[section_title title=”Test Setup”]

Testing Setup:

Motherboard: 
CPU: Intel Core i7-6950X @ 4.0/3.5 GHz core/cache
CPU Cooling: Corsair H100i V2
GPU: GALAX GTX 980 SOC @ 1228 (1329 boost)/1800 MHz
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 4x8GB C15
PSU: Corsair AX1200i 80+ Platinum
OS: Windows 10 Professional x64

Methodology:

All benchmarks are done on a fresh install of Windows 10 Professional 64-bit that is fully up-to-date with Windows Updates when the .ISO was created to ensure that the performance reflects a real-world scenario and not that of a tweaked benchmarking system. We do not update the operating system or our benchmarking software as it would skew our data further down the line, which could be a positive or negative change. Our .ISO was built by Microsoft on the 13th of February, 2016; and as such will not be updated due to the reasoning above.

2D Benchmarks:

AIDA64 – CPU Queen/CPU Photoworxx/CPU AES & Memory Read/Write/Copy/Latency
Cinebench 11.5 – CPU & OpenGL
Cinebench R15 – CPU & OpenGL
Geekbench 3 – Single & Multicore
SiSandra – CPU Arithmetic/CPU Multi-Core Efficiency/Cache & Memory Bandwidth

3D Benchmarks:

3DMark 11 – Performance & Extreme
3DMark Fire Strike – Normal & Extreme

Gaming Benchmarks:

Company of Heroes 2 – Maximum Settings @ 1080P & 1440P
F1 2015 – Ultra Preset @ 1080P & 1440P
Total War: ROME II – Extreme Preset @ 1080P & 1440P