Measured with 'time' command, why is process spending so much sys time as compared with similar system

Question

I have two similar systems, but one is running a bit slower, and I can't figure out why.

System 1

time convert rose: -resize 5000x5000 -bench 5 /tmp/rose.png
Performance: 5i 0.221729ips 26.050u 0:22.549

real 0m22.554s
user 0m25.795s
sys 0m0.262s

System 2

time convert rose: -resize 5000x5000 -bench 5 /tmp/rose.png
Performance: 5i 0.220167ips 28.710u 0:22.710

real 0m22.731s
user 0m25.553s
sys 0m3.172s

While the overall time is about the same.. The sys time (time spent in kernel) is over 10 times as long.

What would make this happen? What can I look into to figure this out?

update 1: Memory is the same and /tmp is not full.

update 2: Since these are Core i7 2600's I'm thinking it might have to do with the chipset recall and slower drive performance. Or maybe they were set up differently.

Answer 1

If system 2 is rather tight on RAM, that could explain it: the kernel is spending time swapping out other apps. If my theory is right, the results should not be very repeatable because system 2 will have freed up enough RAM for a second run.

Otherwise, eumino's comment about differences in /tmp could possibly explain it (/tmp is almost full and fragmented?) but that's a less likely scenario in my opinion.