System setup and notes
| System name | PC Specialist Apollo Q6600-X | HEXUS E6700 GTX |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.40GHz, 8MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz, quad-core) | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz, dual-core) |
| Motherboard | ASUS P5N32-E SLI PLUS (nForce 650i) | Intel Bad Axe 2 (i975X) |
| Memory | 2GBytes (2 x 1024) Corsair CM2X1024-6400 | |
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-1-2T @ 800MHz | |
| Graphics card(s) | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MiB | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MiB |
| Disk drive(s) | WD 150GB Raptor X (WD150AHFD) 10,000RPM, 16MB cache | Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200.10, 7,200RPM, 8MB cache |
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 162.22 | |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Premium 32-bit | Windows Vista Business 64-bit |
| Benchmarks |
ScienceMark 2.0 HEXUS.PiFast HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark using LAME 3.97a (Intel HT compiler) - 701.5MB WAV HEXUS.in-house DivX encode using DivX 6.61 and VirtualDub on 416MB DV file CINEBENCH R10 multi-CPU render POV-Ray v3.7 beta21 - biscuit.pov - using both 32-bit and 64-bit executables HDTach 3.0.1.0 Quake 4 v1.30 HEXUS custom netdemo benchmark Company of Heroes DX9 and DX10 benchmark Lost Planet: Extreme Condition DX10 benchmark |
|---|
Notes
We're using one of our own test systems for comparison. The main difference between the two is that our system has an E6700 CPU that's faster than the Q6600 in the PC Specialist machine but dual-core, rather than quad. In addition our testbed uses a GeForce 8800 GTX, which is faster than the 8800 GTS 640 in the PC Specialist's system. The boot hard disks are different, too.
So, we're expecting the PC Specialist's processor to be somewhat faster in truly multithreaded apps but our system's gaming performance to be quicker.
Windows Vista Business 64-bit was installed on our own test machine and comparison numbers run against the Apollo Q6600-X, which ships with Windows Vista Premium 32-bit. Vista Business 64-bit is now our OS of choice and we've run 64-bit executables where available.
The benchmarks have been updated to reflect the latest versions and we've included DX9 and DX10 titles in our gaming evaluation.
As always, we ran each benchmark three times and averaged the results. These are presented in graphs on following pages. If any of the three results looked erroneous, we threw all away until we could collect three within a margin of statistical error. We report any major attempts needed to get three reliable results, of course. Anything else is noted on the graphs and in the graph commentary. Want to know more? Head for the HEXUS.community.
Issues
We noticed that Intel's SpeedStep technology was not activated in the PC Specialist's BIOS, resulting in the quad-core Q6600 processor not idling correctly. Memory timings were just a little off, too, at 5-5-5-18 rather than the modules-specified 5-5-5-12, but this is nitpicking.
The system would also crash when running Company of Heroes with anti-aliasing enabled, something that didn't occur with our own test system.
