Test notes
Here's a look at our test system, in which we inadvertently used all of the components of AMD's so-called Dragon platform, including a Phenom II, the 790GX chipset, and a Radeon HD 4870.

Handsome, innit?

Nothing against these fine individual components, but I have yet to be impressed by a desktop "platform" package. I prefer simply to choose the best motherboard, processor, and graphics card, regardless of who makes them. To date, "platforms" have only served to thwart that ambition (see: CrossFire and SLI chipset requirements and corporate catfights, for instance) without delivering any concrete advantages. AMD seems to be committed to this direction, though, so you can probably expect to hear more about it. I will admit that AMD's "Overdrive" utility has some nice features—and a new version is slated for release with the Phenom II—but it's mainly tied to the 7-series chipsets rather than the whole package, including graphics. And a software utility alone isn't likely to sell us on the platform concept.

Anyhow, another thing you'll want to note is that several of the CPU models we tested were actually simulated using underclocked versions of higher-grade processors. Specifically, the Phenom II X4 920 is an underclocked 940, and the Core 2 Quad Q9550 is an underclocked Core 2 Extreme QX9650. We expect the performance of these "simulated" speed grades to be identical to the real things, but we have omitted these processors from our power consumption testing because we do anticipate that power use would vary slightly from the actual products.

Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least three times, and the results were averaged.

Our test systems were configured like so:

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. Their products and support are far and away superior to generic, no-name memory.

Our single-socket test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. The dual-socket system was powered by a PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1KW-SR power supply. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.

Also, the folks at NCIXUS.com hooked us up with a nice deal on the WD Caviar SE16 drives used in our test rigs. NCIX now sells to U.S. customers, so check them out.

The test systems' Windows desktops were set at 1600x1200 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• SiSoft Sandra 2009.1.15.42
• CPU-Z 1.48
• WorldBench 6 beta 2
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Crysis Warhead
• Far Cry 2
• Unreal Tournament 3 1.3
• Valve VRAD map build benchmark
• Valve Source Engine particle simulation benchmark
• Cinebench R10 64-bit Edition
• POV-Ray for Windows 3.7 beta 29 64-bit
• CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
• MyriMatch proteomics benchmark
• notfred's Folding benchmark CD 9/28/08 revision
• picCOLOR 4.0 build 627 64-bit
• The Panorama Factory 5.2 x64 Edition
• Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Edition
• x264 HD benchmark 2.0 with x264 version 0.59.819
• LAME MT 3.97a 64-bit

The tests and methods we employ are usually publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.