AMD's Phenom X3 Processors

Mike D. 22 Apr, 2008 at 1:00am ET Article published in Tech

LAME MT Audio Encoding

The LAME MT audio encoding benchmark can utilize more than one CPU core to convert a WAV file to MP3 format. It is CPU intensive, but does not effectively utilize more than two cores. Because the WAV file included in the benchmark is fairly small and is quickly converted by modern processors, I replaced it with a 51MB file.

Both ‘continuous bit rate’ (CBR) and ‘variable bit rate’ tests are conducted. The compiler used during these tests was the Microsoft compiler.

Results are reported for both the single-threaded and multi-threaded tests for comparison. All results are expressed in seconds and lower values are considered better.

As can be seen, LAME benefits from dual cores in the multi-threaded scenario, but three and four cores do not provide benefit.

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Comments

24 Apr 2008 ~ 3:03am Leonardo Thanks for the review, Mike.

Very interesting.
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:20am GHoosdum It was great that you went the extra mile and cleared the "bad" core issue up with AMD. Go Mike!
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:42am Winfrey These seem like a decent step up from the "X2" AMD processors. I'd personally like to see how they fold with an SMP client. Pretty encouraging for AMD, it's not beating intel soundly but the fab process definitely helps AMD to keep prices very competitive.

Learned lots thanks Mike!
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:45am primesuspect Now I want one
24 Apr 2008 ~ 10:58am BuddyJ As do I.
30 Apr 2008 ~ 8:48pm Straight_Man I'll have to wait and see-- can't afford such a machine in the next six months-- but will be interested to see how they spread and how popular they are. I am running a 2.66 GHz Intel processor now that was state of the art 4 years ago, due to the fact that I have no current applications that can use multiple cores in the versions I have.
30 Apr 2008 ~ 8:50pm Leonardo

but the fab process definitely helps AMD to keep prices very competitive

No, AMD prices are de facto set by Intel. AMD has no choice in the matter.
1 May 2008 ~ 12:09am Winfrey

Leonardo wrote:

No, AMD prices are de facto set by Intel. AMD has no choice in the matter.

Correct but the fab process helps take some pressure off of being forced to set that low price, as in it is more affordable for AMD than if they didn't have their fab process.
1 May 2008 ~ 5:18am Your-Amish-Daddy Well. Three cores...I don't really know what to think of that... I remember when two cores meant two physical chips, back in the day of the Athlon MP's and dual P3 Slot rigs...MAN thsoe made powerful machines. But I wonder if XP will handle 3 cores...?
1 May 2008 ~ 6:18am Thrax XP can handle however many cores CPU manufacturers can fit into two physical sockets.
1 May 2008 ~ 10:25am BuddyJ core-rect