MB 3.0.x an CPU-Z Benchmark

[bdg2]

Can anyone explain to me why having MalwareBytes 3.0.x running has such a dramatic effect on the result of the multi thread CPU benchmark in CPU-Z 1.78?

The result appears to indicate about half the expected multi threaded performance with MalwareBytes running and a normal result after stopping MalwareBytes by right clicking it's tray icon, choosing "Quit MalwareBytes" and waiting a few seconds while it shuts down.

(My processor is a Core i7-4790K).

Edited March 5, 2017 by bdg2

[exile360]

The only thing I can think of would be the fact that Malwarebytes 3.x is VERY multithreaded.  You can observe this most clearly by running a scan while utilizing a tool that monitors all cores/threads of your CPU, such as the Performance tab of Task Manager (I actually use a sidebar gadget on Win 7 that shows all threads/cores and their % of usage along with temps and other nifty data).  You should see that throughout most of the scan, pretty much every core/thread is being used almost to the max.  This reduces scan times quite dramatically, especially if you have a fast SSD (i.e. one of the better Samsung, OCZ, Intel etc. SSDs available on the market over the past few years).

So my guess would be that when you run the test via CPU-Z, it attempts to hammer your cores/threads to test the performance while at the same time Malwarebytes is also doing its thing, and probably scanning whatever processes/threads CPU-Z is loading into memory to run the test.  One possible solution would be to exclude CPU-Z's process from the Exclusions tab under Settings in Malwarebytes, but I'm not absolutely certain that that would work.

Additionally, there are plans to allow users greater control over the level of resource usage by Malwarebytes, at least for scans (not certain about realtime protection) so that users may get better multitasking performance when a scan is running, though of course at the cost of scans being somewhat slower/longer.

[siliconman01]

3 hours ago, exile360 said:

So my guess would be that when you run the test via CPU-Z, it attempts to hammer your cores/threads to test the performance while at the same time Malwarebytes is also doing its thing, and probably scanning whatever processes/threads CPU-Z is loading into memory to run the test.  One possible solution would be to exclude CPU-Z's process from the Exclusions tab under Settings in Malwarebytes, but I'm not absolutely certain that that would work.

Additionally, there are plans to allow users greater control over the level of resource usage by Malwarebytes, at least for scans (not certain about realtime protection) so that users may get better multitasking performance when a scan is running, though of course at the cost of scans being somewhat slower/longer.

Yes, it really pounds on all the threads and drives the CPU temperatures up by 50-60 degrees C even with liquid cooling on the CPU, particularly on systems with SSDs and/or the Samsung 950/960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD and EVO mSATA SSD.  In my opinion Malwarebytes should slow down the scanning and reduce the loading on the CPU during scans.  I hope the CPU resource control is installed before the life span of high powered CPU are reduced more than desired.

 

[exile360]

TL;DR Yes, we plan to add the ability to reduce resource usage during scans, however it's standard practice for efficient multithreaded apps (like scanners, archivers, video encoders etc.) to use as much CPU across as many threads as possible for the sake of speed.  Keeping things cool is generally a matter of the cooling solution used and the level of voltage/overclock (like TurboBoost etc.) being put into the system/CPU.

The long version for those interested:

As long as your system cooling is adequate, high utilization shouldn't be an issue.  The way a PC should be setup is so that, even under full stress/load, the cooling solution (fan, liquid cooling, passive cooling or whatever is in use) should be capable of keeping the CPU below the threshold of temps that put the hardware at risk for failure.  Also, particularly on modern CPUs (though it's also been true of most for years now), most have features to automatically clock themselves down (speed, voltage or both) to reduce heat when temps get too high (I had this very issue on my own laptop with a 4910MQ i7 processor until I opened it up and replaced the stock thermal paste on the CPU and GPU where it previously would clock down at stock speeds due to heat under load but now I've got it stable and cool (never hitting the mark for thermal throttling/down-clocking, which it would always do previously under load even at stock clock speeds) at 4.1GHz (stock was 3.2GHz max, and it used to overheat at those speeds).  I actually had to replace my GPU because it got fried thanks to poor application of thermal paste from the manufacturer (the same issue that was causing my CPU heat issues), but now I have a more powerful GPU, a higher clocked CPU and the system is more stable and cooler than ever, not to mention much faster :).

