NVIDIA nForce 790i SLI Ultra and GeForce 9800 GX2
790i SLI Ultra: LAME MT, Sony Vegas
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. Once again, shorter times equate to better performance.
Talk about a dead heat. Our custom LAME MT benchmark performed exactly the same on all of the platforms we tested. This test is completely CPU bound, hence the similarities in performance between the different chipsets.
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Sony's Vegas DV editing software is heavily multi-threaded as it processes and mixes both audio and video streams. This is a new breed of digital video editing software that takes full advantage of current dual and multi-core processor architectures.
The nForce 790i SLI Ultra based motherboards performed very well in our Sony Vegas benchmark, trailing Intel's X48 chipset by only a second or two, but surpassing the nForce 680i SLI and 780i SLI by one to six seconds.
