Test
The purpose is to validate that Quadra VPUs deliver measurable performance and economic gains using your real workloads before any migration decisions are made. Testing is about evidence, not extrapolation.
This is not benchmarking hardware. It’s validating an operational decision.
What to test and why
Focus on the workloads that stress your system today by prioritizing what breaks first:
- Codecs you run in production (H.264, HEVC, AV1)
- Resolutions and frame rates that drive cost
- Content types that reflect reality (motion, grain, live, UGC, surveillance)
Avoid synthetic content that flatters hardware but misleads decisions.
High Motion
Sports /
Live streams
Long Duration
Surveillance
/ Archives
Scale Bursts
UGC /
Live Events
Compute Heavy
AV1 / HEVC
Test what breaks first.
How to run a valid test
Run VPUs side-by-side with your current compute.
Baseline requirements:
- Same inputs
- Same outputs
- Same measurement window
Change one variable only: the compute layer. This is a compute substitution test, not a pipeline experiment.
What to measure
Focus on metrics that translate directly to operations and cost.
If a metric can’t be explained to finance or ops, it’s not primary.
Primary metrics:
- Streams per server
- Cost per stream
- Watts per stream
- Stability
Secondary metrics:
- Startup time
- Error rates
- Resource utilization consistency
What “Good” looks like
A successful test shows:
- Clear throughput gain at equivalent quality
- Predictable utilization (no mystery saturation)
- Stable operation across sustained runs
- A measurable reduction in cost or power per stream
If results are ambiguous, adjust content or presets.
Don’t force conclusions.
The most common failures we see at this stage:
- Changing multiple variables at once
Invalid comparisons lead to false confidence.
- Optimizing for peak results, not stability
Short runs don’t predict production behavior.
- Forcing conclusions from mixed data Ambiguity should trigger adjustment, not decisions.
Outputs of the Test stage
When testing is complete, you should have:
- Documented benchmark results
- A clear performance delta vs CPU/GPU
- Confidence in operational behavior
- A defensible recommendation to migrate—or not
Let's continue
If you can summarize results in one slide, you’re ready to migrate.