Hardware Setup
| Test Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Row 0 - Cell 1 |
| Processors | Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) 3.4 GHz (34 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 2 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i5-2500K (Sandy Bridge) 3.3 GHz (33 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 3 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i5-2400 (Sandy Bridge) 3.1 GHz (31 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 4 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i3-2100 (Sandy Bridge) 3.1 GHz (34 * 100 MHz), LGA 1155, 3 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 5 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i7-875K (Lynnfield) 2.93 GHz (22 * 133 MHz), LGA 1156, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 6 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i5-655K (Clarkdale) 3.2 GHz (24 * 133 MHz), LGA 1156, 4 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 7 - Cell 0 | Intel Core i7-950 (Bloomfield) 3.06 GHz (23 * 133 MHz), LGA 1366, 8 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Turbo Boost enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 8 - Cell 0 | Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 (Yorkfield) 2.83 GHz (8.5 * 333 MHz), LGA 775, 12 MB L2, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 9 - Cell 0 | AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (Thuban) 3.3 GHz (16.5 * 200 MHz), Socket AM3, 6 MB Shared L3, Turbo CORE enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Row 10 - Cell 0 | AMD Phenom II X4 970 (Deneb) 3.5 GHz (17.5 * 200 MHz), Socket AM3, 6 MB Shared L3, Power-savings enabled |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte P67A-UD7 (LGA 1155) Intel P67 Exrpress, BIOS F6a |
| Row 12 - Cell 0 | Gigabyte H67MA-UD2 (LGA 1155) Intel H67 Express, BIOS F6a |
| Row 13 - Cell 0 | Gigabyte P55A-UD7 (LGA 1156) Intel P55 Express, BIOS F8b |
| Row 14 - Cell 0 | Gigabyte X58A-UD7 (LGA 1366) Intel X58 Express/ICH10R, BIOS FC |
| Row 15 - Cell 0 | Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 (Socket AM3) AMD 890FX/DB850, BIOS F6 |
| Row 16 - Cell 0 | Intel DX48BT2 (LGA 775) Intel X48 Express/ICH10R, BIOS 2006 |
| Row 17 - Cell 0 | Asus P7H57D-V EVO (LGA 1156) Intel H57 Express, BIOS 1606 |
| Memory | Kingston 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) DDR3-2133, KHX2133C9AD3W1K2/4GX x 2 @ DDR3-1333, 7-7-7-20 and 1.65 V |
| Row 19 - Cell 0 | Crucial 12 GB (3 x 4 GB) DDR3-1333, MT16JTF51264AZ-1G4D1 @ DDR3-1333, 7-7-7-20 and 1.65 V |
| Hard Drive | OCZ RevoDrive X2 240 GB PCI Express x4 (Main Test Bed) |
| Row 21 - Cell 0 | Intel SSDSA2M160G2GC 160 GB SATA 3Gb/s (Graphics/Quick Sync Test Bed) |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 1.5 GB |
| Row 23 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 5550 1 GB DDR3 |
| Row 24 - Cell 0 | AMD Radeon HD 4550 512 MB DDR3 |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master UCP-1000 W |
| System Software And Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Graphics Driver | Nvidia GeForce Release 263.09 (For GTX 580) |
| Row 30 - Cell 0 | Intel GFX_Vista64_Win7_64_8.15.10.2266_PV (For Sandy Bridge and Clarkdale) |
| Row 31 - Cell 0 | AMD Catalyst 10.12 (For Radeon HD 6870 1 GB) |
That's a ton of hardware, right? Well, not all of it was used for all of the tests.
All 10 processors are represented in the bulk of the benchmarks. However, for the entry-level gaming metrics, we used the H67- and H57-based motherboards hosting a Core i7-2600K and Core i5-661 CPU. Onto the H67 platform, we dropped two AMD discrete cards for comparison to Intel's on-die and on-package solutions.
We chose the Radeon HD 6870 1 GB and GeForce GTX 570 1.25 GB as best-case examples of what each respective company's GPGPU technologies could do versus Quick Sync. That platform consisted of Gigabyte's H67 board hosting a Core i7-2600K processor.
OCZ's RevoDrive X2 240 GB was used exclusively on the main test bench, while we leaned on an Intel SSD for the platform that was separately running the gaming/Quick Sync tests.
