File Compression & Encryption:

Website: WinRAR

Our file compression and decompression tests were split into two halves to cover a broad spectrum of performance. The first test we ran was to compress and encrypt a 176MB MPEG-2 source file with the highest quality compression ratio. Secondly, we compressed and encrypted the folder of 400 photographs with the same compression settings.



The Sapphire board is the clear winner here, with a ten second advantage over the Abit in both tests. While that might not sound a lot, remember these tests are only two and a half minutes long, so in real world situations, the Sapphire will be noticeably faster.

File Decompression & Decryption:

The two RAR archives created during the compression and encryption tests were then decompressed and decrypted.



In the decompression and decryption test where the weight is moved from just CPU and memory to include hard drive access speed as well, we see the results reversed, with the Abit board slightly faster on the large file test and a massive fifteen percent faster on the small file test, convincingly besting the Sapphire.