|  Flask MPEG is a file conversion utility that takes a video of a certain format, and converts it to another. In this test, we took a 19MB MPEG 2 video clip from a classic TV show (that made it's debut in Dave's original 533MHz BUS P4 review) and converted it to DivX format using the DivX Pro 5.02 Codec. We converted the video to a resolution of 720x480, but did not compress or convert the audio in any way.  | | MPEG Encoding Benchmarks & Comparisons | | Flask and Video 2000 Tests | | In the FlaskMPEG encoding tests, the Athlon XP 2600+ once again outperformed all of the other test systems, with exception of the 2.53GHz Pentium 4 using PC1066 RDRAM. So far, the numbers look very promising for the Athlon XP 2600+. It seems the higher bandwidth offered by the PC1066 RDRAM is the only thing giving the 2.53 P4 an edge. The Athlon XP 2600+ performed very well in the MadOnion Video 2000 MPEG encoding test, besting all of the other systems. In fact, 267.58 is the highest score we have ever seen in this test, without overclocking a processor. We should mention that this is a fairly old benchmark that is not optimized to run on these newer processors though. The Athlon tends to run "legacy" x86 code much better than the Pentium 4, which should give it an advantage in this benchmark. | | | MadOnion PCMark 2002 Benchmarks & Comparisons | | CPU and Memory Modules | | We also ran a series of tests using the CPU and memory performance modules that are built into MadOnion's relatively new PCMark2002 benchmarking suite. We like PCMark2002 around here because the tests are very easy to run, and they produce repeatable results. The CPU module performs the following tests: CPU Test: The CPU performance module in MadOnion's PCMark2002 shows the Athlon XP 2600+ system with a distinct performance advantage over all of the other machines we tested. Unlike the Video 2000 benchmark, this one was meant to be run on these new CPUs, and yet it still shows the Athlon out in front. Memory Test Technical details: (Quoted) "Raw read, write, and read-modify-write operations are performed starting from a 3072 kilobytes array decreasing in size to 1536 KB, 384 KB, 48 KB and finally 6 KB. Each size of block is tested two second and the amount of accessed data is given as result. In the STL container test a list of 116 byte elements is constructed and sorted by an integer pseudo-random key. The list is then iterated through as many times as possible for 2 seconds and the total size of the accessed elements is given as result. There are 6 runs of this test, with 24576 items in the largest run corresponding to a total data amount of 1536 KB, decreasing in size to 12288 items (768 KB), 6144 items (384 KB), 1536 items (96 KB), 768 items (48 KB) and 96 items in the smallest run corresponding to 6 KB of total data." Whether they're using DDR memory or RDRAM, the Pentium 4s really shine in the PCMark2002 Memory performance tests. Even with the motherboard set to the most aggressive memory timings available, the Athlon XP 2600+ can't come close to even the "slowest" P4. Seeing numbers like this make us wish AMD would validate a 333MHz FSB for the Athlon, and right quick. Gaming Scores and the Conclusion | 
