encoding. I ended up wtih a Dell Latitude 7330 equipped with an Intel Core i5 1245U and opting for Fedora 42 KDE Plasma Desktop. After some configuration, I was successfully able to transcode video with the VP9_QSV (hardware) encoder via FFMPEG, and my editing needs were better met with LosslessCut opposed to avidemux. I’m very happy with this set up!
A few things to note: Handbrake doesn’t seem to support hardware VP9 encoding at all; there was neither an option for QSV nor VAAPI - this was the case even in Windows 11 with functioing drivers. So I had to get used to FFMPEG, which has both QSV and VAAPI hardware encoders for VP9. Even worse, Fedora doesn’t install the requisite driver in a path programs recognize, so hardware acceleration was broken system-wide for me. After weeks of trial and error, the solution for me was to install the non-free driver and create a symbolic link to the driver to the expected path. Now media hardware encode/decode is working for me, including VP9 encoding via QSV.
After enabling the Fusion / Non-Free repositories
Install the Intel Media Driver :
sudo dnf install intel-media-driver
Create symbolic link to link installed driver to expected path:
sudo ln -s /usr/lib64/dri-nonfree/iHD_drv_video.so /usr/lib64/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
Profit
Original Post below
I currently have a Lenovo Thinkpad E485 with a Ryzen 5 2500U that has served me faithfully, but I’m looking to upgrade to something that better suites my values and use case. I had gotten this as a jack-of-all trades, something that could game with some patience and tweaking, but was portable and pleasant to type on. It mostly succeeded, but has some significant drawbacks now.
The reality is that I don’t really play games, at least not demanding AAA 3D games, mostly 2D indies now. The biggest thing I want from a GPU is a great hardware video encoder. I’d mostly use this for media-intensive web-browsing (e.g. sleuthing for music/gigs, copious amounts of YouTube/Spotify/Nebula), and, as a hobbyist videographer, some light video editing and transcoding (mostly clips I captured at music gigs to share on social media). I will mostly be using Avidemux and Handbrake, and while I prefer Handbrake in Windows, Win11 is a non-starter for me, so I will likely be using Linux Mint.
Major drawback is now (on top of completely dead battery) is that the lack of quality and compatibility of AMD’s AVC and HEVC encoders forced me to utilize software encoding, and I don’t think 4x 2nd-gen mobile Ryzen cores are up for the task (VP9 encodes are 1.5 FPS at medium preset 6 Mbps - my 5700x does 7-ish FPS). The hardware encoding quality is terrible in Windows, and I can’t figure out how to get it to work properly under Linux.
That said, I’m not sure what the state of hardware encoders are, and more specifically what the support is in Linux. I’ve heard Intel Arc supports VP9 encoding (which is my preferred codec, but inexperienced with AV1, which I understand is supposed to succeed VP9), but I’ve seen conflicting reports about hardware encoding, and if true, does that extend to Intel’s mobile chips? I’d happily use an AV1 encoder if it looks good at lower bitrates.
Ultimately I’m sorta eyeballing the Framework 13, but I’m not sure if I should opt for Ryzen 7000 series, Intel Core Ultra 5 125H, or wait for the Ryzen 300 AI series. I hear Ryzen is leagues better than Intel in regards to efficiency, but if there is a decent hardware encoder in Intel chips, hardware encoding is way more efficient and faster than software encoding, so it may be worthwhile in my case. And I’m hesitant to use AMD again given how poorly my Ryzen 2500U aged for this use case. With the launch of RDNA4, is AMD’s improved media encoders on the horizon for Ryzen Mobile? Or maybe hardware encoding isn’t here yet, and I should stick with AMD Ryzen to brute-force with software encoding? Thoughts? Feedback? Suggestions?
