Testing Participants Specifications

Now that we have briefly introduced to you a few newcomers, let’s compare side by side the technical specifications of our today’s quad-core participants. Among them are three above mentioned processors, and the good old Intel fellows with lowered pricing: Core 2 Quad Q6600 and Core 2 Quad Q9300.

Testbed and Methods

Having tested all inexpensive quad-core offerings, we decided to see how the top dual-core solutions falling into similar price range would compare against them. Therefore, besides the above listed CPUs, we will also include into our diagrams the results for Core 2 Duo E8600 – the fastest dual-core processor from Intel. As you know, its official price is set at $266.

So, our testbeds turned out configured using the following hardware:

• CPUs:
  • AMD Phenom X4 9950 (Socket AM2+, 2.6 GHz, 4 x 512KB L2, 2MB L3, Agena);
  • Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (LGA775, 3.33 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 6MB L2, Wolfdale);
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 (LGA775, 2.66 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 3+3MB L2, Yorkfield);
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 (LGA775, 2.5 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 3+3MB L2, Yorkfield);
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 (LGA775, 2.33 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 2+2MB L2, Yorkfield);
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (LGA775, 2.4 GHz, 1067 MHz FSB, 4+4MB L2, Kentsfield).
• Mainboards:
  • DFI LANPARTY DK P45-T2RS (LGA775, Intel P45, DDR2 SDRAM);
  • ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe (Socket AM2+, AMD 790FX).
• Memory:  2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM with 4-4-4-12 timings (Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4).
• Graphics card: OCZ GeForce 8800GTX (PCI-E x16).
• HDD: Western Digital WD1500AHFD (SATA150).
• OS: Microsoft Windows Vista x86.