Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965

Xvid Encoding:

AutoGK 2.20; 15 minutes of Dr Who, convert to 175MB MPEG, 2 passes, 720x416;

The Pentium Extreme Edition 965 is 34 seconds faster than Intel's previous flagship Extreme Edition processor in our Xvid Encoding test. However, it's not fast enough to trouble the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+, never mind the Athlon 64 FX-60, which dominates the competition by a whole minute.

DVD Ripping:

DVD Shrink 3.2; default settings; auto shrink (59.2%) of the [i]Rush Hour DVD;[/i]

Our DVD Shrink benchmark is somewhat limited by the speed of our 16-speed LG DVD ROM drive. The Pentium XE 965 extends Intel's lead over the Athlon 64 FX-60 to eight seconds. The distance between the two flagship parts could conceivably increase if the CPUs weren't somewhat DVD-drive limited in this test.