Test System And Benchmarks
We chose the Asus M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard for our CPU benchmarks, as it supports all of the Athlon II and Phenom II CPUs that we will be testing. In addition, the integrated 785G graphic chipset will allow us to test power usage at the wall without a discrete graphics card present.
We'll be pitting the new Athlon II X3 435 against a host of AMD CPUs: the Athlon II X4 620, the Phenom II X2 550 BE, and the Athlon II X2 250. We will also be simulating a Phenom II X3 720 with a Phenom II X4 965 by lowering the CPU multiplier and disabling the forth CPU core (this is a method we have proven valid in the past, although it doesn't allow for power measurements).
In addition, we will be testing power consumption of some low-power models like the Phenom II X3 705e, the Athlon II X4 605e, and the Athlon II X2 240e.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | AMD Test System |
|---|---|
| CPU | Athlon II X3 435 (2.9 GHz, No Shared Cache)(Overclocked: 3.77 GHz)Athlon II X4 620 (2.6 GHz, No Shared Cache)Athlon II X2 250 (3.0 GHz, No Shared Cache)Phenom II X2 550 BE (3.1 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)Phenom II X3 705e (2.5 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)Athlon II X4 605e (2.3 GHz, No Shared Cache)Athlon II X2 240e (2.8 GHz, No Shared Cache)Phenom II X3 720 BE* (2.8 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)*Phenom II X3 720 simulated with a Phenom II 965 by lowering the multiplier and disabling the fourth CPU core |
| Motherboard | Asus M4A785TD-V EVO AMD 785G, BIOS 0410 |
| Networking | Onboard Gigabit LAN controller |
| Memory | Mushkin PC3-10700 2 x 2,048 MB, DDR3-1066, CL 9-9-9-24-33 1TOverclocked: 1386 MHz @ CL 9-10-10-25-34 1T |
| Graphics | ATI Radeon HD 4890 Reference900 MHz Core, 1GB GDDR5 @ 993 MHz |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7,200 RPM, 32MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s |
| Power | ePower EP-1200P10-T21,200W, ATX 12V, EPS 12v |
| Software and Drivers | |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 x64 |
| DirectX version | DirectX 11 |
| Graphics Drivers | ATI Catalyst 9.9 |
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Crysis | Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 64-bit executable, benchmark tool Medium Quality, No AA |
| Far Cry 2 | Patch 1.03, DirectX 10, in-game benchmark Ultra High Quality, High Physics, Fire, and Trees, No AA |
| World In Conflict | Patch 1009, DirectX 10, timedemo Very High Details, No AA / No AF |
| Audio/Video Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version: 8.2.1.6 x64 Audio CD ("Terminator II" SE), 53 min Default format AAC |
| LAME MP3 | Version: 3.98.2, wave to MP3 Audio CD "Terminator II" SE, 53 min |
| TMPGEnc | Version: 4.7.3.292 Import File: Terminator 2 SE DVD (5 Minutes) Resolution: 720x576 (PAL) 16:9 |
| DivX 6.8.5 | Encoding mode: Insane Quality Enhanced multithreading enabled using SSE4 Quarter-pixel search |
| Xvid 1.2.2 | Display encoding status = off |
| MainConcept Reference 1.6.1 | MPEG2 to MPEG2 (H.264), MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG2), Audio: MPEG2 (44.1 kHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 kb/s), Mode: PAL (25 FPS) |
| Productivity | |
| Adobe Photoshop CS4 | Version: 11.0 x64, Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 | Version: 11.0 x64, Rendering Dragon Image at 1920x1080 (HDTV) |
| Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus 8.5 | Version: 8.5.287, Virus base: 270.12.16/2094, Benchmark: Scan 334 MB Folder of ZIP/RAR compressed files |
| WinRAR 3.90 | Version x64 3.90, Dictionary = 4,096 KB, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB) |
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.0.1, GPU and CPU scores |
| PCMark Vantage | Version: 1.00 x64, System, Memory, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks, Windows Media Player 10.00.00.3646 |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP4a | Version 2009.9.15.130, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / MultiMedia, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |