The Test-
| Standard Test Bed - Intel Configuration | |
| Processor | Intel Core 2 Quad - Q9300 |
| RAM | Patriot PUS24G6400LLK - 4GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (DDR2-800) G.Skill F2-8800CL5Q-8GBPI 4GB DDR2-1150 5-5-5-18 (DDR2-1066) Corsair CM3X2G1600ZC9DHXNV 4GB DDR3 6-6-6-18 (DDR3-1333) |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB |
| System Platform Drivers | Intel - 9.0.0.1011 |
| Storage Drivers | Intel - 8.5.0.1032 |
| Video Drivers | Intel - 15.11.2.1554 |
| CPU Cooling | Intel - Retail |
| Power Supply | Corsair - HX-520W |
| Optical Drives | Sony BDU-X10S, LG GGC-H20L |
| Case | Thermaltake Bach Media Lab VB8000BNS, stock case fans |
| Motherboards | ASUS P5E-VM HDMI (Intel G35) - BIOS 0604 ASUS P5Q-EM (G45) - BIOS 0402 Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H (G45) - BIOS F3F Super Micro Super-C2SEA (G45 DDR3) - BIOS R1.0a Intel DG45ID (G45) - BIOS 079 |
| Operating System | Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate (Benchmarks), Vista 64-bit Memory Compatibility Testing |
| . | |
Our test bed today features the Q9300 quad-core processor. This is a processor that we believe offers terrific performance with very good power consumption and thermals for the cost. We will have results in the next article with the E1200, E5200, E7200, and Q8200 processors to compare against several AMD processors in the same price and speed ranges. Our Patriot DDR2-800 Viper 4GB memory kit has served us well for the past few months and we highly recommend it. We chose Corsair for our XMS2 DDR3 4GB kit and the HX-520W power supply. Our favorite mid-range HD continues to be the Western Digital SE16 640GB that provides the near perfect balance of price, performance, and capacity.
General Performance-
We ran all of our tests with a Core 2 Quad Q9300, however the Mini ITX G45 board from Intel doesn't support quad-core processors so we included E5200 scores from Intel's own micro-ATX and mini-ITX boards for comparison.
You'll notice that these boards all perform about the same, which is to be expected these days with same-chipset performance. In Part 2 of this series we'll compare the equivalent AMD offerings along with several different processors, but if you're looking for an Intel platform you'll find that G45 boards are on equal performance footing.
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