Additionally, if temps are a concern and you've done all you can with regards to cooling, you may want to look into modifying settings via a utility such as Intel XTU (an overclocking/underclocking utility created by Intel specifically for modifying settings in the BIOS within Windows for controlling the features, voltages and temps of the CPU).  Undervolting for example, has been known to work wonders for reducing heat under load while still retaining the same speeds, sometimes even giving more headroom for overclocking if desired (though the ability to stably undervolt a CPU depends on where on the die the chip came from in manufacturing with the chips which were closer to the center of the die being the most stable/capable of undervolting, so it is a crap shoot but worth tweaking if you're comfortable with it to see if you can get better clocks/temps and use less power at the same time and thus generate less heat).

I realize the above is not directly related to Malwarebytes' resource usage, however I truly believe that if a system is getting too hot under load, regardless of the application causing it, something should be done if possible to get it to run cooler/more stably because any application/process has the potential to create such problems (games, CPU intensive apps such as video encoding, archiving software etc.).  That's not to say that we shouldn't provide options to allow using less resources during scans, but my point is that if a system can't really handle being under full load, then it's probably only a matter of time before some app, any app, starts causing problems due to heat.

By the way, looking at the image you posted, the heat doesn't seem that bad to me.  I realize such temps aren't ideal, but if the CPU is designed to be capable of handling temps up to 100C and the highest you're seeing is in the low 80's/high 70's then that should be totally cool enough not to damage the CPU (I try to keep mine around 90C or below under load and it's been perfectly stable and it's quite an old system too, and less power efficient than the CPU you've got as mine is 2 generations behind yours).

[bdg2]

On 06/03/2017 at 2:43 PM, exile360 said:

The only thing I can think of would be the fact that Malwarebytes 3.x is VERY multithreaded.  You can observe this most clearly by running a scan while utilizing a tool that monitors all cores/threads of your CPU, such as the Performance tab of Task Manager (I actually use a sidebar gadget on Win 7 that shows all threads/cores and their % of usage along with temps and other nifty data).  You should see that throughout most of the scan, pretty much every core/thread is being used almost to the max.  This reduces scan times quite dramatically, especially if you have a fast SSD (i.e. one of the better Samsung, OCZ, Intel etc. SSDs available on the market over the past few years).

So my guess would be that when you run the test via CPU-Z, it attempts to hammer your cores/threads to test the performance while at the same time Malwarebytes is also doing its thing, and probably scanning whatever processes/threads CPU-Z is loading into memory to run the test.  One possible solution would be to exclude CPU-Z's process from the Exclusions tab under Settings in Malwarebytes, but I'm not absolutely certain that that would work.

Additionally, there are plans to allow users greater control over the level of resource usage by Malwarebytes, at least for scans (not certain about realtime protection) so that users may get better multitasking performance when a scan is running, though of course at the cost of scans being somewhat slower/longer.

I did some more tests and, somewhat bizarrely, it seems to be the Ransomware Protection that does it!

Also looking at the CPU usage shown in Task Manager (and a few other utilities I tried) and at the CPU temperature it looks like the CPU usage is just being restricted rather than that MalwareBytes is using CPU for itself; with Ransomware Protection enabled and CPU-Z stressing the CPU the total CPU appears to stay around 50%. Turn off Ransomware Protection and it goes up to around 99%.

Hopefully it's just something weird about CPU-Z that makes it happen and it's not doing it to much other software that uses lots of CPU.

The effect isn't happening with Prime95 which will eat 100% CPU and get my CPU fan really whizzing whether or not MalwareBytes is running.

[bdg2]

Adding an exclusion for cpuz.exe didn't help.

Excluding the whole "C:\Program Files\CPUID" directory made things WORSE!!! -- The multithreaded test barely scored more than the single thread test with this exclusion!!!

[exile360]

Wow, those are some very interesting findings.  Thank you for testing and posting up your results.  I'll report this data directly to the MB Dev/QA teams for further investigation.

