Our testing methods
We ran every test at least three times and reported the median of the scores produced.

The test systems were configured like so:

They all shared the following common elements:

Thanks to Corsair, XFX, Kingston, MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and AMD for helping to outfit our test rigs with some of the finest hardware available. Thanks to Intel and AMD for providing the processors, as well, of course.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• AIDA64 2.30
• Stream 5.8 64-bit
• SiSoft Sandra 2012.SP3
• 7-Zip 9.20 64-bit
• TrueCrypt 7.1a
• Chromium 20.0.1096.0
• SunSpider 0.9.1
• The Panorama Factory 5.3 x64 Edition
• POV-Ray for Windows 3.7 RC5 64-bit
• Cinebench R11.5 64-bit Edition
• LuxMark 2.0
• AMD APP OpenCL ICD 898.1
• Intel OpenCL SDK 1.5
• x264 HD benchmark 4.0
• Windows Live Movie Maker 14
• picCOLOR 4.0 build 722 beta 64-bit
• Qtbench 0.2.2
• MyriMatch proteomics benchmark
• CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
• Civilization V
• Battlefield 3
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Crysis 2 with DX11 tessellation and hi-res texture patches
• Batman: Arkham City
• FRAPS 3.4.7

Some further notes on our testing methods:

• The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1920x1080 in 32-bit color. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled in the graphics driver control panel.
• We used a Yokogawa WT210 digital power meter to capture power use over a span of time. The meter reads power use at the wall socket, so it incorporates power use from the entire system—the CPU, motherboard, memory, graphics solution, hard drives, and anything else plugged into the power supply unit. (The monitor was plugged into a separate outlet.) We measured how each of our test systems used power across a set time period, during which time we encoded a video with x264.
• After consulting with our readers, we've decided to enable Windows' "Balanced" power profile for the bulk of our desktop processor tests, which means power-saving features like SpeedStep and Cool'n'Quiet are operating. (In the past, we only enabled these features for power consumption testing.) Our spot checks demonstrated to us that, typically, there's no performance penalty for enabling these features on today's CPUs. If there is a real-world penalty to enabling these features, well, we think that's worthy of inclusion in our measurements, since the vast majority of desktop processors these days will spend their lives with these features enabled. We did disable these power management features to measure cache latencies, but otherwise, it was unnecessary to do so.

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