Intel's Core 2 Duo processors

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.

The Core 2 Duo E6700 was ten seconds faster than AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62, while the Core 2 Extreme X6800 was faster still. Meanwhile, the Core 2 Duo E6600 was 25 seconds faster than the Athlon 64 X2 5000+.

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.

Again, the Core 2 Extreme X6800 was the fastest process in this scenario, while the Athlon 64 FX-62 finished second, over 20 seconds later. The E6700 was a further 14 seconds behind, but 25 seconds quicker than the X2 5000+.