The Gigahertz Battle: How Do Today's CPUs Stack Up?

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Test Setup

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CPU
Socket 478 Intel Pentium 4 2400 (Northwood 130 nm, 2.4 GHz, 512 kB L2 Cache )
Socket 775 I Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (Allendale 65 nm, 1.8 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache)
Socket 775 II Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (Conroe 65 nm, 2.93 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache)
Socket 775 III Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (Kentsfield 65 nm, 2.66 GHz, 2x 4 MB L2 Cache)
Socket 939 I AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (Clawhammer 130 nm, 2.4 GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache)
Socket 939 II AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (Toledo 90 nm, 2.4 GHz, 2x 512 kB L2 Cache)
Socket AM2 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (Windsor 90 nm, 2.4 GHz, 2x 512 kB L2 Cache)
Motherboard
Platform Socket 478 Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, Rev 1.02Chipset : Intel 875P, BIOS : 1023
Platform Socket 775 Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6, Rev 2.0Chipset : Intel 965P, BIOS : F9
Platform Socket 939 Asus A8N-SLI Premium, Rev 1.02Chipset : Nvidia nForce 4 SLI, Bios : 1009
Platform Socket AM2 MSI K9N Platinum, Rev 1.0Chipset : Nvidia nForce 570 SLI, Bios : 1.5
Memory
RAM I (DDR) Corsair CMX1024-3200C22x 1024 MB DDR2-4000 (CL 2.5-3-3-6)
RAM II (DDR2) Corsair CM2X1024-6400C32x 1024 MB DDR2-800 (CL 4.0-4-4-12 2T)
Hard Drive
Hard Drive I (read) Western Digital WD4000KD400 GB 7,200 RPM, 16 MB cache, SATA/150
Hard Drive II (write) Western Digital WD4000KD400 GB 7,200 RPM, 16 MB cache, SATA/150
DVD ROM
DVD-ROM TEAC DV-W50D IDE ATA100
Graphics Card
AGP Graphics Nvidia GeForce 6800 - 256 MB DDR3 RAM
PCI Express Graphics Nvidia GeForce 6800 - 256 MB DDR3 RAM
Power Supply
PSU Enermax EG565P-VEATX 2.01, 535 Watt
System Software & Drivers
OS Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2
DirectX Version 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Drivers AMD nForce 4 nForce4 series 6.86
Drivers AMD nForce 570 nForce 570 SLI 9.16
Platform Drivers Intel INF-Treiber 8.1.1.1010
Graphics Driver Nvidia ForceWare 93.71

What About Newer Pentium 4 And Pentium D CPUs ?

We wanted to use Pentium 4 500 and Pentium 4 600 processors as well as Pentium D CPUs, but there is no way to select a clock speed as low as 2.4 GHz. Even the entry-level processors started with a multiplier of x14, which, at FSB800 (200 MHz system speed), leads to 2.8 GHz core clock speed. So, we had to live without the Pentium generation.

Benchmarks And Settings

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Benchmarks and Settings
Audio
iTunes 7 Version : 7.0.2Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 minConvert wav to aac
Lame MP3 Version 3.97 Beta 2 (12-22-2005)Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 minwave to mp3160 kbps
OGG Version 1.1.2 (Intel P4 MOD)Version 1.1.2 (Intel AMD MOD)Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 minwave to oggQuality : 5
Video
TMPEG 3.0 Express Version : 3.0.4.24 (no Audio)fist 5 Minutes DVD Terminator 2 SE (704x576) 16:9Multithreading by rendering
DivX 6.5 Version : 6.5Profile : High Definition Profile1-pass, 3000 kb/sEncoding mode : Insane QualityEnhanced multithreadingno Audio
XviD 1.1.2 Version : 1.1.2Target qantizer : 1.00
Applications
Winrar Version 3.62(303 MB, 47 Files, 2 Folders)Compression = BestDictionary = 4096 kB
Autodesk 3D Studio Max Version : 8.0Characters "Dragon_Charater_rig"rendering HTDV 1920x1080
Adobe Photoshop CS 2 Version : 9.0.1VT-Runtime ScriptRendering from 5 Pictures (66 MB, 7 Filters)
Deep Fritz Version 10Chess Benchmark
Cinebench Version 9.532 Bit1 CPU ; x CPU
PCMark05 Pro Version : 1.2.0CPU and Memory TestsWindows Media Player 10.00.00.3646Windows Media Encoder 9.00.00.2980