Up against a two-year-old mid-range PC
| Comparison systems | ||
|---|---|---|
| System | 3XS i3 OC SMART Edition GTX 460 | HEXUS two-year-old mid-range |
| Processor | Intel Core i3 530 overclocked to 4.0GHz | Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 2.67GHz |
| Motherboard | ASUS P7H55-M | Intel D975XBX2 |
| Memory | Corsair 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 | Corsair 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 |
| Memory timings | 9-9-9-24-1T @ 1,600MHz | 5-5-5-18-2T @ 800MHz |
| Graphics | Gainward GeForce GTX 460 768MB @ 800/3,900MHz | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 512MB |
| Graphics driver | ForceWare 258.80 | Catalyst 10.6 |
| Disk drive | 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 (7,200rpm) | 500GB Seagate 7200.12 (7,200rpm) |
| Optical drive | Samsung 22x DVD-RW | Sony 16x DVD-RW |
| Chassis | SilverStoneTek Precision PS04B | Cooler Master ATCS 110B |
| Power supply | Corsair HX450W | Enermax 500W |
| Operating system | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
| Cost (including VAT) | £716 | NA |
| Benchmarks | ||
| HEXUS.PiFast |
Our number-crunching benchmark stresses a single core by calculating Pi to 10m places. | |
| Geekbench 2.1.6 | A cross-platform benchmark used to measure memory and processor performance. Run using high-performance mode. | |
| Cinebench 11.5 | Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses as many cores as possible. Run using high-performance mode. | |
| x264 3.0 HD encoding | Our media-encoding benchmark converts a 720p movie into the H.264 format. Pass two calculated. | |
| 3DMark06 | A PC benchmark used to test the DirectX 9 performance of a system's graphics card. Run using high-performance mode. | |
| DiRT 2 v1.1 | 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, ultra quality, London map. DX9 | |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 | 1,920x1,080, 4xAA, ultra quality, FRAPS-recorded benchmark. | |
| Power consumption | Using balanced power settings, we record mains power draw when idle and whilst playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 with Prime 95 | |
Notes
There's little point in showing you the comparative performance against a £2,000 monster PC. Rather, to make it worthwhile and interesting, we put the Scan system alongside a mid-range system that would have passed muster two years ago. What we want to know is how much more performance, if any, a mid-2010 build gives over something that was cutting edge in 2008. It's dual-core, quad-threaded CPU vs. dual-core, dual-threaded CPU, albeit a highly-clocked model from Scan, and it's DX11 graphics goodness up against DX10.
