System setup and notes
| System name | Wired2Fire Velocity XFire (AMD) | Wired2Fire Hellspawn XFire (Intel) |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.6GHz (225MHz HTT) | Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.6GHz (180MHz BCLK) |
| Motherboard | ASUS M3A78-T (790GX+SB750) | Gigabyte X58-UD3R (Intel X58 + ICH10R) |
| Memory | 4GB (2 x 2GB) Corsair XMS2-PC8500 | 3GB (3x 1GB) Corsair XMS3-10,666 |
| Memory timings and speed | 5-5-5-15-2T @
DDR2-900MHz |
9-9-9-24-2T @ DDR3-1,440MHz |
| Graphics card(s) | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2,048MB | Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 X2 2,048MB |
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 9.1 | CATALYST 9.1 |
| Disk drive(s) | Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB | Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB |
| Optical drive(s) | ASUS DRW-20B1ST | ASUS DRW-20B1ST |
| PSU | Thermaltake Toughpower 850W (700W normal) | Thermaltake Toughpower 700W |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, SP1 | Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit, SP1 |
| Base unit price, including VAT | £1,109 | £1,229 |
| Benchmarks | PCMark Vantage b1.0.0 (inc. Nov. '08 hotfix) SYSmark 2007 Preview 3DMark Vantage b1.0.1 (Extreme settings) |
|---|
Software issues
Delving in to the BIOS like any self-respecting enthusiasts, we observed a few issues that could result in sub-par performance.Intel Hellspawn XFire
Specifically, AHCI wasn't enabled for the hard-drive, no BIOS profiles were used to backup the overclocked settings should a reset be required, SMART capability was disabled, SATA native mode (ports 0-3) were disabled, and HPET was set to 32-bit mode.
AMD Velocity XFire
The CPU Prefetch option was disabled, on-chip SATA set to IDE, CPU fan-speed disabled, and ASUS' Express Gate software - a Linux-based shell for Internet surfing - was also disabled.
Notes
We're using a cut-down suite that includes three industry-standard benchmarking titles that provide results based on practically every facet of computing performance - from hard-drive to memory.What we're determining here are baseline numbers and whether one system offers meaningful performance advantages over the other: an interesting test based on pre-overclocked Phenom II and Core i7 machines.
The machines' overclocks intimate that Core i7 has more frequency headroom with decent air-cooling, so let's get to the nub of the matter: benchmarks.