I can understand the Anti-Ransomware module being related as it's definitely heavier on resources than most other modules given the methods it uses (monitoring file/disk access/modification in realtime among other things), but the other aspects are definitely anomalous and worth investigating further.

Anyway, thanks again for reporting this and hopefully our team will be able to determine what's happening with CPU-Z and get it corrected in short order.

[Jekko]

QA guy reporting.  I've tested on two systems here and my findings show a slight difference in test results, but not as apparent as what you are seeing @bdg2.

I also ran on a laptop with an Intel i7-6650U CPU @ 2.20 GHz and the numbers for the multi-threading benchmark was:

• MBAM On: 3631
• MBAM Off: 3468

Do you think there may be another process that may be conflicting?  It's interesting that your test showed such a huge difference compared to what I am seeing.
What version of MBAM did you run?  I tested with MBAM 3.0.6.1469 with the latest Component Update package 1.0.75

[bdg2]

Yes I'm also using  MalwareBytes 3.0.6.1469-1.0.75.

There are lots of other programs installed and some unusual settings that could be interacting. I will try to investigate further.

[bdg2]

So far it seems that the effect just increases according to how many programs are running (running in the sense that they appear in Task Manager, not that they are using CPU).

Pick any half a dozen tasks and kill them and the effect reduces.

Pick a small selection of programs to start up and minimise and the effect increases.

[bdg2]

Hello?

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, bdg2 said:

Hello?

@Jekko Will get back to you.

 

Never-mind jekko, It seems like user does not want any assistance as stated here.

 

Edited March 14, 2017 by Porthos

[Jekko]

For what it's worth, the results I posted earlier with my screenshots regarding the benchmark tool was done on a heavily used system with multiple programs running.  As Exile stated, it's unfortunate to hear a user will be uninstalling MBAM, but we will always be here to provide what help we can.

[proton777]

I'm here because I'm at the point of uninstalling MB on my three machines.  When MB routinely takes between 300 MB and 700 MB of RAM - the point where my PCs are unusable - something needs to be done. It's ridiculous on my laptop but it's even a problem on my i7 desktop with 16 MB RAM.   It sometimes uses more resources than my browser with several open tabs.  When it impedes my ability to do my work efficiently (frequenlty), I go in as Administrator and turn off the MBAM service until it isn't as critical.

It was a great product but no longer is since it can't operate in the background and be transparent.  I uninstalled and reinstalled 3.0.6 again just now - one last time - hoping there will be some improvement.

[dont_touch_my_buffer]

On 3/6/2017 at 1:00 PM, siliconman01 said:

Yes, it really pounds on all the threads and drives the CPU temperatures up by 50-60 degrees C even with liquid cooling on the CPU, particularly on systems with SSDs and/or the Samsung 950/960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD and EVO mSATA SSD.

On my air-cooled W8.1 with Samsung SSD, I don't see much performance hit with Malwarebytes scan. In addition to MB scan, I had:

• Vipre scanning a network share
• Opening all MS Office apps, including Visio and creating a network diagram
• Run Gimp2
• Etc..

The Microsoft programs started up with a minor delay, creating the network diagram was just fine, etc. Gimp on the other hand took much longer to open than usual.

The CPU had been pegged for about 15 minutes, but temperature didn't even reach 50 degree Celsius, per CPUID HWmonitor:

It's an older CPU and that might be the reason for the performance differences...

Disclaimer: I love air-cooling and yes, it is custom built...

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by dont_touch_my_buffer
Clarification...

[bdg2]

On 06/03/2017 at 6:00 PM, siliconman01 said:

Yes, it really pounds on all the threads and drives the CPU temperatures up by 50-60 degrees C even with liquid cooling on the CPU, particularly on systems with SSDs and/or the Samsung 950/960 Pro M.2 NVMe SSD and EVO mSATA SSD.  In my opinion Malwarebytes should slow down the scanning and reduce the loading on the CPU during scans.  I hope the CPU resource control is installed before the life span of high powered CPU are reduced more than desired.

Modern CPUs automatically under clock themselves to prevent damage from overheating. There should be no danger of shortening the life of the CPU enough to matter to anyone except the curator of a computer museum.