nVidia GeForce 9800 GX2 Processor Scaling Analysis

[RobRich]

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The Core 2 Duo E8400 was used to measure the performance of the new Intel 45nm dual-core processors. This processor was tested at speeds between 2.0GHz and 4.2GHz, which will give us a clear picture of what frequency is required out of the Core 2 Duo processors to power a GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics card. Picking an Intel quad-core processor was a little trickier, the Q6600 looked to be an obvious pick, but we wanted a 45nm quad-core processor.

The clock multiplier of the Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and even the Q9550 processors was lower than we required for this test. Ideally matching the 9x clock multiplier of the E8400 processor was what we wanted to do and in order to do this the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 was required. The QX9650 was tested at frequencies ranging from 2.0GHz through to 3.6GHz, which again will give us a good idea of how the 45nm quad-core processors handle the GeForce 9800 GX2.

Finally AMD’s latest Phenom, the 9850 built around the new B3 stepping, has been included, though this particular processor will not be overclocked as we are still having a few stability issues. This means the Phenom X4 9850 will be tested at frequencies ranging between 2.0GHz and 2.5GHz using the GeForce 9800 GX2.

Source: Legion Hardware