Date:
Thursday , July 13, 2006
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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Intel Core 2 Music, Images, & Movie Performance

Looking for a new system to edit your home movies and pictures on? If you are heavy into encoding video, you will want to know about Intel's new Core 2 processors and the talents that lie within.

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Conclusions

These results we have seen here are in great contrast to the real-world results we have seen today in our Intel Core 2 Gaming Performance article.

It is sure though that the weeks we have spent with Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Extreme have taught us that Intel is back in the ring and a certain contender when it comes to high-powered desktop computing. I have not found any negative aspects to Core 2 at all. If you are buying a new computer system or doing a major upgrade, Intel Core 2 Duo or Extreme should be at the top of your list.

That said, the performance benefits were minimal in the Photoshop and iTunes testing we looked at. Unless you are doing a huge amount of work with these applications, it is not likely that you would ever see a difference between the systems unless you had your stopwatch out.

When it comes to encoding video, and many of you are now doing this at home, the high-end Core 2 Duo and Extreme simply blew away the AMD FX-62. There is no doubt that if you are an amateur or home professional video editor, the Intel Core 2 can show you some advantages over your current system.

Dual Core Importance

For all of you video editors out there, whether you decide you want an Intel processor or AMD processor, you need to make sure that you take advantage of the dual core processors now. In programs such as Windows Movie Maker and Adobe Premiere, you will see encoding times fall tremendously with dual core processors. Video editing applications are part of the few applications that really take advantage of dual core processing.

The Bottom Line

There is no doubt that when it comes to editing video, manipulating images, or encoding music, the Intel Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors at 2.66GHz and above currently enjoy a healthy performance advantage over AMD’s Athlon FX and Athlon 64 line of processors. Moreover, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Core 2 Duo and Extreme also do a great job of making the Pentium 4 look like a dinosaur.

Discussion

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