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In order to keep the testing as fair as possible, we will use the following test platforms:

Socket AM2:

• Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6 GHz 2x 512 KB L2 cache 90nm processor
• Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6 GHz 2x 512 KB L2 cache 65nm processor
• Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0 GHz 2x 512 KB L2 cache 90nm processor
• Athlon FX-62 2.6GHz 2x 1MB L2 cache 90nm processor
• ASUS M2N32-SLI motherboard
• Corsair PC2-8500 memory @ 4-4-4-12/2T
• XFX GeForce 7800 GT
• Corsair HX620W power supply

LGA 775:

• Core 2 Duo E4300
• Core 2 Duo E6300
• Core 2 Duo E6400
• Asus P5B-E Premium motherboard
• Corsair PC2-8500 memory @ 4-4-4-12/2T
• XFX GeForce 7800 GT

ASUS' M2N32-SLI motherboard is an excellent performer, and allows us to try very high FSB speeds.

Software used during testing consisted of the following:

• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
• NVIDIA ForceWare 94.19 drivers
• CineBench 2003
• LAME MP3 Encoding
• PC Magazine Business Winstone 2004
• PC Magazine Multimedia Content Creation 2004
• POV-Ray 3.7 beta 13
• RightMark Memory Analyzer
• SiSoft Sandra
• TMPGEnc MPEG2 Encoding
• WinRAR
• Call of Duty
• Comanche 4
• Doom 3
• Far Cry
• Halo
• Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
• Unreal Tournament 2004

Please note that we are showing overclocked results in all the charts - we are not holding you in suspense until the end of the article. :-) And also be aware that our chart labels incorporate a lot of information about the test configurations, but the first line will always show the socket type and the model of the processor. Since all the processors shown are dual-core devices, we did not specify that on the charts. The second line of the chart labels shows the "FSB/HT clock rate" x "CPU multiplier" followed by the effective DDR memory speed.

One final thing to mention: all of the results labeled "BE 6400+" were run at the stock speed of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition :-)