The Athlon 64 FX-57 promises to be the latest AMD speed demon, and we need a set of processors that can really make it sweat. In terms of multi-threaded competition, the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and Pentium Extreme Edition 840 (with its dual-core/quad-logical HT processor design) certainly fit the bill, while the entry-level Pentium D 820 keeps them company. The high-end, single core competition is provided by the Athlon 64 FX-55 (130nm), and Athlon 64 4000+ (130nm), 3800+ (90nm) and 3500+ (90nm) (all Socket 939 models) on the AMD side, and the Pentium 4-3.73 GHz EE, Pentium 4 670 (3.8 GHz), and Pentium 4 660 (3.6 GHz) (LGA775) processors from Intel. This cross-section of the current high-end processor market will help demonstrate exactly how the Athlon 64 FX-57 fits into the current performance structure.
Enthusiast-level processors demand corresponding platforms and peripherals, while ensuring consistency with the overall reference system mix. The Athlon 64 FX-57 and Athlon 64 X2 4800+ use the ASUS A8N SLI motherboard, and an updated BIOS, to ensure full compatibility with the new processors. The other AMD processors utilize an nForce4 Ultra motherboard, although we have retested and confirmed benchmark results are within the same range on the A8N SLI board. The Pentium D 820, Pentium 4 670 and 660 use the new Intel 945G Express chipset, while the higher-end Pentium Extreme Edition 840 and Pentium 4-3.73 GHz EE run on the Intel 955X Express platform. Memory capacity is set at 1-GB, but due to the differing memory architectures, our Intel systems use 2x512-MB of Crucial Ballistix DDR2-533/667, while the AMD configuration features 2x512-MB of Corsair XMS PC3200XLPRO.
The default hard disk configuration is comprised of dual Western Digital SATA 10K RPM drives set for RAID 0. The video component is also consistent through all the platforms, and the GeForce 6800 GT PCI Express reference video card ensures high-end performance and scalability for our test systems. The operating system is Windows XP Pro SP2, along with DirectX 9.0c installed.
The benchmark list includes a wide range of system, CPU, memory, and gaming tests. These include the Business Winstone 2004, Content Creation Winstone 2004, PCMark 2004, SiSoft SANDRA 2005, and CINEBENCH 2003, along with TMPGEnc Xpress 3.0 for MPEG-1 and 2, XMPEG for DivX, and Windows Media Encoder 9 for WMV encoding. We also utilize popular 3D game tests like Half-Life 2, DOOM 3, 3DMark 2005, FarCry, Halo, AquaMark 3, Unreal Tournament 2004/2003, and Quake 3. Our default game benchmark setting is 1024x768x32, which is demanding enough for comparisons and more realistic as an actual game play resolution, but is still prime territory for CPU-related testing.
* Please note that unless otherwise stated, such as the media encoding times, all performance graph results equate to the standard "higher is better" routine.
