System Setup

System Setup

AMD Opteron 875 (2.2GHz)
AMD Opteron 252 (2.6GHz)
Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 (3.2 GHz)
Intel Pentium 4 570J (3.8 GHz)
Intel Pentium 4 540J (3.2 GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 (2.6 GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4 GHz)

ASUS K8N-DL nForce Professional Motherboard
Intel D955XBK 955X Express Motherboard
Intel D925XECV2 925XE Express Motherboard
ASUS A8N-SLI nForce4 SLI Motherboard

1GB Corsair DDR-400 CAS 2 Registered Memory (2x512MB)
1GB Micron DDR2-667 CAS 5 (2x512MB)
1GB Corsair DDR2-533 CAS 3 Pro Series Memory (2x512MB)
1GB Corsair DDR-400 CAS 2 Xpert Series Memory (2x512MB)

ATI RADEON X850 XT
Catylst 5.3

Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

DirectX 9.0c

Desktop resolution 1024x768, 32-bit color, 85Hz refresh

All power saving options were turned off, as were the Automatic Update and System Restore services. Graphics options under the ‘Performance’ tab were all disabled for maximum performance.


As you’ll see, we’re again doing a few things differently. Baseline benchmarks now begin at 1024x768. Although it’s certainly relevant to show off performance at 800x600 or 640x480, where you’d typically see the greatest differences between processor and platforms, those settings are really falling by the wayside and in no way reflect actual game play. You’ll be surprised nonetheless. Even at 1024x768, there’s plenty of difference between competing chips.

Benchmarks

Windows Media Encoder 9
3DMark05
PCMark04
Cinebench2003
Doom 3
Half-Life 2
SiSoft Sandra 2005