AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 6-Core Processor Review
In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format, which is a popular scenario that many end users work with on a day-to-day basis to provide portability and storage of their digital audio content. LAME is an open-source mid to high bit-rate and VBR (variable bit rate) MP3 audio encoder that is used widely around the world in a multitude of third party applications.
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In this test, we created our own 223MB WAV file (a hallucinogenically-induced Grateful Dead jam) and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME MT application in single and multi-thread modes. Processing times are recorded below, listed in seconds. Shorter times equate to better performance.
The LAME MT benchmark showcases the effectiveness of AMD's Turbo CORE technology. In this test, despite the 1090T's 200MHz default clock speed disadvantage versus the Phenom II X4 965, the 1090T is able to pull ahead of the X4. When Turbo CORE is enabled, the 1090T peaks at 3.6GHz and is able to outpace the X4. Intel's processors have an obvious advantage here, however.
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The x264 benchmark measures how fast a system can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality H.264 HD video clip. The application reports the compression results in frames per second for each pass of the video encoding process, and it is threaded so it can take advantage of the additional resources afforded by multi-core processors.
Surprisingly, in the first pass of the x264 benchmark, the Phenom II X6 1090T trailed the X4 965. In the second pass of the test, however, the additional cores of the X6 allowed it to significantly outperform the Phenom II X4, although it just missed the mark set by the Core i7 870.
