How We Tested
Contents
During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions, the only variable device was the CPU being tested and the motherboard, which had to be replaced to match the different CPU sockets.
Hardware Configuration
- Motherboard (Socket FM2): MSI FM2-A85XA-G65 (1.0 B15 BIOS)
- Motherboard (Socket FM1): Gigabyte GA-A75M-UD2H (F6c BIOS)
- Motherboard (Socket LGA1155): ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M (1.30 BIOS)
- CPU Cooler: Intel/AMD stock
- Memory: 8 GB DDR3-1600, two AMD Entertainment Edition (AE34G1609U2) 4 GB memory modules
- Hard Disk Drive: Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 500 GB (HDP725050GLA360)
- Video Card: Sparkle GeForce GT 440 1 GB (some tests only, used on the FM2 platform)
- Video Monitor: AOC e3343Fwk
- Power Supply: OCZ StealthXStream 400 W
Operating System Configuration
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- NTFS
- Video resolution: 1920 x 1080 60 Hz
Driver Versions
- AMD video driver version: Catalyst 12.8
- Intel video driver version: 15.26.12.64.2761
- Intel Inf chipset driver version: 9.3.0.1019
Software Used
- Far Cry 2 – Patch 1.03
- iTunes 10.2
- Media Espresso 6.5
- PCMark 7 1.0.4
- Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.5
- VirtualDub 1.9.5 + MPEG-2 Plugin 3.1 + DivX 6.9.2
- WinZip 16.5
Error Margin
We adopted a 3% error margin. Thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.
