Test System And Benchmarks
The gaming aspects of this comparison should be very interesting. While the AMD CPU in the previous machine may bottleneck low-resolution performance, it will be interesting to see how the four Radeon HD 4850 cards in quad-CrossFire will fare against two Radeon HD 5850 cards in the new build.
We have migrated our testing to Windows 7 64-bit. This will undoubtedly skew some results from our previous Windows Vista 64-bit tests, but Thomas Soderstrom's recent test of the new benchmark suite suggests that gaming results should be extremely close and even application benches should be comparable barring a rare exception in TMPGEnc when encoding DivX video.
Migrating to a new OS from time to time makes for a difficult transition, but it's a necessary evil of course.
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| $1,300 Enthusiast PC 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 Four Cores, 8.0MB L3 Cache | 3.612 GHz at 1.15V, 172 MHz Base Clock |
| Memory | 2 x A-Data 2.0GB DDR3-1333 Kit 2 x 2.0GB (4.0GB Total), CAS 9-9-9-24 | DDR3-1376, CAS 9-9-9-24 |
| Graphics | 2 x 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 |
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| $1,250 AMD Enthusiast PC (from previous SBM) Test Settings | ||
|---|---|---|
| Standard Speed | Overclocked | |
| Motherboard | MSI 790FX-GD70 ATX AMD 790FX, AM3 | Unchanged |
| Processor | AMD Phenom II X4 945 @ 3 GHz, 200 MHz Reference Clock | 3.675 GHz at 1.46V 245 MHz Reference Clock |
| Memory | Patriot PVS34G1333LLKN 4GB DDR3-1333 2 x 2GB, CAS 7-7-7-20 | DDR3-1306 |
| Graphics | 4 x Gigabyte GV-R485OC-1GH Radeon HD 4850 in CrossFire 1GB GDDR3-1998 Per Card, 700 MHz GPU | Unchanged |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 7,200 RPM, 32MB Cache SATA 3.0 Gb/s | Unchanged |
| Optical | Sony Optiarc AD-7240S-0B SATA 24X DVD±R | Unchanged |
| Case | NZXT Tempest ATX Tower | Unchanged |
| Power | PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 Quad S75CF750W, ATX12V 2.2, 80-Plus Certified | Unchanged |
| CPU Cooler | Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283 | Unchanged |
And now for the benchmarks:
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| 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 |
| Fallout 3 | Patch 1.7, Saved Game "Capital Wasteland" (60 sec) Test Set 1: Highest Details, No AA, No AF Test Set 2: Highest Details, 4x AA, 15x AF |
| Far Cry 2 | Patch 1.03, DirectX 10, in-game benchmark Test Set 1: Very High Quality, No AA Test Set 2: Ultra High Quality, 4x AA |
| Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X | Patch 1.02, DirectX 10.1, in-game benchmark Test Set 1: Highest Settings, No AA Test Set 2: Highest Settings, 4x AA |
| 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 8 | 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 wave to MP3 |
| TMPGEnc 4.0 Express | 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 Reference H.264 Plugin Pro 1.5.1 | 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 (64-bit) | Version: 11.0 Extended, Filter 15.7MB TIF Image Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 | Version: 11.0, Rendering Dragon Image at 1920x1080 (HDTV) |
| Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus 8.5 | Version: 8.5.287, Virus database 2094, Benchmark: Scan 334MB Folder of ZIP/RAR compressed files |
| WinRAR 3.90 | Version x64 3.90, Dictionary = 4,096KB, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334MB) |
| WinZip 12 | Version 12.1, WinZip Command Line Version 3.0 Compression = Best, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334MB) |
| Synthetic Benchmarks | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.01, GPU and CPU scores |
| PCMark Vantage | Version: 1.00, 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 |
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