Over the following page we'll be running the AMD Athlon64 FX-60 processor though PCSTATS standard set of gaming, productivity, and 64-bit processor benchmarks. There are a wide variety of gaming and synthetic benchmarks here to illustrate what kind of performance boost users can expect from this latest, dual core 64-bit capable K8 processor.

The specific details of how the AMD Athlon64 FX-60 processor test system was configured for benchmarking - including the hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions - are indicated below. In the second and third columns are the general specs for the AMD and Intel reference platforms that the dual core Athlon64 FX-60 processor is being compared with. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next several pages.

PCSTATS Test System Configuations

test system reference system reference system processor: amd athlon64 fx-60 amd Athlon64 4800+ Intel Pentium D 840 Clock Speed: 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 14 x 206 MHz = 2.88 GHz 12 x 200 MHz = 2.4 GHz 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz Motherboards: Asus A8N-SLI Premium (NF4 SLI) Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal (NF4 SLI) Videocard: 2x MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E in SLI Memory: 2x 512MB OCZ Gold GX PC3500 DDR 2x 512MB Corsair CMX2512-8000UL DDR2 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Akasa PowerPlus AK-P550FF Heatsink: Athlon64 4000+ Reference Heatsink Thermaltake Jungle 512 Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition nVIDIA Forceware NF4 6.70 nVIDIA Forceware 81.95 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition Intel INF 7.2.1.1003 nVIDIA Forceware 81.95 Benchmarks: 32 Bit Benchmarks: SYSmark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2005 Maya Render Test Super Pi 1.1 PCMark04 PCMark05 3DMark03 3DMark05 Doom 3 Quake 4 Halo FarCry FEAR 64 Bit Benchmarks: PCMark04 PCMark05 Cinebench 2003 ScienceMark 2.0 Mini-GZIP DiVX Encoding Dual Core 3D Tests: Prime95 + 3DMark05 Prime95 + Doom 3 Prime95 + FEAR 32 Bit Benchmarks: SYSmark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2005 Maya Render Test Super Pi 1.1 PCMark04 PCMark05 64 Bit Benchmarks: PCMark04 PCMark05 Cinebench 2003 ScienceMark 2.0 32 Bit Benchmarks: SYSmark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2005 Maya Render Test Super Pi 1.1 PCMark04 PCMark05 3DMark03 3DMark05 Doom 3 Quake 4 Halo FarCry FEAR 64 Bit Benchmarks: PCMark04 PCMark05 Cinebench 2003 ScienceMark 2.0 Mini-GZIP DiVX Encoding Dual Core 3D Tests: Prime95 + 3DMark05 Prime95 + Doom 3 Prime95 + FEAR

The AMD Athlon64 FX-60 CPU is both 32-bit & 64-bit compatible. To test the FX-60 along with the other reference processors in a 64-bit environment, the test platform was loaded with Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition. As WinXP x64 Edition is capable of running both legacy 32-bit software as well as 64-bit programs, both sets of software and benchmarks were run.

If you'd like to try and reproduce our results, make sure you first download the 64-bit versions of the drivers you'll need for your motherboard, HDD controllers, videocard, sound card, ethernet, etc. For information on installing WindowsXP x64 Edition, please refer to this dual 32-bit/64-bit OS installation guide .

In the 64-bit benchmark section, readers should observe that the 'WinXP 32/32,' 'WinXP 32/64' and 'WinXP 64/64' abbreviations refer to the following system configurations. The 'WinXP 32/32' note refers to 32-bit software operating in the standard WindowsXP Professional (32-bit) environment. The 'WinXP 32/64' note represents 32-bit software operating in the Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition (64-bit) environment. Lastly, the 'WinXP 64/64' note means that a true 64-bit software application is running in the WindowsXP x64 Edition (64-bit) environment.

We limited the scope of our overclocking tests the standard (32-bit) WindowsXP environment. There is additional discussion and several examples of overclocking under WindowsXP x64 Edition in this PCSTATS article. The AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ processor was unavailable for all benchmarks.

First up in the benchmark set is the 32-bit office productivity oriented Bapco Sysmark 2004...