How we test
CPU comparisons |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Approx. pricing |
Clock speed | Cores threads | Motherboard | Chipset | Int. Graphics | Graphics driver | Memory | Memory timings |
| AMD A8-3850 | £100 | 2.9GHz | 4/4 | ASRock A75 Pro4 | FM1 | HD 6550D | Cat 11.7 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| AMD A6-3650 | £90 | 2.6GHz | 4/4 | ASRock A75 Pro4 | FM1 | HD 6530D | Cat 11.7 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| AMD Phenom II X6 1100T | £140 | 3.3GHz | 6/6 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | - | - | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| AMD Phenom II X6 1055T | £120 | 2.8GHz | 6/6 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | - | - | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| AMD Phenom II X4 980BE | £140 | 3.7GHz | 6/6 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | - | - | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| AMD Phenom II X4 975BE | £130 | 3.6GHz | 4/4 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | - | - | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| AMD Athlon II X4 645 | £80 | 3.1GHz | 4/4 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | - | - | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i7 2600K | £230 | 3.4GHz | 4/8 | ASUS P8Z68-V Pro | Z68 | HD 3000 | Intel '2361 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i5 2500K | £160 | 3.3GHz | 4/4 | ASUS P8Z68-V Pro | Z68 | HD 3000 | Intel '2361 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i5 2500 | £150 | 3.3GHz | 4/4 | ASUS P8Z68-V Pro | Z68 | HD 2000 | Intel '2361 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i3 2100 | £90 | 3.1GHz | 2/4 | ASUS P8Z68-V Pro | Z68 | HD 2000 | Intel '2361 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i5 650 | £140 | 3.0GHz | 2/4 | Gigabyte H55M | H55 | HD Graphics | Intel '2361 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i7 870 | £140 | 3.6GHz | 4/8 | ASUS P7P55D | P55 | - | - | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i5 750 | £140 | 2.67GHz | 4/4 | ASUS P7P55D | P55 | - | - | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i7 990X EE | £770 | 3.46GHz | 6/12 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | - | - | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i7 980X EE | £430 | 3.33GHz | 6/12 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | - | - | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i7 970 | £430 | 3.2GHz | 6/12 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | - | - | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| Intel Core i7 950 | £180 | 3.06GHz | 4/8 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | - | - | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T |
| *Suggested retail price | |||||||||
Common components |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discrete GPU | AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB (Cat 11.5) | |||||||||||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX1000W (Zalman 400W for IGP tests) | |||||||||||
| Monitor | Dell 30in 3007WFP | |||||||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Corsair V128 SSD | |||||||||||
| Chassis | Corsair Obsidian Series 700D | |||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate, SP1, 64-bit | |||||||||||
Benchmarks |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | ||||||||||||
| AIDA64 | Useful application to test memory bandwidth | |||||||||||
| HEXUS.PiFast | Using CPU power to crunch to constant to 10m places - light load | |||||||||||
| iTunes MP3 | Encodes WAV files into 192kb/s MP3 - light load | |||||||||||
| CINEBENCH R11.5 | Multi-CPU render - heavy load | |||||||||||
| TrueCrypt 7.0a | Encryption benchmark - heavy load | |||||||||||
| wPrime 2.0.4 | Calculate 1024M prime numbers - heavy load | |||||||||||
| GPU | ||||||||||||
| 3Mark Vantage | DX10 benchmark that stresses the (i)GPU and CPU | |||||||||||
| Just Cause 2 | DX9 benchmark taking in the popular game. 720p | |||||||||||
| COD: BO | 30-second FRAPS through a frenetic section, 720p | |||||||||||
| StarCraft II | 90-second FRAPS through a typical battle, 720p | |||||||||||
| Power-draw | Run at idle, wPrime load (2D) and Just Cause 2 load (3D) | |||||||||||
Notes
18 CPUs ranging from £80 through to £800. We give you such a wide comparison for completeness. However, it makes sense to compare like for like. As such, please do look at the results of the A6-3650 against Intel's Core i3-2100 chip - it's priced at £90 and also has integrated graphics.
We have run all systems with a discrete Radeon HD 6950 2GB card for 2D tests, thereby minimising any memory-bandwidth penalties incurred by setups using integrated graphics.
As the A6-3650 is a budget CPU and one of its main selling points is the quality of the HD 6530D graphics, we have run select combinations - IGP-only - in the gaming and power-consumption benchmarks; you probably wouldn't use a £200 discrete card with it.
