The best way to measure performance is by using real programs. The problem, though, is creating a methodology using real software that provides accurate results. For Photoshop CS4, there is a methodology created by the folks at GamingHeaven that is very accurate. Their script applies a series of 15 filters to a sample image, and we wrote down the time taken for each filter to run. At the end, we have the results for each individual filter and we simply added them up to have the total time taken to run the 15 filters from the GamingHeaven batch. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the number the better.

On Photoshop CS4 Phenom II X2 555 was 22% faster than Athlon II X4 620 and 9% faster than Pentium E6300. It also achieved the same performance level as Core 2 Duo E7500, which was 13% faster than Athlon II X4 635. These results are with the on-board video enabled.

When we installed a GeForce 9600 GT performance increased less than 3% compared to the results taken with the on-board video, so we have to consider that there was no significant performance increase when we installed a “real” video card.