AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE & X4 810 Review
By Vince Freeman :
February 9, 2009
PCMark05 Pro Performance
PCMark05 Professional is part of the PCMark system benchmarking series from FutureMark, and was revamped to highlight current hardware and features additional multithreaded and multi-tasking performance tests. There is the usual selection of individual System, CPU, Memory, Graphics, and Hard Drive benchmark suites, and these continue to bridge the gap between synthetic and application-based benchmarks. For our purposes, the System, CPU and Memory areas will be where we concentrate our benchmarking efforts.
The PCMark05 System benchmark suite includes a wide range of tests, from Windows XP hard drive startup to video and audio encoding, and features a selection of standard desktop routines like text edit, virus scanning, and image decompression. Three of the benchmark scenarios are multithreaded, with the first two including two simultaneous tests, and the final one utilizing four program tests running simultaneously. For this test, the latest 1.2 patch + hotfix have been applied.
The latest Phenom II X3 and X4 models acquit themselves well in this benchmark, with the X3 720 easily outpacing the Core 2 Duo E7300, while the X4 810 competes very well against both the Core 2 Quad Q9400 and Q9450.
The PCMark05 CPU benchmark does have some multi-threaded tests, and even though it is clocked lower, the Phenom II X4 810 still posts a higher score than the X3 720. In terms of Intel comparisons, the Phenom II X4 810 manages to squeeze by the Core 2 Quad Q6600, but that's as far up the chart as it goes.
The PCMark05 Memory benchmark testing doesn't show the newest Phenom II X3 and X4 models taking over the chart, and these are pretty well middle of the road in terms of performance scores.
