Our testing methods
With the 780G and Athlon X2 4850e launching on the same day, we thought it appropriate to test the two together as a low-cost integrated graphics platform. To fill out our G35 Express board, we have a dual-core Pentium E2180 that costs about as much as the 4850e should when it touches down on store shelves. Do keep in mind that our G35-based Asus board, which seems to be the only G35 offering widely available in North America, costs $30 more than Gigabyte's 780G board. Integrated graphics motherboards based on AMD chipsets have traditionally cost less than those from the Intel camp.

We conducted all of our performance testing with the boards running their integrated graphics. Additional game tests were run with a Radeon HD 3450 graphics card on each board and in a Hybrid CrossFire configuration with the 780G.

All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged.

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. 2GB of RAM seems to be the new standard for most folks, and Corsair hooked us up with some of its 1GB DIMMs for testing.

All of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.

Finally, we'd like to thank Western Digital for sending Raptor WD1500ADFD hard drives for our test rigs. The Raptor's still the fastest all-around drive on the market, and the only 10K-RPM Serial ATA drive you can buy.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• SiSoft Sandra Standard 2008 13.12
• WorldBench 6.0 Beta 2
• TCD Labs HD Tach 3.01
• Call of Duty 4 1.4
• RightMark Audio Analyzer 6.06
• NTttcp
• CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
• Intel IOMeter v2004.07.30
• Crysis 1.1
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars 1.4
• Half-Life 2: Episode 2
• CPU-Z 1.41
• CyberLink PowerDVD 7.3

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.