CrossFire Xpress 1600 Motherboards: DFI, Asus, ECS

Name: CrossFire Xpress 1600 Motherboards: DFI, Asus, ECS - Page 14
Brand: CrossFire

by Marco Chiappetta — Thursday, May 04, 2006, 01:30 AM EDT

We continued our testing 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 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

Once again, disregarding the Intel results, we see that all of the AMD powered systems, whether based on the CrossFire Xpress 1600 or nForce 4 chipset, performed at the same level. Only three seconds separates the four AMD powered systems here. Hardly a large enough delta to be considered significant.

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.

Unlike most of our previous real-world tests, the Intel powered system jumped out to a measurable lead in both the single-thread and multi-thread LAME encoding tests. The AMD based systems, however, continued to perform and near identical levels. The nForce 4 had a slight edge in the multi-threaded test, whereas the CrossFire Xpress 1600s had a tiny one second advantage in the single thread test.

Tags: Asus, ECS, Fire, Motherboard, CrossFire, motherboards, SSF, Pre, DS, XP, OS, board, OSS, CrossFire X, AR

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