System setup and testing software
We've shown you pictures and given you the release date, but just how fast is Intel's Kentsfield processor? We've had the chance to take the quad core chip for a spin through a few apps, pitting it against the current top dawg, the Core 2 Extreme X6800.
We ran a number of CPU intensive tests, including HD video encoding and ray tracing on two identically specced systems, save the CPU. Find the system spec below:
| IDF Kentsfield system | IDF Core 2 X6800 system | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Pre-production Core 2 Extreme QX6700 'Kentsfield' | Core 2 Extreme X6800 |
| Core clock | 2.66GHz | 2.93GHz |
| Motherboard | Pre-production BadAxe 2 D975XBX2 Revision 303 | |
| FSB | 1066MHz | |
| BIOS | BX97520J.86A.1446.2006.0913.1039 | |
| Graphics card | eVGA GeForce 7950 GX2 1GiB | |
| Memory | 2x 1GiB Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5 DDR2 1066 @ 800MHz 4-4-4-12 | |
| Hard drive | Seagate 230GB 7200.10 | |
| Chipset driver | 7.2.2.1007 | |
| Storage driver | Matrix Storage 5.5 | |
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 91.47 | |
The RAM may be 1066MHz modules, but it's only running at 800MHz hung off the BadAxe2 Northbridge's memory controller.
Seeing as weren't in the HEXUS.labs and had limited time to do our testing, our test suite was somewhat different to our norm. Still, here are the details.
- DivX 6.2.5 with XMPEG 5.03 - Encoding a 1920x1080 MPEG2 file, 52MB
- Sony Vegas 7.0a build 115
- POV-Ray Beta 15
- 3DS Max 8 SP2
- 3DMark 2006 1.0.2 Professional CPU test
You wanna see the results, then? OK...
