Premiere CS4 - Encoding with AME ridiculously slow

Question

Hello there.
After having read many threads on various forums, I have not come to a single hint as to why AME is encoding any type of video materal extremely slow. I'm sorry if this question has been asked many times on this forum, but maybe someone has come up with a working solution?
My computer specifications are:
Windows Vista 32bit (yes I know, upgrade is needed)
Intel Quad Core Q9000 @ 2 GHz
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT - 512mb
500GB sATA HDD @ 5400 rpm
This is a notebook. I use Premiere CS4 and AME4 with the most current updates (v4.1)
Here is what I usually do:
I export my project media from Premier to AME with the appropriate format and encoder settings, close Premiere and kill all background tasks. My RAM usage is now at around 1.4 GB (out of 3 GB!).
In this case, I'd use the built-in MPEG2 codec with PAL settings (720x576 - 25i - 8Mbit/sec), the source file is in MPEG4 @ 20Mbit and 10 minutes long. I started the encoding process and it was slowing down from 10 minutes initially to a frustrating render time of 60 minutes. Why?
I have used VirtualDub and TMPGEnc, both achieved, compared to AME, incredibly low render times, a bit higher than double realtime. When I use AME the same way, as encoder for an avi file only and not a Premiere project, it is losing by 6-7 times of the other programs render time.
Second scenario:
I have 20 seconds uncompressed avi material (600Mbit/sec) and like to convert it to MPEG4 with AME. MPEG4 settings are at 50Mbit, I-frames only, 50fps and progressive. I started the encoding again and at first, AME was rushing through 1/4th of the progress bar in 5 seconds, and then slowing down to an overall encoding time of 50 (!) minutes and it ended about 52 minutes later.
During this rendering I had the windows resourcemonitor (of the taskmanager) open and checked the access rate to my hard disk. For the entire duration of 50 minutes, AME read between 50 megabyte and 125 megabyte per second on the hard disk. The file itself was less than 2 GB large - what on earth could it read? Also, my RAM usage came close to 2,8 GB but never reached 3 GB or higher.
Does anyone have an idea or is it just that freeware programs are superior to a costly AME?

Answer 1

I have already run that test about 4 hours prior to writing this thread. Now I'm not at this computer, but from top of my head the results were:
Total 180 (about)
Export Avi 38 (not entirely certain, could be up to 10 higher)
Encode MPEG 90 (not entirely certain, could be 20 lower or higher)
Render Time 7 (the only number I recall correctly)
I'm well aware my hard disk isn't fast - but why should VirtualDub be able to encode a 2gb uncompressed avi clip with a duration of 20 seconds to DivX in about a 1/3rd real time/8fps (using 50mbit, i-frames and 50fps and amazing quality) while AME takes 50 minutes (1/200th realtime) for the same file with the integrated MPEG4 encoder?
Now, I know that those are different codecs, yet their data reduction works on a similar base. From my point of view, there's not much that could explain such a high discrepancy of performance on the hardware side, other than AME just does not like my computer configuration. I know my computer is very capable to perform way better than that, just with about any other program but AME, and that is a royal pain.
Unfortunately, I am unable to install a second HDD in this notebook, because it is full. I do know it could perform better using a secondary HDD, but I have also encoded files with Adobe Premiere CS3, and that performed way better than CS4 on the same computer.