Testbed and Methods
We decided to include only those processor models into our today抯 test session, that are up-to-date and available, i.e. those that are currently shipping into the market. It means that our today抯 result charts and diagrams will not contain any data for Socket 939 systems from AMD that have now been replaced with faster solutions for Socket AM2 platform with DDR2 SDRAM support. Moreover, we also didn抰 test the Athlon 64 X2 processors with the 2MB L2 cache that have been discontinued already. Also, you will not see the results for almost the entire Intel Pentium D 8XX processor line-up that has been discontinued. At this time only Pentium D 820 model is still shipping. The Pentium D 9XX processor family will be represented by only two models ?the 945 and 915 that do not support Virtualization technology, because the rest of the processor family will stop shipping in the nearest future. Note that even though Intel has already stopped offering Pentium Extreme Edition 965 processor, we still included it into our today抯 test session, because it is the fastest CPU with the previous-generation microarchitecture.
So, we ended up with the systems built using the following hardware components:
- CPUs:
- AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (Socket AM2, 2.8GHz, 2x1024KB L2);
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (Socket AM2, 2.6GHz, 2x512KB L2);
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (Socket AM2, 2.4GHz, 2x512KB L2);
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (Socket AM2, 2.2GHz, 2x512KB L2);
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Socket AM2, 2.0GHz, 2x512KB L2);
- Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (LGA775, 2.93GHz, 1067MHz FSB, 4MB L2);
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (LGA775, 2.66GHz, 1067MHz FSB, 4MB L2);
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (LGA775, 2.4GHz, 1067MHz FSB, 4MB L2);
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (LGA775, 2.13GHz, 1067MHz FSB, 2MB L2);
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (LGA775, 1.86GHz, 1067MHz FSB, 2MB L2);
- Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (LGA775, 3.73GHz, 1067MHz FSB, 2x2MB L2);
- Intel Pentium D 945 (LGA775, 3.4GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2x2MB L2);
- Intel Pentium D 915 (LGA775, 2.8GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2x2MB L2);
- Intel Pentium D 820 (LGA775, 2.8GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2x1MB L2).
- Mainboards:
- ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (LGA775, Intel 975X Express);
- ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (Socket AM2, NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI).
- Memory:
- 2048MB DDR2-800 SDRAM (Mushkin XP2-6400PRO, 2 x 1024 MB, DDR2-800, 4-4-4-12).
- Graphics card: PowerColor X1900 XTX 512MB (PCI-E x16).
- HDD: Maxtor MaXLine III 250GB (SATA150).
- OS: Microsoft Windows XP SP2 with DirectX 9.0c.
The tests were performed with the mainboard BIOS setup for maximum performance.
