Windows Media Encoder has been optimized for multi-core platforms for some time now. Thus, the dual core Centrino platform lets no grass grow beneath its feet while running this test. When compared to the Pentium M 760, the Core Duo CPU polished off this task some 65 percent faster, and even the M 780, with its faster core clock rate, still took nearly 50 percent longer to complete the file conversion task.

Autodesk 3D Studio Max 8

In this case, the Core Duo T2500 does not fare well against its older Pentium M 760 and Pentium M 780 brethren. As an examination of core loads with Task Manager shows, 3D Studio Max 8 utilizes only about seventy percent of the capacity of both cores. This suggests strongly to us that more work is required on the part of the software developers; they need to do a better job of optimizing their code for multi-core processors, as is the case with FineReader 8.0.

Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus

This is a case where the Core Duo really shines. The independent processing units not only help with rescaling and filtering of video data, but they also presumably help give a noticeable boost to the additional SSE3 functions used.

SiSoft Sandra 2005 R2

Even though both of the notebooks built around Intel technologies use the same memory modules with the same timings in dual channel mode, memory bandwidth in the Centrino Duo platform is nearly 1 GB/s greater. Because of its integrated single channel DDR memory interface, the AMD Turion 64 laptop is completely vanquished here, landing in last place.