Multitasking test

Multitasking with 7-Zip and mplayer

Websites: www.7-zip.org and www.mplayerhq.hu

Multitasking is a phrase that we're all familiar with, because most of us are now used to running multiple applications at the same time. However, to run multiple applications well you need a powerful (ideally multi-core) CPU and plenty of RAM.

Our multitasking test performs a massive file backup (with encryption) using 7-Zip, while simultaneously playing back a HD movie file using mplayer, making it a demanding test for any PC.



It's the multi-tasking test where the Athlon II X4 falls flat on its face though. It's far behind everything else in the table and even when overclocked as heavily as we could only manages to scrape past the Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 at its stock clock. The same priced Phenom II X2 550 is over 80 seconds faster at completing the job, which kills any thought of buying an Athlon II X4 for "doing more at once" when a dual core can do it in nearly a third less time.

The answer lies in the L3 cache again as the Phenom II X4 makes a very significant 20 per cent difference in performance.

Final Thoughts

We really find it difficult to recommend the Athlon II X4 to anyone because it has very few redeeming features. Its very high power use for the minimal transistor count is strange and confusing: why is there the need to throw at hefty 1.4V through the core to run the chip at 2.6GHz? If it were a 65W chip, then maybe it would be a consideration for a slightly quieter PC, even HTPC, against the L3-cache enabled 95W dual and triple cores, where comparatively it ends up being 20W thirstier.

The biggest kick to its nuts is its multi-tasking and multi-threaded productivity performance: 15-20 per cent is a very noticeable dip, and considering the biggest reason people buy quad cores is to do "more at once", it negates the point of the purchase when you can buy a dual or triple core for almost the same money, which is faster. Oh, and potentially unlockable to a quad core.


The Athlon II X4 is only good for very specific applications that execute entirely separate threads doing different things. Cinebench, Handbrake video encoding and 7-Zip are real world benefits we saw worked in its favour to a significant benefit. For the same money, a Phenom II X2 550 has to be overclocked to 3.8GHz - 1.2GHz more than the Athlon II X4 to keep up.

It's evidently a case of big wins or huge loses for the Athlon II X4 620. To benefit from this cheap quad core you need to use a very specific multi-threaded program that issues its threads to work on tasks independently of the other cores. If the OS is left to predominantly handle workload dispatching, then inter-core snooping occurs, and the lack of L3 cache cripples performance, transforming an excellent CPU to a dreadful one.

Because of this we'd plump for the more rounded Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition for the same money, any day of the week. AMD may have created the cheapest quad core out there, but it's never going to be a "must buy" like the Q6600 was when that was the cheapest quad-core. Save your money; don't succumb to the hype of many-core and make more informed choices, unless you have a specific software need.

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Score Guide