HandBrake is a fantastic free program that can be used to convert video files to many common formats for portable devices. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.
We used the latest V 0.9.8 version.
For our testing today we are converting a 4.4GB 720p MKV file (1h:58mins) to MP4 format using HandBrake's ‘Normal' profile. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power.
Converting HD content shows that the AMD FX 4170 CPU cannot compete with the performance of Intel's similarly-priced models. Taking almost a quarter of the film's entire duration to convert it from MKV to MP4 format, regular media converters should look for a system with a different, more powerful processor.