Asus P5WDG2-WS and P5WD2-E Premium - 975X Motherboard Showcase

Name: Asus P5WDG2-WS and P5WD2-E Premium - 975X Motherboard Showcase - Page 11
Brand: Asus

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, April 21, 2006, 12:01 AM EDT

We continued our testing of Asus' 975X Express based motherboards with another Windows Media Encoder benchmark, but this test is very different from the one on the previous page. In this test, which is also part of the Worldbench 5.0 suite, a video is encoded using Windows Media Encoder, while an instance of the Mozilla browser is also running and navigating through various cached pages. Because the system is multi-tasking with two different applications, this test is more taxing than the one on the previous page, hence the longer times reported below.

Windows Media Encoder 9 & Mozilla Multi-Tasking

More Digital Video Encoding

The Athlon 64 X2 4800+ powered machine smoked the Intel powered rigs by a wide margin in this test, but if we disregard that result the Asus P5WD2-E Premium was once again the fastest of the bunch, followed closely behind by the P5WDG2-WS, and then the Intel D975XBX.

LAME MT MP3 Encoding Test

Converting a Large WAV To MP3

In our custom LAME MT MP3 encoding test, we convert a large WAV file to the MP3 format, which is a very popular scenario that many end users work with on a day-to-day basis, to provide portability and storage of their digital audio content. In this test, we created our own 223MB WAV file (a never-ending 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. Once again, shorter times equate to better performance.

We know, we're beginning to sound like a broken record. But the numbers are the numbers. In our custom LAME MP3 encoding tests, whether running in single-thread or multi-thread mode, the Asus P5WD2-E Premium was the fastest of the bunch, followed very closely behind by Asus P5WDG2-WS, and then the D975XBX. This time however, the A8N32-SLI trailed the Intel-based rigs by a significant deficit.

Tags: Asus, Motherboard, WD, case, Pre, OWC, EMI, Premium, 975, ium, g2, Show, showcase, board, SHO, WS, AR, and

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com