AOpen XC Cube EU965

Xvid Encoding:

We tested video encoding performance using VirtualDub-MPEG version 1.6.15 and a multi-threaded version of the Xvid codec, along with the LAME MT MP3 encoder for encoding audio. We did a two-pass encode of a 15-minute 276MB digital TV recording with a target file size of 100MB.


Xvid encoding also suffers from onboard video and the lack of memory adjustments, dropping nearly half a minute between discrete graphics and onboard on the AOpen, and another half minute (or so) between the Gigabyte 965P running 3-3-3-9-1T and it. The Shuttle isn't quite as fast as the Gigabyte board, but it's around 15 seconds faster than the AOpen over the course of this test scenario.

MP3 Encoding:

We used LAME MT for our audio encoding test - it's the multi-threaded version of the popular LAME MP3 encoder. We ran tests with both Intel's and Microsoft's compilers - naturally, the Intel compiler resulted in some performance increases on Intel's processors. We converted all 18 tracks from Moby's popular Play album to a 192kbps variable bit-rate MP3.


Whilst MP3 encoding and decoding perform exactly the same when using discrete graphics, both suffer greatly when using onboard video.