Media encoding and rendering

Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9

LAME MT MP3 Encoding

Cinebench 9.5

Notes

Of the tests we ran here, Cinebench 9.5 clearly demonstrates the advantages of quad-core computing best. The four-core systems, including AMD’s 4x4 platform, all demonstrate a notable performance advantage over the dual-core Core 2 CPUs, with the Core 2 Quad Q6600 delivering over 1.5 times the performance of the dual-core E6600 CPU. Windows Media Encoder 9 also shows a slight performance advantage for the quad-core CPUs, although here the difference isn’t as substantial, with the Q6600 encoding a 200MB 720p HD video five seconds faster than the E6600 processor. With a larger file however the difference between the two CPUs would be notably greater.

LAME MT doesn’t appear to take advantage of multi-threading.