Analysis of drilling chip size distribution is one of the approaches to evaluate the cutting efficiency and cutters used in mechanical drilling machines. In this study, a new approach was presented to evaluate the performance of disk cutters on a laboratory scale, in which the fines produced by the rock-cutting process were monitored. Therefore, a series of rock-cutting tests were performed on a gypsum sample with a small-scale linear cutting machine with two types of V-shaped blades and a fixed cross-section. The cutting chips for each blade were collected, weighed, and sieved using six sieves with dimensions of 4, 8, 16, 50, 100, and 200 mesh. The results showed that with increasing penetration depth in single-cutting mode, the amount of fines produced decreases, and the second-cut disk cutter produces fewer fines than the V-shaped disk cutter. By calculating the energy consumed in the production of fines, it was found that the lowest energy consumed in the production of fines for both disc cutters is obtained at a spacing-to-penetration depth ratio of 5, and its value for the V-shaped and fixed-section disc cutters is 1.9 and 1.3 megajoules per cubic meter, respectively. In the end, it was found that the fixed-section disc cutter has a more effective performance than the V-shaped disc cutters due to the lower energy consumption in the production of fines.