CPU

[rseiler]

I was curious if anyone has ever conducted a CPU performance hit test for Avast similar to what's done here. They basically ran Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2003 with and without the given AV program, and found the hit ranging from 0.5% (ViRobot) to 6% (NAV).

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1372113,00.asp

[igor]

I'm rather sceptic about such kind of "comparison" - in my opinion, the results will heavily depend on the settings of the antivirus (what files it scans, whether it scans the files on reading/writing/execution, whether it scans the content of archives etc.) - much more than what antivirus it actually is.
OK, for some antiviruses, you may not have the possibility to change the settings... but with avast! you certainly have - and the result would vary according to the particular settings.

Oh, btw - I'm not sure if it has much to do with CPU performance either - the disk access may be the important aspect here.

[Vlk]

Right Igor, but from the set of widely available benchmarks, the Media Creatation one is probably the most appropriate - as it doesn't stress only CPU but also (quite heavily) file I/O... Well in fact the point is not to measure CPU usage at all - they just compared the total times it took the benchmark to complete with and without the AV product installed - which somewhat makes sense...

Anyway, while I'd like to try this test as well, I don't seem able to download it - unlike the other benchmarks, in this case the VeriTest web site quite clearly states that it's only available physically on CD-ROM...
http://www.veritest.com/benchmarks/mccwinstone/mccwinstone.asp

Vlk

[rseiler]

Yup, I shouldn't have said CPU, it's more of an outlook on overall performance.

I see the 2004 version is out now (shipping $5), but it can't be posted because all the vendors involved won't agree to it. Too bad.