Intel Core 2 Duo E4300

Photoshop Elements 4.0 with Xvid Encoding:

For our first multitasking scenario, we decided to fire up our Xvid Encoding benchmark in the background, while processing the folder of photographs from our Photoshop Elements 4.0 test. The time quoted is the time taken to finish auto-fixing the photographs while the Xvid Encode test is running in the background.

Photoshop Elements 4.0 with Audio Encoding:

The second test was similar to the first, in that Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 was our foreground task. However, this time we loaded our LAME MT audio encoding benchmark in the background. We have displayed the time for the Photoshop Elements test to be completed.

WinRAR 3.60 with Audio Encoding:

In our final multitasking scenario, we loaded up our WinRAR 3.60 large file compression benchmark in the foreground and our LAME MT audio encoding benchmark in the background. We have displayed the time for the WinRAR 3.60 large file compression test to complete.

In our multitasking test, the performance leadership in this price range was in AMD's court, with the X2 3800+ faster than the E4300 in two of the three tests. In the final test, where the E4300 has a bit of a resurgence, the X2 4200+ is a faster processor.