Test system and methodology

Test system
Processors Intel Core i7-3960X (3,3 GHz, 6 cores with HT) 130W
Intel Core i7-980X (3,33 GHz, 6 cores with HT) 130W
FX-8150 (3,6 GHz, 8 cores) 125W
A8-3850 (2,9 GHz, 4 cores) 100W
A6-3650 (2,6 GHz, 4 cores) 100W
Phenom II X6 1100T (3,3 GHz, 6 cores) 125W
Phenom II X4 980BE (3,7 GHz, 4 cores) 125W
Phenom II X2 565BE (3,3 GHz, 2 cores) 95W
Athlon II X4 635 (2,9 GHz, 4 cores) 95W
Athlon II X3 455 (3,3 GHz, 3 cores) 95W
Intel Core i7-3770K (3,5 GHz, 4 cores with HT) 77W
Intel Core i7-2700K (3,5 GHz, 4 cores with HT) 95W
Intel Core i7-2600K (3,4 GHz, 4 cores with HT) 95W
Intel Core i7-2600K (3,4 GHz, 4 cores with HT) 95W
Intel Core i5-2500K (3,3 GHz, 4 cores) 95W
Intel Core i5-2500T (2,3 GHz, 4 cores) 45W
Intel Core i5-2300 (2,8 GHz, 4 cores) 95W
Intel Core i3-2100 (3,1 GHz, 2 cores with HT) 65W
Motherboards ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (LGA 2011)
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme (LGA 1155)
ASUS P8Z77-V Pro (LGA 1155)
ASUS Crosshair V Formula (AM3+)
ASRock A75 Extreme6 (FM1)
Graphics cards
AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB (Reference for all CPU’s)
AMD Radeon HD 6450 (Reference for IGP tests only)
AMD Radeon HD 6550D (A8-3850 APU IGP test)
AMD Radeon HD 6530D (A6-3650 APU IGP test)
Intel HD Graphics 4000 (Core i7-3770K IGP test)
Intel HD Graphics 3000 (Core i7-2700K IGP test)
Intel HD Graphics 2000 (Core i5-2400 IGP test)
Memory 2 x 4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600C9
(1333 MHz with latencies 7-7-7-20 1T on all systems)
4 x 4GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600C9
(1600 MHz with latencies 8-8-8-24 1T for Core i7-3960X)
Harddrive/SSD Corsair Force 2 120GB
Operating system
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Drivers Catalyst 11.11 (For tests with Radeon HD 6970)
Catalyst 12.3 (For tests with AMD’s APU’s)
Intel Chipset Intel PCH 9.3.0.1020
Intel HD Graphics 15.26.8.2696 (For tests with Intel HD Graphics)
Test applications PCMark 7
wPrime 32M
AIDA64
Blender
Cinebench 11.5
POV-Ray
WinRAR
HandBrake
x264 Bench
MediaEspresso
3DMark 11
Mafia II
DiRT 3
Crysis 2
Civilization V
Metro 2033
Starcraft II
Borderlands
Alien vs. Predator
Battlefield 3
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

Our values of performance has changed a bit during the years and especially the last two years we’ve had to rearrange in our test suites to also make room for more integrated graphics tests. With Ivy Bridge the integrated graphics is very interesting and in todays analysis of the Intel Core i7-3770K we’ve dedicated an entire chapter to separate graphics tests, with a variety of integrated graphics from both AMD and Intel.

Worth noticing is that our graphics tests differs when we look at tests with discrete graphics cards (Radeon HD 6970) and tests with integrated graphics. Our discrete graphics card tests uses our older test arrangement where among others Battlefield 3 and Skyrim is not represented, two titles that’s included when we test the integrated graphics circuit. Of course this will be changed in future articles where these titles will be included even in the discrete graphics cards tests in our CPU reviews. Note that we have used AMD’s a little older Catalyst 11.11 graphics cards drivers to keep backwards compatibility with earlier results, while the integrated tests that has been performed in the last week uses the latest graphics cards drivers from AMD and Intel.

Our tests in following order and test focus:

  1. CPU-tests (Focus on pure general CPU-computing power)
  2. Video recoding (CPU calculation but also performance in integrated media circuits)
  3. Game tests (3D tests with discrete graphics card to see what difference the CPU does)
  4. IGP tests (3D tests with processors integrated graphics circuits)
  5. Overclocking tests (We investigare how high frequency we can get with Intel’s Ivy Bridge architecture)
  6. Power Consumption (Measuring of the systems power consumption at different loads)

If you have any questions surrounding our test methodology or the results you are welcome to ask them in the comments below. With that said we rapidly move towards the really good stuff, the performance results.

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Marius
Medlem
Marius

Great review guys, i would really love to see you do much more of them =]

AlexCheveau
Gäst
AlexCheveau

A really great review, good job. Waiting to get my hands on it… but don’t know when it will arrive in Brazil

Andreas G
Medlem

Glad you liked it 🙂

We hope the new translators will have time for more of these.

Taki R
Gäst
Taki R

You used DDR3-1333 for AMD APU when it’s known that those processors need faster RAM to reach top performance, unlike Intel’s which don’t scale up accordingly. As it is, this is a very Intel-biased review.

pcpraise.com
Gäst

It seem Intel will beat AMD more with this line of new generation processor. It is faster and consume less power than sandy bridge and trinity. Core per core / clock per clock basis.
I really like to know though the performance and efficiency compare to AMD trinity.

WILLENALDO
Gäst
WILLENALDO

É realmente incrível todo esse progresso/evolução da INTEL.
BRASIL – CRATO – CEARÁ

WILLENALDO
Gäst
WILLENALDO

É realmente incrível todo esse progresso/evolução da INTEL.
BRASIL – CRATO – CEARÁ

tecnotron
Gäst
tecnotron

What happens if I put a 125w TDP CPU on a 95w motherboard? If I have a quad-core CPU and disable 2 cores will my CPU fit in the 95w TDP?