Our testing methods
Please note that the two Pentium D 900-series processors in our test are actually a Pentium Extreme Edition 965 chip that's been set to the appropriate core and bus speeds and had Hyper-Threading disabled in order to simulate the actual products. Similarly, our Socket AM2 versions of the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 4200+ are actually the Athlon 64 FX-62 and X2 5000+, respectively, clocked down to the appropriate speeds. In all cases, the performance of our "simulated" processor models should be identical to the actual products.

Also, I've placed asterisks next to the memory clock speeds of the Socket AM2 test systems in the table below. As explained on the previous page, a couple of these systems couldn't set their memory clocks to exactly 800 MHz.

As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least three times, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

Processor Pentium D 950 3.4GHz
Pentium D 960 3.6GHz		 Pentium Extreme Edition 965 3.73GHzAthlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz
 Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz
Athlon 64 FX-62 2.8GHz		Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz
Athlon 64 FX-60 2.6GHz
System bus800 MHz (200 MHz quad-pumped)1066MHz (266MHz quad-pumped)1GHz HyperTransport1GHz HyperTransport
MotherboardIntel D975XBXIntel D975XBXAsus M2N32-SLI DeluxeAsus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
BIOS revisionBX97510J.86A.1073.
2006.0427.1210		BX97510J.86A.1073.
2006.0427.1210		04021103
North bridge975X MCH975X MCHnForce 590 SLI SPPnForce4 SLI X16
South bridgeICH7RICH7RnForce 590 SLI MCPnForce4 SLI
Chipset driversINF Update 7.2.2.1007
Intel Matrix Storage Manager 5.5.0.1035		INF Update 7.2.2.1007
Intel Matrix Storage Manager 5.5.0.1035		SMBus driver 4.52
IDE/SATA driver 6.67		SMBus driver 4.5
IDE/SATA driver 5.52
Memory size2GB (2 DIMMs)2GB (2 DIMMs)2GB (2 DIMMs)2GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory typeCrucial Ballistix PC2-8000
DDR2 SDRAM at 800 MHz		Crucial Ballistix PC2-8000
DDR2 SDRAM at 800 MHz		Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5
DDR2 SDRAM at 800 MHz*		Corsair CMX1024-4400 Pro
DDR SDRAM at 400 MHz
CAS latency (CL)4442.5
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)4443
RAS precharge (tRP)4443
Cycle time (tRAS)1515128
AudioIntegrated ICH7R/STAC9221D5
with SigmaTel 5.10.4991.0 drivers		Integrated ICH7R/STAC9221D5
with SigmaTel 5.10.4991.0 drivers		Integrated nForce 590 MCP/AD1988B with SoundMAX 5.10.2.4490 driversIntegrated nForce4/ALC850
with Realtek 5.10.0.6070 drivers
Hard driveMaxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 150
Graphics GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB PCI-E with ForceWare 84.25 drivers
GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB PCI-E with ForceWare 84.21 drivers (WorldBench only)
OSWindows XP Professional x64 Edition
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (WorldBench only)

Thanks to Corsair and Crucial for providing us with memory for our testing. Both of them provide products and support that are far and away superior to generic, no-name memory.

Also, all of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The tests and methods we employ are generally publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.