Intel Core i7-3960X
ASRock X79 Extreme9
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
4x
2GB GeIL DDR3-1600
ASUS VG278 Screen
OCZ Fatal1ty 1000W PSU
D-Link Wireless N Dual Band USB stick
Intel RTS 2011 Liquid Cooler
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Keyboard
Roccat Kone[+] Mouse
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit w/SP1
Forceware 301.24
Crystal DiskMark
ATTO Benchmark
Skyrim/Steam
PCMark 2011
The test system was built from scratch, a format of the hard drives was performed (NTFS) and then Windows 7 was installed. Following the completion of the installation, the chipset and video drivers were installed. All windows updates were then installed as were the latest builds of the benchmarking tools. Finally, where appropriate, the hard drives were de-fragmented. For each test, the video drivers were set to default quality/optimizations (unless otherwise stated) and each drive was Sanitary/secure Erased between tests.
Good Benchmarking Practice
Where possible, each benchmark was performed three times and the median result for each resolution/setting is shown in the tables that will follow. All applications had their latest patches applied and all hardware features the latest BIOS/Firmware.
