At The Last Second: AMD's Trump Card - The Athlon XP 2600+

Video-Encoding MPEG-4: Xmpeg 4.5 Und Divx 5.02 Pro

Memory performance is an important factor for MPEG-4 encoding. In this category, the AMD Athlon XP 2600+, combined with DDR333 (CL 2 - max. timing), is not quite able to keep up with the Pentium 4/2400. However, its performance, compared the previous Thoroughbred, has increased by five frames. The Athlon 850 simply shows its age with about 16 fps, as does the Athlon 1400 with 26 fps, because it lacks the SSE codes.

Video-Encoding MPEG-2: Pinnacle Studio 7

In encoding an MPEG-2 film with Pinnacle Studio 7, the AMD Athlon XP 2600+ does the job in 70.3 seconds, which is almost as fast as the P4/2400. When extremely overclocked, the Intel Pentium 4/2800, despite its Rambus speed (PC1200), must admit defeat to the Athlon XP 3400+. The AMD CPU was able to render the video in 58.8 seconds. The slowest candidate is the AMD Athlon 850, which we've included as a comparison - it is slower than the Athlon XP 3400+ by more than three minutes, which is enough time for you to have a cup of coffee!