AMD Sempron 2800+ & 3100+ Review

Another good way to evaluate a processor's performance is to run it through a series of video-encoding tests.  Video encoding is extremely CPU-intensive, proving to be a good assessment task for overall system performance.  In the next two segments we ran a series of common encoding tasks and timed the complete process.  During the first test, we utilized XMPEG to encode a 110MB MPEG to AVI.  The second test used Windows Media Encoder 9 to convert a 416MB AVI to a WMV file.

XMPEG 5.03 Digital Video Encoding

Video encoding is one of the most demanding tasks a user can instruct a machine to do.  In this case, the advantage was clearly in favor of the Pentium 4-based test beds, partly because of the P4's Hyper-Threading capabilities.  You'll see the widest gap with the 2800+, which trailed by 16 seconds, while the 3100+ narrowed the deficit to six seconds.

Windows Media Encoder 9 More Digital Video Encoding

Performance with Windows Media Encoder displayed a similar trend to the XMPEG results. Here, the Sempron 2800+ lagged behind the Pentium 4 by 23 seconds, completing the test in just under four minutes.  Once again, the 3100+ narrowed the gap, this time by eight seconds.