Benchmark Results: Synthetics
3DMark suggests that our new $1,000 system is significantly slower than the previous $1,500 system, which is no surprise.
But the overclocked/core-unlocked $1,000 machine is pulling numbers in the same ballpark as the stock $1,500 system.
PCMark is unimpressed with our Phenom II machine. This benchmark has traditionally favored the Core i7, so there's not much contest here. Yes, the slower hard drive didn't score as high in the benchmark, but this is likely the only place we'll notice that component affecting performance.
The Sandra CPU Arithmetic test suggests that the Core i7-920 will slaughter the Phenom II X3, probably because this particular benchmark can take advantage of the Core i7's ability to work on eight threads. However, the CPU multi-media benchmark tells a different story, with the overclocked/core-unlocked Phenom II X3 720 performing only slightly behind the stock Core i7-920. The memory benchmark demonstrates a sizable advantage for the Core i7's triple-channel memory bus.
