How we tested

Here is a list of the applications we've used for our testing - most of them are available for public consumption and all of the benchmarks were run at least three times and the results were averaged.

• Sisoft Sandra XII SP1
  
• Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
  
• World in Conflict
  
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
  
• PCMark Vantage x64
  
• WinRAR 3.71
  
• Paint.NET 3.05
  
• Windows Media Encoder x64
  
• DivX 6.7
  
• AutoMKV 0.90
  
• VirtualDub 1.6.15
  
• LAME MT 3.97
  
• Blender
  
• Cinebench 10 x64

Test Setup

Intel Core 2 Specific Components:

• 2GB DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20-1T (1,066MHz and 1,333MHz FSB CPUs) / 2GB DDR3-1600 7-7-7-20-1T (1,600MHz FSB CPUs)
  
• Asus P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP @n

AMD Phenom Specific Components:

• 2GB DDR2-1066 5-5-5-15-2T
  
• Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Specific Components:

• 2GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12-2T
  
• Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe

Common Components

• Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB
  
• Seagate 7200.10 160GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gbps
  
• PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750W PSU
  
• Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
  
• DirectX 10
  
• ATI Catalyst 7.12
  
• Nvidia Forceware 163.69
  
• Intel inf 8.3.0
  
• nForce 15.08

CPUs Tested

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 - 4x 3.20GHz, 2x6MB L2 cache, 1,600MHz FSB, 45m, Yorkfield
  
• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 - 4x3.00GHz, 2x6MB L2 cache, 1,333MHz FSB, 45nm, Yorkfield
  
  
• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 - 4x3.00GHz, 2x4MB L2 cache, 1,333MHz FSB, 65nm, Kentsfield
  
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 - 4x2.67GHz, 2x4MB L2 cache, 1,066MHz FSB, 65nm, Kentsfield
  
• Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 - 4x2.40GHz, 2x4MB L2 cache, 1,066MHz FSB, 65nm, Kentsfield
  
  
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 - 2x3.00GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 1,333MHz FSB, 65nm, Conroe
  
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 - 2x2.67GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 1,333MHz FSB, 65nm, Conroe
  
  
• AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition - 4x2.3GHz, 2MB L3 cache, 4x512KB L2 cache, 2.0GHz HTT, 1.8GHz Northbridge, 65nm Agena
  
• AMD Phenom 9700 Engineering Sample - 4x2.4GHz, 2MB L3 cache, 4x512KB L2 cache, 2.0GHz HTT, 2.0GHz Northbridge, 65nm Agena
  
• AMD Phenom 9900 Engineering Sample - 4x2.6GHz, 2MB L3 cache, 4x512KB L2 cache, 2.0GHz HTT, 2.0GHz Northbridge, 65nm Agena
  
  
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ - 2x3.20GHz, 2x1MB L2 cache, 1.0GHz HTT, 90nm, Windsor
  
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ - 2x3.00GHz, 2x1MB L2 cache, 1.0GHz HTT, 90nm, Windsor