AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+

MP3 Encoding:

We used LAME MT for our audio encoding test - it’s the multithreaded 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.

The Core 2 steam roller effect continues in our MP3 encoding tests, where the 6000+ is slower than the E6400 again. And we're not even referring to performance using Intel's compiler here...

MP3 to WAV Decoding:

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.

AMD's X2 6000+ manages to match Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 in our decoding test using the Microsoft compiler, but the situation changes when we use Intel's compiler. If we take the fastest decode time - regardless of the compiler used - the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and Core 2 Duo E6700 are both faster than the X2 6000+.