Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least twice, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

 Socket A (DDR)Socket A (PC133)Socket 423Socket 370 (Intel)
ProcessorAMD Athlon 1.2GHzAMD Athlon 1GHz
AMD Duron 1GHz
AMD Duron 1.1GHz		Intel Pentium 4 1.4GHzIntel Celeron 900MHz
Intel Celeron 1.1GHz
 Intel Pentium III 1.2GHz
Front-side bus133MHz (266MHz DDR)100MHz (200MHz DDR)100MHz (400MHz quad-pumped)100MHz (Celeron)
133MHz (PIII)
MotherboardGigabyte GA-7DXAsus A7VI-VMIntel D850GBIntel D815EEA2
ChipsetAMD 760/VIA hybridVIA KM133Intel 850Intel 815EP
North bridgeAMD 761 VT836582850 MCH82815 MCH
South bridgeVIA VT82C686B VT823182801BA ICH282801BA ICH2
Memory size256MB (1 DIMM)256MB (1 DIMM)256MB (2 RIMMs)256MB (1 DIMM)
Memory typeMicron PC2100 DDR SDRAM CAS 2.5Infineon PC133 SDRAM CAS 2Samsung PC800 Rambus DRAMInfineon PC133 SDRAM CAS 2
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce3 64MB (12.41 video drivers)
SoundCreative SoundBlaster Live!
StorageIBM 75GXP 30.5GB 7200RPM ATA/100 hard drive
OSMicrosoft Windows 2000 Professional
OS updatesWindows 2000 Service Pack 2, Direct X 8.0a

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.