The Athlon 64 X2 4600+ and 4200+ processors offer a combination of high-end and mainstream performance, along with exceptional multi-threading capabilities, so in this round of benchmarking, we're going dual core all the way. We have assembled every dual core desktop processor available, including the range of Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 4600+, 4400+, 4200+, and 3800+ AMD processors. Intel is also well represented with the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 and the Pentium D 840 (3.2 GHz), 830 (3.0 GHz) and 820 (2.8 GHz) dual core models. This provides us with a complete view of the dual core processor market, and will clearly show exactly how the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ and 4200+ fit into the current performance structure.
This is a nice selection of high-end and mainstream processors, and we have matched these with corresponding platforms and peripherals, while ensuring consistency with the overall reference system mix. The Athlon 64 X2 models utilize the DFI NF4 Ultra-D motherboard, while the Pentium D 840, 830 and 820, and Pentium EE 840, run on the high-end Intel 955X Express platform. The 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 PCMark04, PCMark05, 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, Quake 4, 3DMark05, FarCry, Halo, AquaMark 3, Painkiller, Unreal Tournament 2004/2003, Chronicles of Riddick, and Quake 3. Our default game benchmark setting is 1024x768x32 for older games, and 800x600x32 for newer releases, both of which are demanding enough for comparisons and still realistic as actual game play resolutions.
* Please note that unless otherwise stated, such as the media encoding times, all performance graph results equate to the standard "higher is better" routine.
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