AMD Athlon X2 7850 vs. Intel Pentium E5300: Choosing the Best $70 CPU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 28, 2009 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Performance
To measure performance under Photoshop CS4 we turn to the Retouch Artists’ Speed Test. The test does basic photo editing; there are a couple of color space conversions, many layer creations, color curve adjustment, image and canvas size adjustment, unsharp mask, and finally a gaussian blur performed on the entire image.
The whole process is timed and thanks to the use of Intel's X25-M SSD as our test bed hard drive, performance is far more predictable than back when we used to test on mechanical disks.
Time is reported in seconds and the lower numbers mean better performance. The test is multithreaded and can hit all four cores in a quad-core machine.
The Retouch Artists’ Photoshop Speed Test has traditionally favored Intel’s Core architecture and since the E5300 is based on that architecture we see a significant performance advantage over the Athlon X2. The E5300 finishes this test in around 12% less time than the X2 7850. Even the E5200 is faster, but only by a 7.5% margin.
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just4U - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I don't agree about intel being the clear choice, (enthusiast or otherwise)You have to factor in boards being used to. Chances are most that are looking for a bottom feeder budget build will be using integrated chipsets. The 780g/v brings so much more to the table over what we currently get from intel offerings..
That was a key sticking point for me.. and I think it really makes the choice a hard one to make unless your brand loyal, or a overclocker looking for a cheap cpu based around a competent setup.
nubie - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Depends on what you need, I went for a 650i motherboard with a single PCIe slot for an 8600GTS ( the 2ghz ram actually seems to help with the 128-bit bus). It was $40, and you can get that deal yourself.I doubt for $140 you can beat a 3.3-3.4 ghz core2 with an 8600GTS.
soydeedo - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.Zaitsev - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I was hoping to see a few words on OCing as well. I mean, having two cores disabled should yield some more headroom than the quad core parts, right?Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I didn't have time to test overclocking for this article but if there's enough demand we can definitely look at how the two compare. The E5300 has a good amount of headroom thanks to its 45nm process, I'd expect the standings to remain the same if not widen in favor of Intel.Take care,
Anand
cpeter38 - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Please do OC the chip ...crimson117 - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
OC results on these two budget CPUs would be great - but it'd be best if it were normalized somehow...1. Same price-class motherboards, around $100 or less to match the low-cost CPUs
2. Same exact ram modules
3. Same heatsink, or limit it to included stock heatsinks
, and re-run just a few choice benchmarks.
Would make for a great blog post :)
Viditor - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
While you're at it, you should unlock the other 2 cores as well...http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/143621,amd-x2s-ar...">http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/143621,amd-x2s-ar...
johnsonx - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
I've read dozens of articles and posts claiming that you can unlock the extra core(s) in the new X2's and X3's, and exactly ZERO telling how to actually do it. Is this some sort of urban legend?ssj4Gogeta - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
Yes we'd definitely like to see OC results. I'm sure after OC'ing both chips to their max. gaming performance will be significantly better on the Intel part too.