SiSoft Sandra 2009 - Processor	Source: Sandra

Sandra is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are again, purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Higher results are best.

SiSoft Sandra 2009 v15.72 - Processor Processor Arithmetic Dhrystone ALU: (GIPS) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 68.25 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 24.86 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 23.56 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 43.7 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 28.64 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 28.7 Processor Arithmetic Whetstone iSSE3: (Gflops) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 60.22 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 23.41 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 22.17 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 42.17 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 27.64 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 27.9 Processor Multi-Media Int x8 iSSE3: (Mpixels/s) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 119.35 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 57.08 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 54.17 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 125.63 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 81.85 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 81.92 Processor Multi-Media Float x4 iSSE2: (Mpixels/s) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 95.4 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 32.83 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 31.22 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 55 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 36.04 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 36.08 Processor Multi-Media Float x2 iSSE2: (Mpixels/s) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 49.63 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 16.63 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 15.76 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 29.99 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 19.68 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 19.68

All of SiSoft's processor benchmarks make good use of parallel processing, so the Core 2 Duo processors don't stand much of a chance here against the monster Core i7 920's performance.

SiSoft Sandra 2009 - Memory	Source: Sandra

Sandra is designed to test the theoretical power of a complete system and individual components. The numbers taken though are again, purely theoretical and may not represent real world performance. Higher bandwidth and lower latencies are best.

SiSoft Sandra 2009 v15.72 - Memory Multicore Efficiency Bandwidth: (GB/s) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 30.51 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 9.57 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 9.11 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 4.75 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 3.67 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 3.72 Multicore Efficiency Latency: (ns) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 17 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 42 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 44 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 89 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 83 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 80 Memory Bandwidth Int iSSE2: (GB/s) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 18.86 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 6.77 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 7.26 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 12.18 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 11.38 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 11.45 Memory Bandwidth Float iSSE2: (GB/s) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 18.86 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 6.65 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 7.27 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 12.17 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 11.41 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 11.42 Memory Latency (Random): (ns) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 81 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 86 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 77 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 83 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 82 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 84 Memory Latency (Linear): (ns) Ranking Intel Core i7 920 9 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 12 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 11 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 15 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR2) 14 AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition (DDR3) 15

The Core 2 Duo E8500's memory performance has a lot of bottlenecks it has to put up with, including slower DDR3 memory frequencies, dual-channel bandwidth instead of triple-channel, and having to rely on a northbridge memory controller instead of having a memory controller on-chip. All of this adds up to good overall memory performance, but nowhere near that of Intel's new Core i7 processors.