Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used
We matched up the ASUS M3A78-T motherboard against a mid-range AM3 motherboard from ECS called the A790GXM-AD3. This is a good comparison between AM2+ versus AM3 as well as DDR2 and DDR3. It’s amazing that the same chipset is versatile enough to handle DDR2 or DDR3, depending on its configuration. We also ran our test results just using onboard graphics. This will also be great indicators for those who want to see how far they can get using just onboard video. Let’s see if our results can pinpoint which configuration will bring consumers the best performance.
Our test bench consisted of the following components:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 (2.8GHz, 14×200)
Video Card: HD 3300 GPU via 790GX chipset (onboard integrated graphics)
RAM: ASUS board – OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 800; ECS board – OCZ 6GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600
PSU: PC Power & Cooling 750W 80 PLUS
HD: Western Digital 160GB SATA
Operating System: Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit
Our 64-bit test bench for AM2+ and AM3 processors includes 4 to 6GB of RAM (depending on configuration), a GeForce 9800GTX+ graphics card (or onboard video if available), and a Western Digital 160GB SATA hard drive for storage. This configuration is based off a typical low to mid-range computer system.
Benchmarks used:
- SiSoft Sandra 2009 SP1
- CineBench 10
- LAME 3.97a MP3 Encoder
- Handbrake DVD compression
- 3DMark Vantage
- Crysis Warhead
- Far Cry 2
- PCMark Vantage
- HDTach 3.0.1.0 – SATA, eSATA, USB
