7. Two Sets Of Builds, Two Sets Of Hardware

While we kept the peripherals and ancillary equipment the same across both sets of builds - one for Intel Core 2 Duo processors, the other for AM2 X2 dual core processors - we had to use different motherboards, CPUs and coolers for each manufacturer's products. On the Intel side, we tested with T7200 (2.0 GHz) and T7600 (2.33 GHz) CPUs; on the AMD side, we tested with 4800+ (2.5 GHz) and 6000+ (3.0 GHz) CPUs.

Interestingly, this put us in the position of testing chips from AMD that ran faster clocks and consumed more power than Intel chips of comparable power and capability for the first time. On the AMD side, however, total power consumption idled at around 122.4 W with peaks seldom exceeding 130 W, where the Intel idled at around 122.5 W with peaks generally under 128 W, despite posted peak power consumption (TDP) of 125 W for the 6000+ and 34 W for the T7600. We have to wonder if using the same power supply throughout (the Zalman ZM460 PSU) didn't account for such striking similarities, because we didn't measure power consumption for individual components inside each test build, only at the wall socket. Because the builds with low-power CPUs consumed more or less the same amount of wattage as their high-power counterparts, the power supply is the obvious common denominator.

Hardware Common To All Builds

The items in the following table were kept constant across all builds we benchmarked for this story.

Not including CPU, cooler and motherboard, total costs come to $2,217. By trimming back on memory and hard disk (slower, cheaper RAM and a smaller drive) you could trim $200 from this price. But by the time you add a motherboard, cooler and CPU, as we describe in the next two sections, even a minimal HDMI-equipped PC that handles HD-DVD and Blu-ray is likely to cost two grand or more.