Testing and Results

Test Rig

• CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K
• Motherboard: Asus P8P67-LE
• GPU: GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Graphics Card
• Memory: 4GB PC3-10666 DDR3
• Storage: 1000GB SATA 7200rpm
• PSU: 500watt Xigmatek PSU
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM

Methodology

To test CPUs, we put them through several synthetic benchmarks and a few games to see how they perform. Each test is run 3 times with an average score taken in order to avoid any fluke results. The benchmarks run are:

Cinebench
WPrime
3Dmark 11
CustomPC Test Suite
Crysis Warhead
STALKER Clear Sky

For comparison purposes, we used our in-house test system which has the following hardware setup:

• CPU: Intel Core i5 760
• Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E
• GPU: GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Graphics Card
• Memory: 4GB Corsair Dominator 1600MHZ
• Storage: Samsung 5000GB Barracuda 7200
• PSU: Corsair TX 650w
• OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Cinebench

Cinebench is a real world benchmarking tool that’s based on the Cinema4d engine that’s utilised for 3D content generation. It can be used to compare CPU and GPU performance by rendering a scene of shiny balls and similar objects utilising many modern computing standards.

WPrime

Wprime is a solid multithreaded benchmarking tool used comparing CPU performance by calculating square routes using a “recursive call of Newton’s methond for estimation functions.” Exactly. What he said.