How we test
CPU comparisons |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Approx. pricing |
Clock speed | Cores threads | Motherboard | Chipset | Memory | Memory timings | ||
| AMD FX-8150 | £190 | 3.6GHz | 8/8 | ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 990FX | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| AMD Phenom II X6 1100T | £140 | 3.3GHz | 6/6 | ASUS Crosshair V Formula | 990FX | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| AMD Phenom II X6 1055T | £120 | 2.8GHz | 6/6 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| AMD Phenom II X4 980BE | £130 | 3.7GHz | 4/4 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| AMD Phenom II X4 975BE | £120 | 3.6GHz | 4/4 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| AMD Athlon II X4 645 | £80 | 3.1GHz | 4/4 | ASUS Crosshair IV Formula | 890FX | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i7 2600K | £230 | 3.4GHz | 4/8 | ASUS P8P67 PRO | P67 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i5 2500K | £160 | 3.3GHz | 4/4 | ASUS P8P67 PRO | P67 | DDR3 1,600 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i5 650 | £120 | 3.0GHz | 2/4 | Gigabyte H55M | H55 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i7 870 | £150 | 3.6GHz | 4/8 | ASUS P7P55D | P55 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i5 750 | £120 | 2.67GHz | 4/4 | ASUS P7P55D | P55 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i7 990X EE | £770 | 3.46GHz | 6/12 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i7 980X EE | £430 | 3.33GHz | 6/12 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i7 970 | £350? | 3.2GHz | 6/12 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| Intel Core i7 950 | £180 | 3.06GHz | 4/8 | ASUS P6X58D-E | X58 | DDR3 1,333 | 9-9-9-24-2T | ||
| *Suggested retail price. Some parts may be unavailable now. | |||||||||
Common components |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discrete GPU | AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB (Cat 11.5) | |||||||||||
| Power Supply | Corsair HX1000W | |||||||||||
| Monitor | Dell 30in 3007WFP | |||||||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Corsair V128 SSD | |||||||||||
| Chassis | Corsair Obsidian Series 700D | |||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate, SP1, 64-bit | |||||||||||
Benchmarks |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | ||||||||||||
| AIDA64 | Useful application to test memory bandwidth | |||||||||||
| HEXUS.PiFast | Using CPU power to crunch to constant to 10m places - light load | |||||||||||
| iTunes MP3 | Encodes WAV files into 192kb/s MP3 - light load | |||||||||||
| CINEBENCH R11.5 | Multi-CPU render - heavy load | |||||||||||
| TrueCrypt 7.0a | Encryption benchmark - heavy load | |||||||||||
| wPrime 2.0.4 | Calculate 1024M prime numbers - heavy load | |||||||||||
| GPU | ||||||||||||
| 3Mark Vantage | DX10 benchmark that stresses the GPU and CPU | |||||||||||
| COD: BO | 30-second FRAPS through a frenetic section, 768p | |||||||||||
| StarCraft II | 90-second FRAPS through a typical battle, 720p | |||||||||||
| Power-draw | Run at idle and wPrime load (2D) | |||||||||||
Notes
Giving you as comprehensive an overview as we can, the FX-8150's results have been added to numbers obtained on a bunch of other chips. A fresh installation of Windows 7 64-bit includes the latest drivers mandated by AMD, and we've made sure there's architecture-to-architecture consistency by benchmarking a Phenom II X6 1100T on the very same board as the FX-8150.
We've been very careful to ensure that, as much as possible, this is an apples-to-apples comparison. This means the graphics driver for the Radeon HD 6950 2GB is Catalyst 11.5. Further, all benchmark builds have been kept consistent from when we last ran the numbers on multiple CPUs, though the one exception is AIDA64, which had to be updated to the latest version in order for it to work with the FX.
The following graphs have the AMD FX-8150, Phenom II X6 1100T and Intel Core i5 2500K highlighted. Understanding that a chip is usually introduced at a premium and then is price-reduced in the subsequent weeks, the focus seems reasonably fair. Of course, feel free to compare the FX's numbers to anything in the graph, especially the 2600K.
