Round 4: Photo editing

Depending on your level on interest in the hobby, photo editing might mean anything from a simple edge crop of a shot from your daughter's wedding to running a wedding photo business of your own. Our Photoshop test represents a task common to many photographers: converting large-size images to Web-appropriate file sizes.



The results of this round mirror those of the first round with our SysMark application test. AMD has a clear advantage with the higher-end chip, and the results get closer as you move down into the mainstream and lower-end chips. AMD's top three X2 chips finished at the top, but Intel and AMD exchanged even blows when we looked at the Pentium D 840, 830, and 820 chips matched up against the Athlon X2 4200+ and 3800+ chips. The round still goes to AMD for the showing by its top three X2 chips, but at least Intel was competitive in this round--unlike the last two.

Winner: AMD