Vigor Gaming's Force Recon QX4 won a single benchmark, PC Mark 2005's hard drive test. But it's also a less-expensive system, so it's important to consider how much better the more expensive system performed. Let's start with the game tests:

AMD really takes a stomping in Oblivion, but doesn't look all that weak in Doom 3. Still, the Intel system's average frame rate (from all three games) is 67% greater. But what about applications?

Quad FX again faces staggering losses, with the average application performance gain for Intel's Quad Extreme at 57%.

Synthetic benchmarks are meant to gauge the performance for an entire group of applications. Some, such as SPECviewperf 9, use application code, while others test raw performance of various subcomponents. As a whole, they should represent the overall "feel" of system performance.

The difference between Quad FX and Quad Extreme looks much smaller here, at 39%. A look back at individual test results shows several places where the AMD platform gained ground, including the Lightscape and Catia portions of SPECviewperf 9.