Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Conversion
We know that the iTunes AAC conversion process is single-threaded. And although it's possible to make Lame a more parallelized workload by running multiple conversions concurrently, our benchmark isolates the performance of one core.
Not surprisingly, then, the FX is beaten handily. Its higher clock rate and modest Turbo Core state cannot make up for the fact that Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture gets substantially more done per clock cycle. As we've known for a year now, AMD's design relies on parallelism in order to compete.
When we give Bulldozer a workload that keeps its modular design fully utilized, it fares much better. In both HandBrake and MainConcept, the FX-4170 uses its four integer cores and higher clock rate to slip right past Intel's Hyper-Threaded Core i3. AMD cannot match a Core i5, but then again, remember that it's in a different price segment, too.