The Performance Results

The graphs below show how much additional performance we gained from overclocking the CPU from 3.33GHz to 4.4GHz (air-cooled), 4.7GHz (water-cooled) and 5GHz (water chilled).

Media Benchmarks

Download from: bit-tech.net

We have developed our own suite of benchmarks using real-world and open source applications to simulate how PCs are actually used. The suite comprises an image editing test using Gimp, a video encoding test using Handbrake and a multi-tasking test using 7-Zip to archive and encrypt a large batch of files while a HD movie plays in mplayer.

A score of 1,000 means that the test system is as fast as our reference PC, which used a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 at stock speed, 2GB of Corsair 1,066MHz DDR2 memory, a 250GB Samsung SpinPoint P120S hard disk and an Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP motherboard. The scoring is linear, so a system scoring 1,200 points is 20 per cent faster than our reference system. Equally, a system scoring 1,200 is 4 per cent faster than a system scoring 1,150.

Gimp Image Editing

Website: Gimp

Far from being some kind of pr0n-filtering tool, Gimp is an Open Source image editing application - Gimp is an acronym of GNU Image Manipulation Program. Our test simulates how well a PC can manipulate a collection of large digital photos, and to achieve a low time requires a PC with a powerful CPU, plenty of quick memory and efficient access to storage.

Video encoding with Handbrake

Website: http://handbrake.fr

We use the open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video encoder Handbrake to encode a HD video using the H.264 codec. This primarily tests multi-threaded CPU and memory subsystem performance.

Multi-tasking with 7-Zip and mplayer

Websites: www.7-zip.org and www.mplayerhq.hu

Multi-tasking is a phrase that we're all familiar with, because most of us are now used to running multiple applications at the same time. However, to run multiple applications well you need a powerful (ideally multi-core) CPU and plenty of RAM.

Our multi-tasking test performs a massive file backup (with encryption) using 7-Zip, while simultaneously playing back a HD movie file using mplayer, making it a demanding test for any PC.

Overall Score

The overall score is an unweighted mean average of the scores of the three individual tests.


For analysis of these results, please read the Results Analysis page.