Benchmark Results: Synthetics
There weren’t any changes to our benchmark suite this month, so we’ll be able to make direct comparisons to data gathered in June.
Stepping down from a Radeon HD 5770 to a Radeon HD 5670 is huge, so this 3DMark blowout isn’t really a surprise. The extra 2800 point CPU score favoring the unlocked quad-core September PC, in the end, does little to counteract realizing 50% of the former $550 rig’s GPU score.
PCMark Vantage depicts slightly better overall system performance for last quarter's configuration, but a victory for the $400 PC once both are overclocked. The current build was edged out in productivity software, but held a slight lead in storage performance.
For Sandra’s processor and memory tests, we’re basically comparing two very similar system configurations. Different motherboards both based on the AMD 770/SB710 chipset, the same RAM, and an Athlon II X3 CPU separated by roughly 100 MHz (closer to 92 MHz, due to fractional reference clock variations).
The $550 PC overcomes its lower processor frequency and matches the stock September PC in the Processor Arithmetic test, but not in the Multimedia test. Once overclocked, the $400 machine’s four cores completely win out over June’s higher frequency three-core overclock.
Both systems have Crucial DDR3-1333 memory at 9-9-9-24 1T timings and in unganged mode, but we see a slight memory bandwidth advantage favoring the $550 PC. The overclocked systems share the same basic 8-8-8-24 1T memory timings, but otherwise differ with the $550 PC employing a lower memory frequency, higher northbridge frequency, and higher HyperTransport link speed.
