[xooyoozoo]

>It will remain slower than x264 though, it uses more cpu consuming algorithms in order to cram out more 'quality per bit'

At an abstract level, HEVC is AVC + refinement + new algorithms.

Conforming bitstreams aren't required to use all or even most features, so in the long-term, I don't see why an HEVC encoder can't be a simple, straightforward superset of x264 (i.e. same speed for same quality).

[gillianseed]

Sure, but the whole point behind x265 is to provide better quality per bit than x264.