Five $160 To $240 990FX-Based Socket AM3+ Motherboards

Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding

Gigabyte snatches a small lead in Apple iTunes encoding, while ECS falls slightly behind. That tiny lead could be credited to its out-of-spec reference clock, which is 0.45% over default.

MSI leads in HandBrake video transcoding, its one-second advantage reflecting an actual lead of a few tenths of a second prior to number-rounding.

MainConcept Reference shows the two boards with in-spec reference clocks trailing the three boards that don't dutifully adhere just slightly.

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.