Archiving and Encryption

To test the processors performance during data archiving we resort to WinRAR archiving utility. Using maximum compression rate we archive a folder with multiple files with 1.4 GB total size.

Although the memory controller of the new Pentium processors can’t work with anything faster than DDR3-1333, they do very well in data compression tests. Sandy Bridge microarchitecture with highly efficient internal ring bus helps these processors to win the leadership in their price range: no other solutions with comparable price can even get close to Pentium G850/G840/G620.

The processor performance during encryption is measured with an integrated benchmark from a popular cryptographic utility called TrueCrypt. I have to say that it can not only effectively utilize any number of processor cores, but also supports special AES instructions.

As for the cryptographic tests, things are not so rosy for the newcomers here. Intel disabled AES instructions support in their inexpensive processors that is why the number of cores and their clock frequency start to matter most of all. As a result, Pentium G850/G840/G620 do not shine in this test: they are behind not only Athlon II CPUs, but even Pentium E6800 for LGA775 based on the prehistoric Wolfdale core.

Image Editing

We measured the performance in Adobe Photoshop using our own benchmark made from Retouch Artists Photoshop Speed Test that has been creatively modified. It includes typical editing of four 10-megapixel images from a digital photo camera.

The new Pentium G850/G840/G620 processors show their real strengths in this test. And even though they are still quite far behind Sandy Bridge based Core i3, they outperform all older CPUs for different platforms. For example, dual-core Core i3-530 supporting Hyper-Threading is about 10% slower than Pentium G620, while triple-core Athlon II X3 455 loses more than 20%.

We have also performed some tests in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 program. The test scenario includes post-processing and export into JPEG format of a hundred 12-megapixel images in RAW format.

Things are a little different in Lightroom, but overall we can’t complain about low performance of the new LGA1155 Pentium processors. They do just as good as triple-core AMD CPUs and dual-core LGA1156 processors with Hyper-Threading support.