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 AM3+): ASUS Crosshair V Formula (1605 BIOS) 
• Motherboard (Socket LGA1155): Gigabyte Z77X-UP5TH (F11 BIOS) 
• CPU Cooler: Intel/AMD stock
• Memory: 4 GB DDR3-1333, two G.Skill F3-10666CL7T memory modules
• Hard Disk Drive: Western Digital Black Caviar 1 TB (WD1001FALS, SATA-300, 7,200 rpm, 32 MB buffer) 
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 SuperClocked 
• Video Monitor: AOC e3343Fwk
• Power Supply: Antec TruePower New 750 W 

Operating System Configuration

• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
• NTFS
• Video resolution: 1920 x 1080 60 Hz

Driver Versions

• NVIDIA video driver version: 306.97
• Intel Inf chipset driver version: 9.3.0.1021
• AMD chipset driver version: 3.0.825.0

Software Used

• 3DMark 11 Professional 1.0.3 
• Adobe After Effects CS4 
• Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended + Retouch Artist Speed Test 1.0 
• Battlefield 3 
• Cinebench 11.529
• Far Cry 2 – Patch 1.03 
• iTunes 10.7 
• Media Espresso 6.5 
• PCMark 7 1.0.4 
• Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty – Patch 1.5 
• VirtualDub 1.9.5 + MPEG-2 Plugin 3.1 + DivX 6.9.2   
• WinZip 17

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.