Foxconn N68S7AA nForce 680i SLI

Xvid Encoding:

We tested video encoding performance using VirtualDub-MPEG version 1.6.15 and a multithreaded 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.


While the Foxconn isn't clearly faster than the other nForce motherboards, it is towards the quicker end of the spectrum.

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 consistent and as fast as the other boards, but decoding performance drops a few seconds to average at best.