Test System And Benchmarks
We'll compare our new build to the Core i5-750 system we put together for our last SBM in late 2009. It's important to note that the graphics card overclocks were almost identical, but the CPU overclocks are quite different. The Core i5-750 made it to 3.612 GHz on stock cooling, whereas the Core i7-920 made it to 3.9 GHz with a Rosewill Fort 120 cooler.
As usual, we always try to keep our benchmarks updated at Tom's Hardware, so a few of the tests have been swapped or run with newer builds of the software. In most cases this shouldn't affect comparison results, but it is something to keep in mind.
The segment most affected is gaming. Firstly, we've swapped the 1920x1200 resolution for 1920x1080, as 1080p seems to be the prevalent resolution for both monitors and televisions. As for game changes, we've dropped Far Cry 2, World in Conflict, and Fallout 3 in favor of more recently released titles such as DiRT 2, Call of Duty: MW2, and Stalker. Crysis remains in the benchmark suite because it still can bring modern hardware to its knees. Even though World in Conflict has been dropped, I've included these results to compare against the previous SBM build.
| $1,500 Enthusiast PC Test Settings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Standard Speed | Overclocked |
| Motherboard | ASRock X58 Extreme LGA-1366 Chipset: Intel X58 Express | Unchanged |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-920 2.66 GHz 4 Cores, 8MB L3 Cache | 3.9 GHz, 195 MHz Base Clock |
| Memory | Crucial 6GB (3x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3-1333 533 MHz (1,066 MHz DDR), CAS 7-7-7-59 | DDR3-1560, CAS 8-8-8-18 |
| Graphics | 2x Radeon HD 5850 (CrossFireX) 1GB GDDR5-4000 Per Card Radeon HD 5870 GPU at 725 MHz | GDDR5-4500 775 MHz GPU |
| Hard Drives | Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB 7,200 RPM, 32MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s | Unchanged |
| Optical | Samsung SH-S2232C22x DVD+R, 8x DVD+RW, 16x DVD ROM, 48x CD ROM | Unchanged |
| Case | Cooler Master CM 690 | Unchanged |
| Power | Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V, EPS12V, 80-Plus Certified | Unchanged |
| $1,300 Enthusiast PC (From Previous SBM) Test Settings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Standard Speed | Overclocked |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte P55-UD4P LGA-1156 Chipset: Intel P55 Express | Unchanged |
| Processor | Intel Core i5-750 2.66 GHz 4 Cores, 8MB L3 Cache | 3.612 GHz at 1.15V,172 MHz Base Clock |
| Memory | 2x A-Data 2.0GB DDR3-1333 Kit 2x 2.0GB (4.0GB Total), CAS 9-9-9-24 | DDR3-1376, CAS 9-9-9-24 |
| Graphics | 2x Radeon HD 5850 (CrossFireX) 1.0GB GDDR5-4000 Per Card, Radeon HD 5870 GPU at 725 MHz | GDDR5-4500 775 MHz GPU |
| Hard Drives | Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7,200 RPM, 32MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s | Unchanged |
| Optical | Samsung SH-S2232C22x DVD+R, 8x DVD+RW, 16x DVD ROM, 48x CD ROM | Unchanged |
| Case | NZXT M59 | Unchanged |
| Power | Corsair CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V, EPS12V , 80-Plus Certified | Unchanged |
And now for the benchmarks:
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Crysis | Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 64-bit executable, benchmark tool Test Set 1: High Quality, No AA Test Set 2: Very High Quality, No AA |
| DiRT 2 | In-game benchmarkTest Set 1: High Quality Preset, No AATest Set 2: Ultra Quality Preset, 8x AA |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | Campaign, Act III, Second Sun (45 sec. FRAPS)Test Set 1: Highest Settings, No AATest Set 2: Highest Settings, 4x AA |
| S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Call of Pripyat | S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat benchmark versionTest Set 1: High Preset, DX11 EFDL, No AATest Set 2: Ultra Preset, DX11 EFDL, 4x MSAA |
| World in Conflict | Patch 1009, DirectX 10, timedemo Test 1: Very High Details, No AA / No AF Test 2: Very High Details 4x AA / 16x AF |
| Audio/Video Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version: 9.0.2.25 x64Audio CD ("Terminator II" SE), 53 minDefault format AAC |
| Handbrake 0.9.4 | Version 0.9.4, convert first .vob filefrom "The Last Samurai" (1.0GB) to .mp4 High Profile |
| TMPGEnc 4.0 Express | Version: 4.7.3.292Import File: "Terminator 2" SE DVD (5 Minutes)Resolution: 720x576 (PAL) 16:9 |
| DivX 6.9.1 | Encoding mode: Insane QualityEnhanced multithreading enabled using SSE4Quarter-pixel search |
| XviD 1.2.2 | Display encoding status = off |
| MainConcept Reference 1.6.1 | MPEG2 to MPEG2 (H.264), MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG2) Audio: MPEG2 (44.1 KHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s) Mode: PAL (25 FPS) |
| Productivity | |
| Adobe Photoshop CS4 (64-bit) | Version: 11.0 x64, Filter 15.7MB TIF ImageRadial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | Version: 11.0 x64, Rendering Dragon Image at 1920x1080 (HDTV) |
| Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 | Version: 9.0.663, Virus base: 270.14.1/2407Benchmark: Scan 334MB Folder of ZIP/RAR compressed files |
| WinRAR 3.90 | Version x64 3.90, Dictionary = 4,096KB, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334MB) |
| 7-Zip | Version 4.65: Format=Zip, Compression=Ultra, Method=Deflate, Dictionary Size=32KB, Word Size=128, Threads=8Benchmark: THG-Workload (334MB) |
| Synthetic Benchmarks | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.01, GPU and CPU scores |
| PCMark Vantage | Version: 1.0.1.0 x64, System, Productivity, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2010 | Version 2010.1.16.11, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / MultiMedia, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
