How we test
| System | AMD Phenom system | Intel Core 2 Quad system | Intel Core i7 system |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processors | AMD Phenom II 810
(2.6GHz, 2MB L2, 6MB L3,
AM3, quad-core, 45nm) £145 AMD Phenom II 720 BE (2.8GHz, 2MB L2, 6MB L3, AM3, triple-core, 45nm) £125 AMD Phenom II 940 (3.0GHz, 2MB L2, 6MB L3, AM2+, quad-core, 45nm) £190 AMD Phenom II 920 (2.8GHz, 2MB L2, 6MB L3, AM2+, quad-core, 45nm) £160 AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE (2.6GHz, 2MB L2, 2MB L, AM2+, quad-core, 65nm) £145 |
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
(2.33GHz, 4MB L2 cache, quad-core,
45nm) £145 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (2.50GHz, 6MB L2 cache, quad-core, 45nm) £170 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (3.00GHz, 6MB L2 cache, dual-core, 45nm) £140 |
Intel Core i7 920
(2.67GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 8MB L3, quad-core,
45nm) £240 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H (790GX + SB750) £120 | Foxconn P45A-S (Intel P45 + ICH10R) £100 | Intel DS58X0 (Intel X58 + ICH10R) £209 |
| BIOS revision | F3 (13/01/2009) | P05 (27/08/2008) | SOX5810J.86A.2786.EB.EXE (12/11/2008) |
| Memory |
4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair DOMINATOR 8500 (£69) |
6GB (3 x 2GB) Crucial DDR3-1,066 CL7 (£140) | |
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-12-2T @ 1,066MHz | 7-7-7-20-2T @ 1,066MHz | |
| Graphics card(s) | Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 512MB | ||
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 500GB SATAII (ST3500320AS) | ||
| Optical drive(s) | Sony DW-Q30A | ||
| Mainboard software | Standard Vista SP1 drivers + AHCI 3.1.1540.64 | Intel Inf 9.0.0.1008 | Intel Inf 9.1.0.1007 |
| Graphics driver | ATI Catalyst 8.12 | ||
| Operating system | Windows Vista Business, SP1 64-bit | ||
| PSU | OCZ GameXstream 700W | ||
| Monitor | Dell 2405FPW | ||
Software
| Benchmarks | ScienceMark Memory
Latency Sandra Lite 2009 SP2, float buffered HEXUS.PiFast calculation to 10m places HEXUS DivX 6.8.3 + Lame encoding enhanced multithreading on + SSE4 search off CINEBENCH R10 multi-CPU render 64-bit POV-Ray 3.7.0 beta 25a 64-bit WinRAR 3.80 compresssion of 1.2GB file wPrime 1024M calculation DivX 6.8.3 + Lame + QuickTime 7.5.5 (multitasking) DivX 6.8.3 + Lame + ET: QW, v1.5, 1,680x1,050 smp off (multitasking) Company of Heroes: OF v2.103, DX9, 1,024x768 - low and high quality ET: QW, v1.5, 1,024x768 smp off, and 1,680x1,050 high-detail settings. Power-draw at idle and load, as a platform |
|---|
Our thanks to Scan.co.uk for providing the comparison Intel CPU at short notice.
Notes
The first problem we faced was with securing an AM3 chipset-based motherboard for testing. We tried the usual suspects - Gigabyte, MSI, and ASUS - and, thus, the numbers produced are on a Gigabyte AM2+ board with tight timings at 1,066MHz speeds.
We'll be taking a look at DDR3-1,333 performance in a couple of days time, as a compliant motherboard is en route to us right now. However, given the higher latencies of DDR3 we'd expect very little performance differentiation.
AMD has openly admitted that AM3 boards are still reasonably immature, lending further credence to the fact that we probably won't see too many motherboard manufacturers release DDR3 boards from the get-go, simply because building a system around them, taking into account the cost of DDR3, doesn't make implicit sense. Expect the combination of AM3 CPUs and AM2+ motherboards to litter the channel, and that's just how we've tested them.
As comparisons, we've added both Phenom I and II CPUs, two Core 2 Quads, a Core 2 Duo, and the omnipowerful Core i7.
Let's see how it all shakes up.
