Paint.NET x64

Website: Paint.NET

This is the 64-bit version of the popular free image editing software, Paint.NET. It's not as advanced as something like Adobe Photoshop CS3 or Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, but it does serve well for most image editing tasks.

We used the PDNBench script to test the processing times for a range of images and filters. The multi-threaded software also takes advantage of multi-core processors quite effectively.

For more information on what the benchmark script entails, please see this thread on the Paint.NET forums.


Paint.NET generally loves clock speed and cores, but the Intel E5200's large, low latency L2 cache seems to help, as it performs a lot better than AMD's latest 7750 and 7550s with their equally large L3 cache. That's even despite the AMD processor's much better memory performance.

GIMP Image Editing

Website: GUN Image Manipulation Program (GIMP)

Our GIMP image editing test simulates how well a PC can manipulate a collection of large digital photos, and to achieve a low time requires a PC with a powerful CPU, plenty of quick memory and efficient hard disk drive access.


Like above, the Intel CPU is the clear winner here, although the Athlon X2 7750 isn't far behind but still by 16 seconds. These two perform considerably better than the rest of the older AMD K8s, and the low clocked tri-core Phenom sits near the bottom also.