MP3 encoding
Intel’s intensive efforts to get software producers to optimise their program code for modern processors -- Intel CPUs, naturally -- continue to bear fruit. The MP3 encoder MusicMatch Jukebox has been optimised in version 7.0 for Intel’s Pentium 4. Even so, the 2.53GHz Pentium 4 only just beats the 1.8GHz Athlon XP/2200+, and comes second to the new 2.13GHz Athlon XP/2600+ in this test.
Video encoding
Intel’s 2.53GHz Pentium 4 is faster than the Athlon XP/2200+ at video encoding with LSX’s popular MPEG Encoder 3.5 when supported by Rambus memory. However, the new Athlon XP/2600+ is the fastest processor of all here.