Video encoding benchmarks show GPU instances like g4dn provide significant price/performance advantages over CPU instances for both batch and live streaming encoding workloads compared to CPU instances, but require considering output quality, file size, and pipeline flexibility trade-offs.

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<p>This article compares the performance of video encoding using CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs on AWS EC2 instances. It covers:</p>
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<li>An introduction to video encoding and how NVIDIA GPUs can accelerate it with their NVENC and NVDEC engines</li>
<li>Benchmark methodology comparing CPU (c6i.4xlarge) and GPU instances (g4dn.xlarge, p3.2xlarge) for batch encoding and live streaming scenarios</li>
<li>For batch encoding, GPU instances showed around 73-82% better price/performance than CPU, with some quality tradeoffs</li>
<li>For live streaming, GPU instances could sustain up to 4 parallel 4K streams at lower cost than CPU instances</li>
<li>Conclusion that GPUs can provide better price/performance for video encoding, but CPU encoding may be preferred if output file size is critical</li>
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