Intel Core i7 3820 and ASrock Extreme4-M review

1. Introduction2. The Intel Core i7 38203. ASrock Extreme4-M Motherboard4. Super High Resolution Gallery5. Bios and Overclocking6. Testing Methodology7. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage8. Synthetic: 3DMark 119. Synthetic: PCMark 710. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra12. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit13. Synthetic: SSD Performance14. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.015. Real World: 3D Rendering16. Real World: Media Encoding17. Real World: BluRay Playback18. Real World: Flash HD Playback19. Real World: Handbrake 9.520. Gaming: F1 2011 (Single 7970)21. Gaming: Lost Planet 2 (Single 7970)22. Gaming: Alien V Predator (Crossfire)23. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (Crossfire)24. Technical: Power Consumption25. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors.

Again, the Quad Channel memory architecture shows huge benefits with this video encoding software, completing the test in 10 minutes and 15 seconds, around 17 seconds faster than the Core i7 2700k. When we overclock the 3820 to 4.5ghz, the system is actually faster than the last generation flagship Core i7 990X system, and equals the reference clocked 3960X EE system. It is worth pointing out that this particular test doesn't utilise all cores @ 100%.

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