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:

Processor Athlon XP-M 'Barton' 2500+ 2.4GHz Athlon XP 'Barton' 3200+ 2.2GHz Athlon XP 'Barton' 3000+ 2.167GHz Athlon 64 3000+ 2.0GHz
Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz
Athlon 64 3400+ 2.2GHz		 Opteron 146 2.0GHz
Opteron 148 2.2GHz
Opteron 150 2.4GHz		 Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz
Athlon 64 FX-53 2.4GHz		 Pentium 4 2.8'C'GHz
Pentium 4 3.2GHz
Pentium 4 3.4GHz
Pentium 4 3.2GHz Extreme Edition
Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition
Pentium 4 2.8'E'GHz
Pentium 4 3.0'E'GHz
Pentium 4 3.2'E'GHz
Pentium 4 3.4'E'GHz
Front-side bus 400MHz (200MHz DDR) 400MHz (200MHz DDR) 333MHz (166MHz DDR) HT 16-bit/800MHz downstream
HT 16-bit/800MHz upstream		 HT 16-bit/800MHz downstream
HT 16-bit/800MHz upstream		 HT 16-bit/1GHz downstream
HT 16-bit/1GHz upstream		 800MHz (200MHz quad-pumped)
Motherboard Abit AN7 Asus A7N8X Deluxe v2.0 Asus A7N8X Deluxe v2.0 MSI K8T Neo MSI 9130 MSI MS-6702E Abit IC7-G
BIOS revision 1.4 C1007 C1007 1.1 1.31 3.0B10 IC7_21.B00
North bridge nForce2 SPP nForce2 SPP nForce2 SPP K8T800 K8T800 K8T800 Pro 82875P MCH
South bridge nForce2 MCP-T nForce2 MCP-T nForce2 MCP-T VT8237 VT8237 VT8237 82801ER ICH5R
Chipset drivers ForceWare 3.13 ForceWare 3.13 ForceWare 3.13 4-in-1 v.4.51
ATA 5.1.2600.220		 4-in-1 v.4.51
ATA 5.1.2600.220		 4-in-1 v.4.51
ATA 5.1.2600.220		 INF Update 5.1.1002
Memory size 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs) 1GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type Corsair TwinX XMS4000 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz Corsair TwinX XMS4000 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz Corsair TwinX XMS4000 DDR SDRAM at 333MHz Corsair TwinX XMS4000 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz Corsair CMX512RE-3200LL PC3200 registered DDR SDRAM at 400MHz Corsair TwinX XMS3200LL DDR SDRAM at 400MHz Corsair TwinX XMS4000 DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
CAS latency 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
Cycle time 6 6 5 5 6 6 6
RAS to CAS delay 3 3 3 3 3 3 4
RAS precharge 3 2 2 3 2 3 4
Hard drive Seagate Barracuda V 120GB ATA/100 Seagate Barracuda V 120GB ATA/100 Seagate Barracuda V 120GB ATA/100 Seagate Barracuda V 120GB SATA 150 Seagate Barracuda V 120GB SATA 150 Seagate Barracuda V 120GB SATA 150 Seagate Barracuda V 120GB SATA 150
Audio Creative SoundBlaster Live!
Graphics Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB with CATALYST 4.1 drivers
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS updates Service Pack 1, DirectX 9.0b

All tests on the Intel systems were run with Hyper-Threading enabled.

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. If you're looking to tweak out your system to the max and maybe overclock it a little, Corsair's RAM is definitely worth considering.

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1152x864 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

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.