Phenom II X2 555 Vs. Pentium G6950: New Budget Dual-Core Titans

Test Systems And Benchmarks

We used two test systems that shared the same hard drive, CPU cooler, and memory in order to minimize the variables. The Intel system was benched both with the Pentium G6950 and Core i5-750 for comparison.

To keep the CPUs frosty, we needed something that'd work on both systems, providing better cooling than the stock pieces and cheap enough to apply to budget overclocking systems. It wouldn't make sense to put a $50 cooler on a $100 CPU. The resulting cost would approach the price of a retail Core i5-750 and its stock cooler.

For this task we chose the Cooler Master TX3. While it's far from the most effective cooler out there, its $15 price tag makes it an ideal fit. Plus, it's compatible with Socket AM3 and LGA 1156 interfaces. With the fan running at 100%, the TX3 provides fairly good cooling performance, although it's a little louder than we'd like. But when you're overclocking on a budget, performance and price are more important than comfort.

For the AMD system, we chose to use Asus' M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard, a solid piece built around the 785G chipset that has good memory support and overclocking prowess.  At just under $100 online, it is a solid low-cost overclocking board.

For the Intel system, we wanted to use the P55 chipset at a reasonable price (since we weren't planning to employ Intel's on-package integrated graphics). Our choice was Gigabyte's GA-P55-UD3L that costs $105 online, fairly close to the price of our AMD board. Unfortunately we couldn't get a hold of one in time so our testing was done on the considerably more expensive GA-P55-UD4P. Performance should be identical though, as both boards use the same P55 chipset. The good news is that we will be testing the CPU on a comparably-priced board in our follow-up article.