Athlon X4 860K CPU by AMD Review

Performance in programs

 Cinebench R15

Cinebench R15 is based on the Cinema 4D software. It is very useful to measure the performance gain obtained by the presence of several processing cores while rendering heavy 3D images. Rendering is an area where a bigger number of cores helps a lot, because usually this kind of software recognize several processors (Cinebench R15, for example, can use up to 256 processing cores).
We ran the CPU benchmark, which renders a complex image using all the processing cores (real and virtual) to speed up the process. The result is given as a score.

On Cinebench R15 CPU benchmark, the Athlon X4 860K was 10% faster than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K and the FX-4300.

CPU-Z

On its current version, the well-known hardware identification software CPU-Z comes with a benchmarking tool, which measures CPU performance for one core and for all available cores.

On the single thread benchmark, the Athlon X4 860K was 36% slower than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K and the FX-4300.

On the multiple thread benchmark, the Athlon X4 860K was 46% faster than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K, and being 15% faster than the FX-4300.

DivX

We used the DivX converter, a tool included in the DivX package, in order to measure the encoding performance using this codec. The DivX codec is capable of recognizing and using all available cores and the SSE4 instruction set.
We converted a Full HD, six-minute long .mov video file into an .avi file, using the “HD 1080p” output profile. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the better.

On DivX encoding, the Athlon X4 860K was 20% slower than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K, and being 7% faster than the FX-4300.

Media Espresso

Media Espresso is a video conversion program that uses the graphics processing unit of the video engine to speed up the conversion process. We converted a 1 GiB, 1920x1080i, 23,738 kbps, .mov video file to a smaller 320×200, H.264, .MP4 file for viewing on a smartphone. The results below are given in seconds, so the lower the better.

Here the Athlon X4 860K was 25% slower than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K and being 6% faster than the FX-4300.

Photoshop CC

The best way to measure the performance of a CPU is by using real programs. The problem, of course, is to create a methodology that offers precise results. For Photoshop CC, we used a script named “Retouch Artist Speed Test,” which applies a series of filters to a standard image and gives the time Photoshop takes to run all of them. The results are given in seconds, so the less, the best.

In this test, the Athlon X4 860K was 32% slower than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K and the FX-4300.

WinRAR

Another task where the CPU is very demanded is on file compacting. We ran a test compacting a folder with 8 GiB on 6.813 files to a file, using WinRAR 4.2. The graph below shows the time taken on each test.

On WinRAR, the Athlon X4 860K was 18% slower than the Pentium G4500, performing similarly to the Athlon X4 880K and the FX-4300.