System setup and notes
| System | AMD AM2+/AM3 system | Intel LGA775 system |
|---|---|---|
| Processors | AMD Athlon II X2 250 (3.0GHz, 2MB L2 cache, AM3,
dual-core) £60 - estimated AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition (2.8GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, AM2+, dual-core) £53 AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition (2.7GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache, AM2+, dual-core) £46 AMD Athlon X2 6000+ (3.1GHz, 1MB L2 cache, AM2, dual-core) £55 |
Intel Pentium Dual Core
E5200
(2.5GHz, 2MB L2 cache,
LGA775, dual-core) £52 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H (790GX + SB750) | Foxconn P45A-S (Intel P45 + ICH10R) |
| Memory |
4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair PC8500 |
|
| Memory timings and speed |
4-4-4-12 2T @ 800MHz |
|
| Graphics card(s) | Sapphire Radeon HD 4830 512MB | |
| Disk drive(s) | Seagate 500GB SATAII (ST3500320AS) | |
| Optical drive(s) | Sony DW-Q30A | |
| BIOS revision | F4 (07/04/2009) | P05 (27/08/2008) |
| Mainboard software | Standard Vista SP1 drivers + AHCI 3.1.1540.64 | Intel Inf 9.0.0.1008 |
| Graphics driver | ATI Catalyst 8.12 | |
| Operating system | Windows Vista Business, SP1 64-bit | |
| PSU | Dark Power 430W | Dark Power 430W |
| Monitor | Dell 2405FPW | |
Software
| Benchmarks |
ScienceMark Memory Latency DivX 6.8.3 + Lame + QuickTime 7.5.5 (multitasking) Company of Heroes: OF v2.103, DX9, 1,024x768 - low
quality Power-draw readings |
|---|
Notes
We've deliberately not included any CPU - or any component, for that matter - costing over £100 because this is a strictly a mid-range look. Out go quad-core CPUs from both Intel and AMD, which start at over £100. Indeed, none of the five chips costs more than £60, and we've added numbers for an older-generation Athlon 64 X2 that runs at a touch higher clock-speed than X2 250.
Of particular interest are the multitasking results, to see if budget CPUs can handle a more than isolation benchmarking.
The AMD chips have been run on an AM2+ 790GX board with cheaper DDR2, at 800MHz speeds, to keep platform costs low. We also look at DDR2-1,066 performance a little later on.
Our thanks to Scan.co.uk for providing the comparison Intel CPU at short notice