Test Setup

Since Nate has already published two articles covering dual core processors, i wanted to jump straight into some benchmarks. As you will notice, I ran several different benchmarks covering a wide range of system performance.

For testing, I wanted to get a good sample over a variety of conditions. I chose to use a 955 chipset board for the Intel processors because I wanted both processors on a level playing field, and unfortunately, my 945 board showed up DOA. All testing was done using MS Windows XP Professional (build 2600 with Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c).

System #1:

• Intel Pentium D 820
• ASUS P5WD2 Premium Motherboard
• 1 GB Corsair XMS PC5400UL @ 3-2-2-8
• ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition
• 1 x 300 GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA HDD
• Prometeia Mach II

System #2:

• Intel Pentium D 840EE
• ASUS P5WD2 Premium Motherboard
• 1 GB Corsair XMS PC5400UL @ 3-2-2-8
• ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition
• 1 x 300 GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA HDD
• Prometeia Mach II