AMD Quad FX System Review with FX-74 Processors

The Test System

AMD sent out full test systems to reviewers and when we got ours we took out the stuff we didn’t want to use and installed the hardware that we wanted with our own clean installations of Windows XP Professional. The GeForce 7900GTX’s that came with the system were removed and the faster GeForce 8800GTX’s were used in their place. We kept the two 2GB kits of Corsair PC2-8500 DOMINATOR memory and the 1KW PC Power and Cooling power supply as you can’t get much better than that! We also upgraded the BIOS from revision 14 to revision 20 the day prior ro benchmarking, so our test system was updated the best that could be when we fired it up.

Testing Procedure:

All testing was done on a fresh install of Windows XP Professional build 2600 with Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9.0c. All benchmarks were completed on the desktop with no other software programs running. All of the modules were run in dual channel mode! The memory on the Intel and AMD test platforms with DDR2 memory was run with Corsair PC2-6400C3 memory running 4GB at 3-4-3-9 2T timings at 800MHz. except for the Intel quad-core system as it was run at 3-3-3-9 thanks to improved memory performance on Bad Axe 2. The memory on the AMD DDR1 motherboard was running 2GB at 400MHz with 2-3-2-6 timings. The memory timings on the Quad FX system were set to 4-4-4-12.

Here is the AMD Scoket 939 Test platform:

AMD Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 FX-60/4800+	Click Here
Motherboard	ASUS AN832-SLI Deluexe	Click Here
Memory	Corsair PC-3200	Click Here
Video Card	ATI X1900XTX	Click Here
Hard Drive	Western Digital 250MB	Click Here
Cooling	Corsair Nautilus 500	Click Here
Power Supply	Thermaltake 750W	Click Here
Operating System	Windows XP Professional	Click Here

Here is the AMD Scoket AM2 Test platform:

AMD Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	AMD Athlon 64 FX-62/5000+	Click Here
Motherboard	ASUS AN832-SLI Deluexe	Click Here
Memory	Corsair PC2-6400C3	Click Here
Video Card	GeForce 8800 GTX SLI	Click Here
Hard Drive	2x Western Digital 500MB	Click Here
Cooling	Corsair Nautilus 500	Click Here
Power Supply	PC Power & Cooling 1KW	Click Here
Operating System	Windows XP Professional	Click Here

Here is the Intel Test Platform:

Intel Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	All LGA775 Processors	Click Here
Motherboard	Intel D975XBX rev304	Click Here
Memory	Corsair PC2-6400C3	Click Here
Video Card	GeForce 8800 GTX SLI	Click Here
Hard Drive	2x Western Digital 500MB	Click Here
Cooling	Corsair Nautilus 500	Click Here
Power Supply	PC Power & Cooling 1KW	Click Here
Operating System	Windows XP Professional	Click Here

Here is the Intel Quad-Core Test Platform:

Intel Quad-Core Test Platform
Component	Brand/Model	Live Pricing
Processor	All LGA775 Processors	Click Here
Motherboard	eVGA 680i SLI	Click Here
Memory	Corsair PC2-8888 Dominator	Click Here
Video Card	GeForce 8800 GTX SLI	Click Here
Hard Drive	2x Western Digital 500MB	Click Here
Cooling	Corsair Nautilus 500	Click Here
Power Supply	PC Power & Cooling 1KW	Click Here
Operating System	Windows XP Professional	Click Here

Let’s move on and take a look at the testing!