Archiving

It is the memory subsystem that bears the highest load in archiving tasks. Unlike semi-synthetic memory subsystem tests like PCMark04, archiving programs win from both a high CPU-memory bandwidth and a low latency. Besides that, the size of the L2 cache is important here, too.

Top lines of the diagram are populated by the processors with the K8 architecture, including Sempron 3100+, which has outperformed both 2.8GHz Pentium 4. This comes as the memory controller integrated into the K8 core reduces the memory latencies greatly. As for the Celeron D, they are faster than the Socket A Semprons due to a wider memory bus as well as efficient data prefetch algorithms implemented in the Prescott core.

Antivirus Check

As a kind of experiment, I decided to measure the speed of an antivirus check of a folder with files of various types with a popular antivirus program.

Once again the Semprons for Socket A can’t boast high speeds. The Sempron 3100+, being much faster than the Semprons of smaller ratings, is capable of challenging the senior Celeron D clocked at 2.93GHz.

Image Editing

Although Intel’s top-end CPUs are faster in Photoshop than their rivals from AMD, it’s different with the value products. The senior Sempron models – Socket 754 and Socket A models alike – run Photoshop almost as fast as the senior Celeron D CPUs. Comparing the junior models of the two series I would say that Intel’s ones are somewhat swifter.