During our benchmarking sessions we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable device was the CPU being tested and the motherboard, which had to be replaced to match the different CPU sockets.

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard (Socket LGA1155): Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H (F8d BIOS)
• Motherboard (Socket AM3+): ASUS Crosshair V Formula (1301BIOS)
• CPU Cooler: Intel stock/AMD stock liquid cooling solution
• Memory: 4 GB DDR3-1866, two G.Skill Ripjaws XF3-14900CL9D-4GBXL memory modules
• Hard Disk Drive: Western Digital Black Caviar 1 TB (WD1001FALS, SATA-300, 7,200 rpm, 32 MB buffer)
• Video Card: Radeon HD 7850
• Video Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 932BW
• Power Supply: Antec TruePower New 750 W

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
• NTFS
• Video resolution: 2560x1600 60 Hz

Driver Versions

• AMD video driver version: Catalyst 12.3
• AMD chipset driver version: 3.0.825.0
• Intel Inf chipset driver version: 9.3.0.1019

Software Used

• 3DMark 11 1.0.3
• Adobe After Effects CS4
• Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended + Retouch Artist Speed Test 1.0
• Battlefield 3
• Cinebench 11.529
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• DiRT3
• iTunes 10.2
• Media Espresso 6.5
• PCMark 7 1.0.4
• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.4.3
• VirtualDub 1.9.5 + MPEG-2 Plugin 3.1 + DivX 6.9.2
• WinZip 15.5

Error Margin

We adopted a 3% error margin. Thus differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.