Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 @ 3.33GHz (333MHz x 10) and 4GHz (400MHz x 10)

Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Mittoni)

Graphics Card(s): Diamond HD 4870 XOC (Supplied by Diamond)

Memory: 2 X 2GB Chaintech Apogee DDR-2 1150MHz (Supplied by Chaintech)

Hard Disk(s): Seagate 250GB 7200RPM SATA-2 7200.10 (Supplied by Seagate)

Operating System:Windows Vista SP1

Drivers: Catalyst 8.8

What we're going to do today is see how the E8600 goes at stock against the ABS loaded 4GHz setup. We'll test a number benchmarks to see just how handy this easy 667MHz overclock is.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/

Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

Under Vantage we can see a small gain that equates to about 5%. Considering we've got about a 20% jump in CPU performance, it's not really all that impressive.