NF4 Ultra Shoot-Out: Abit vs. MSI vs. ECS
We continued testing these nForce 4 Ultra based motherboards with a video encoding benchmark based on Windows Media Encoder 9. In this test, we ran the Windows Media Encoder 9 portion of the WorldBench 5 suite; encoding times were recorded in seconds. Lower times indicate better performance.
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Abit's Fatal1ty AN8 scored yet another victory in WorldBench 5.0's Windows Media Encoder test. The AN8 finished the test 3 seconds faster than the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum, and a full 8 seconds faster then the ECS KN1 Extreme. These aren't exactly huge margins of victory, but it's another win for the Fatal1ty AN8 nonetheless.
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In our custom Lame MP3 encoding test, we convert a large digital audio 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 chose a large 223MB WAV file (a never-ending Grateful Dead jam) and converted it to the MP3 format. Processing times are recorded below. Shorter times equate to better performance.
The ECS KN1 Extreme managed to squeak passed the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum in our custom LAME MP3 encoding benchmark by a couple of seconds, but the Abit Fatal1ty AN8 was once again the fastest of the bunch, albeit by a very small 1 second margin.
