Testing Platform And Benchmark Suite
For the testing, I primarily used my existing motherboard and CPU, AMD- and Intel-based combos. Other than the motherboard and CPU, I used the same components in each. I used a Hyper 212 EVO CPU cooler, a G.Skill Phoenix Pro 256GB SSD, a SeaSonic 750 PSU, an Asus 290X Matrix GPU and running Win7 Ultimate.
The AMD CPU was the 8370 paired with the Asus Crosshair V Formula Z motherboard. On the Intel side, I used a 4770K in an Asus Z87 Maximus VI Hero.
Testing Software And Testing Methodology
For the testing, I used a variety of staple programs:
- Aida 64 Engineer Edition
- PassMark Performance Test
- Si-Sandra Support-Engineer 2015 (and special thanks to Si-Software for providing a pre-release copy of the 2015 version)
- Geekbench 3
- WinRAR
- Prime95
I selected Aida to test for latency and for read/write memory tests, PassMark for its Memory Mark score as well as its Database score, Si-Sandra for Aggregate Memory Latency, GeekBench 3 for both single and multicored overall scores, and WinRAR to see how memory amounts and frequencies affect overall performance.