Intel Core 2 Duo E4300

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.

MP3 encoding is something where Intel's Core 2 Duo processors have simply excelled and the story doesn't change with both the E4300 and E6300 processors. Both are impressively faster than every AMD processor except the Athlon 64 FX-62 - that's darn right awesome for a £110 CPU. Obviously, this leaves the X2 4200+ trailing behind by quite a margin, even when using the Microsoft compiler.

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.

Despite the impressive performance when it comes to encoding, the E4300 lags behind the X2 4200+ a bit when it comes to decoding audio.