T60p faster than new Core i7 4930K w SSD

[noetus]

OK, so I recently got myself a new rig for a project I'm working on.

Core i7 4930K, that's a 6 core processor and one of Intel's best consumer CPUs at the moment, water cooled, overclocked to 4.4 GHz, ASUS P9X79 PRO main board, with Intel 530 SSD (Windows drive) on SATA3, 32GB RAM and Windows 8.1 Pro installed. You'd think this thing would be a beast.

Out of curiosity I decided to pit it against my trusty T60p on a speed test. Now I have upgraded the T60p somewhat; it has a T2600 dual core processor at 2.16 GHz, 4GB ram (3GB usable) and sports a Samsung 830 SSD. It is running Windows 7 Ultimate. But bear in mind the rest of the technology dates from 2006. That is 7-8 years ago, an eternity in computer terms. And it's a *laptop*. You'd think a brand new overclocked Core i7 desktop would have no trouble beating it, right?

Wrong. The speed test consisted of simply unRAR-ing a 260 MB compressed file (containing 257 574 files). It is a real workaday archive I needed to uncompress.

The T60p did it in 5 mins 5 seconds. The Core i7? 5 mins 26 seconds.

Now I am wondering: how is this possible? And why did I just spend so much money on the Core i7 rig?

Incidentally, the T60p has version 4.20 of WinRAR installed (32 bit), and the i7 has version 5.01 (64 bit). Both are selected for multithreading.

[rumbero]

The speed test consisted of simply unRAR-ing a 260 MB compressed file (containing 257 574 files). It is a real workaday archive I needed to uncompress.

The T60p did it in 5 mins 5 seconds. The Core i7? 5 mins 26 seconds.

Now I am wondering: how is this possible? And why did I just spend so much money on the Core i7 rig?

I hardly think that unrar'ing an archive of any size really qualifies as a significant CPU performance test.

Try compiling a recent Linux kernel on both machines, and you will certainly note a slight difference... :p

[Cigarguy]

????

They day my F150 2002 work truck out performs my Subarur WRX sports car is the day pigs can really fly. If you want I'd be happy to do a straight swap with any of my T60p or T61p for that slow, outdated, unusable 4930K system of yours. I'm sure with a lots and lots of work, tweaking and OCing I can get your desktop system working adequately for my uses.

[noetus]

I hardly think that unrar'ing an archive of any size really qualifies as a significant CPU performance test.

Try compiling a recent Linux kernel on both machines, and you will certainly note a slight difference... :p

I realise that I wasn't doing a CPU comparison. And I'm not trying to prove, Cigarguy, that somehow the T60p is a superior machine. I am just expressing surprise that this task wouldn't be appreciably faster on a much newer and much faster desktop overall, given the separation in years and the fact it's a desktop versus a laptop.

I also have a Samsung 840 Pro SSD on the 4930K. Unrar-ing the file on that drive made the process a bit faster - down to 4 mins 45 secs. I suppose what this shows is that the disk access speed is the bottleneck for this task, and the last-generation Samsung 830 even on the slower T60P with the slower SATA connection outperforms the latest-generation Intel 530 on the much newer and much faster desktop.