| Review: Core™
2 the Extreme: Intel Retakes the Field
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Test Systems Setup
Intel System
- Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz)
- Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67 GHz)
- Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 955 (3.46
GHz)
- Intel D975XBX motherboard (975X
chipset)
AMD Socket AM2
- AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.8 GHz)
- ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (nForce 590
chipset)
All three test setups shared the following
system components.
- 2 GB (2 x 1 GB) of Corsair DDR2/800
(4-4-4-12) memory
- ATI Radeon X1900 XTX (Catalyst
6.6)
- Maxtor MaxLine III 250 GB SATA
(16 MB buffer) hard drive
- Plextor PX-712S DVD drive
- Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi sound
card
- Enermax 550 Watt ATX power supply
unit
The test systems were built
using the newest BIOS release and chipset and add-in component
drivers. Anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, and vsync were
forced off in the graphics control panel during all game testing.
Windows XP Professional (SP2) was installed and configured
to have automatic updates, system restore, and all unnecessary
startup services disabled. And Fraps 2.7.4 was used to record
performance scores for applications that do not produce their
own results. Testing was conducted using the following software:
- Microsoft's Windows Media Encoder
9.0
- PCMark05 (v1.1.0)
- Falcon 4: Allied Force (v1.0.7)
- IL-2: Pacific Fighters (v4.0.4)
- MS Flight Simulator 2004 (v9.1)
- LockOn: Flaming Cliffs (v1.12a)
- rFactor (v1070)
- Call of Duty 2 (v1.03)
In recent
dual-core articles SimHQ has scaled back somewhat by not testing
our entire benchmark suite, yet for this article we decided
to include a few more simulation titles to see how they fare
with the design improvements found in Core 2.
Worth noting is that Intel's review
kit shipped sans a stock cooler, which is a first for this
reviewer. A Zalman CNPS9500 cooler was installed in the Intel
test system while the AM2-based FX-62 used the stock AVC cooler
included in AMD's review kit this May. This situation has
no bearing on the performance characteristics of the tested
parts since all coolers were more than adequate to keep the
processors running well within specifications, but it also
leaves us unable to comment on the quality of the cooler included
in retail, Core 2 PIB (packed in box) purchases.
Processor die from the
Intel® Core 2 Duo processor and the Intel®
Core 2 Extreme.
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