Behind The Silicon Curtain: Exclusive Test Of The P4/2666 With 533 MHz Rambus

MP3 Audio Encoding: Lame MP3

The Lame MP3 Encoder under Windows XP was used to convert a 178 MB sound file from a WAV format to the MPEG-1 Layer 3 format. The diagram shows that the two Pentium 4 processors with 533 MHz RDRAM (2533 MHz and 2666 MHz) lead the pack. A comparatively high performance is also offered by the AMD Athlon XP processors, which are clearly faster than the older P4 CPUs with the Willamette core. All chips that are not yet available on the market are indicated in red.

MPEG-4 Video Encoding: Xmpeg 4.2a And Divx 4.12

Memory performance is an important factor in MPEG-4 encoding. All three P4 processors with 533 MHz RDRAM are clearly on top. The Pentium 4/2666 holds the record - almost twice as fast as real time! By comparison, the Athlon 850 shows its age with 18 frames per second. All chips that are not yet available on the market are indicated in red.