File Compression Performance

WinRAR

Website: WinRAR

Our custom-made file compression test is split into two halves to cover a broad spectrum of performance. The first test compresses and encrypts a 176MB MPEG-2 file with the highest quality compression ratio.

The second test compresses and encrypts a folder of 400 photographs with the same compression settings.



The file compression performance may beat the Intel alternative convincingly, but does not stand up to the same priced AMD triple and dual core products that have a higher frequency, but less cores. There's also a significantly larger 15 per cent difference between the cache enabled Phenom II X4 and the Athlon II X4 too.



That difference extends to over 20 per cent in small file compression, where clearly the multi-threaded nature of this WinRAR and many small files mean the cores need to regularly check what each other is doing and without very low latency L3 cache to make that efficient there's a significant performance hit.

Compared to other CPUs, this also puts the Athlon II X4 620 at the bottom of the table, and even when overclocked only just manages to equal the score of a slightly more expensive Phenom II X3 720 BE that does include 6MB of L3 cache (and 200MHz extra core clock).