Dell XPS 700 - reviewed, dissected

MP3:

We used LAME MT for our audio encoding test - it's the multithreaded version of the popular LAME MP3 encoder. We ran tests with Microsoft's standard compiler. We converted all 18 tracks from Moby's popular Play album to a 192kbps variable bit-rate MP3.

Here, again, the Core 2 Duo processors own AMD - and the Dell system is able to keep up with the bit-tech Intel rig, thanks to the CPU limitation.

For our decoding test, we converted the MP3 tracks created in the previous test back to .WAV format, saving the output to a different folder.

The systems were much-of-a-muchness here, with no real winner as all the systems handled the relatively light task easily.

File handling:

The first test we ran was to compress and encrypt the MPEG-2 source file from our video encoding test with the highest quality compression ratio.

The Dell was very slow here, being hung out to dry by the lack of speed when it comes to memory calls.

We then decompressed and decrypted the file we had just created.

As with the MP3 decoding, undoing the number-crunching is always a lot easier than doing it, and the gap closes right back up again. As a system, the Dell is hanging in there by virtue of its Core 2 underpinnings.