Benchmark Results: Productivity
Productivity
The two stock systems finish rendering in just under a minute. While overclocking this month's $500 PC reduces this time by twelve seconds, unlocking a fourth core on the September PC lops off a more impressive eighteen. It's a shame that there's no way to verify that an AMD CPU will unlock prior to purchasing. Luck of the draw can really affect your results, as we see here.
Overclocking yields little benefit in our AVG test, where reduced scan times demand additional processing cores.
The two budget builds are close in WinRAR compression, but ultimately the machine offering the unlocked fourth core is first to finish the task.
7-Zip benefits from additional processing cores and more clock speed. A narrow victory for the December PC turns to a loss once both machines are overclocked.
Successful core unlocking allows last quarter's $400 PC to squeak out a win in Photoshop, despite trailing by a sizeable amount at stock clocks.