Time To Upgrade: Should You Dump Your 2007 PC?

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Intel agressively promotes its Core i3/i5/i7 series, but we wonder: Does it make sense to replace a three-year old high-end PC? In the end, quad-core processors were already pretty powerful in 2007. We created a brand new system and a 2007 PC to compare.

Benchmark Results: 3DMark And PCMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage

Predictably, both the 2010 processor and graphics card have significantly more firepower than their 2007 counterparts. The overall 3DMark Vantage score basically doubles, while the GPU score shows a 2.5x increase at entry-level and a 4.5x increase at high-quality.

PCMark Vantage

Memory throughput seems to have increased by 2.2x, as well, reflecting the much faster cache/memory architecture of the Core i7’s integrated dual-channel DDR3 controller. Overall, PCMark returns a 2.3x performance increase between the 2007 machine and the 2010 system. Not bad!

Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos