Audio and Video Encoding

You will be able to encode mp3 audio in Apple iTunes application if your system is built around an Intel CPU.  Nothing helps the new dual-core AMD solutions here: neither larger cache, nor K10 (Stars) microarchitecture. However, when we get to video encoding with DivX or x264 codec that becomes more popular these days, Athlon II X2 and Phenom II X2 processors can boast very good results. In fact, thanks to high clock frequency that has finally reached a competitive level, these new processors can successfully contend for the palm against Core 2 Duo E7000 solutions. By the way, note that media content encoding tasks are pretty indifferent to the cache-memory size and structure. It is the clock frequency that matters the most here.