Overclocking Results:

stock max. oc processor speed: 3.2 ghz 4.4 ghz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

After the test system based on a Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H motherboard, 2GB of Corsair XMS2-8500 DDR-2 memory, a Western Digital Raptor WD740 hard drive, and a set of MSI NX7800GTX videocards (in SLI) was installed with Microsoft Windows XP, we set about overclocking the Intel Pentium D940 processor to the hilt!

We have high hopes for the little LGA775 chip because it is built on the 65nm manufacturing process and does not suffer from heat problems like the Prescott/Smithfield 90nm cores. We changed the memory divider from 1:1 to 2:3 in order to make the Corsair XMS-8500 DDR-2 memory run at DDR2-533 speeds. With this setting the memory will not max out before the processor does, and that allows us to find the true upper limits of CPU overclockability.

Starting at 200 MHz, the front side bus was increased in 4-5 MHz intervals, if you're a new overclocker you may want to take smaller increases in speed. The Intel Pentium D 940 responded positively to these changes and rapidly overclocked to a nice round 3.8 GHz (from 3.2GHz) before the CPU voltage needed to be increased to 1.4V. The Pentium D 940 hiccupped a bit when it passed by the 4 GHz mark, but this was resolved by increasing the CPU voltage by 0.05V to 1.45V.

After a few more tries the socket 775 Intel Pentium D 940 processor eventually settled on a maximum overclocked speed of 4.4 GHz. That is certainly a very healthy overclock up from 3.2 GHz!

Prelude to Benchmarks - Test System Configuration

Over the following page we'll be running the socket 775 Intel Pentium D 940 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 these latest, dual core 64-bit capable processors.

The specific details of how the Intel Pentium D 940 processor test systems were configured for benchmarking - including the hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions - are indicated below. In the third and fourth columns are the general specs for the AMD and Intel reference platforms that the dual core Pentium D 940 processor is being compared against.

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 Configurations

test system #1 test system #2 amd reference systems intel reference system processor: intel pentium d 940 intel Pentium D 840 AMD Athlon64 FX-60 AMD Athlon64 4000+ AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ AMD Athlon64 FX-62 Socket: Socket 775 Socket 939 Socket AM2 Clock Speed: 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz 16 x 275 MHz = 4.4 GHz 16 x 200 MHz = 3.2 GHz 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 12 x 200 MHz = 2.4 GHz 13 x 200 MHz = 2.6 GHz 14 x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz Chipset: Intel 975X nForce4 SLI nForce 590 SLI Motherboards: Foxconn 975X7AA-8EKRS2H Asus A8N-SLI Premium Asus M2N32SLI-DLX Videocard: 2x MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E in SLI Memory: 2x 1024MB Corsair XMS2-8500 DDR-2 2x 512MB OCZ Gold GX PC3500 DDR 2x 1024MB Corsair XMS2-8500 DDR-2 Memory Latency: 5-5-5-15 2-2-2-5 4-4-4-12 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI Heatsink: Thermaltake Jungle 512 Athlon64 4000+ Reference Heatsink Athlon64 FX-62 Reference Heatsink Software Setup: Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition Intel INF 7.2.2 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition nVIDIA Forceware NF4 6.70 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Microsoft WindowsXP SP2 Microsoft WindowsXP x64 Edition nVIDIA Forceware NF4 9.34 nVIDIA Forceware 91.27 Benchmarks: 32-Bit Benchmarks: SYSmark 2004 Business Winstone 2004 Content Creation 2004 SiSoft Sandra 2005 Maya Render Test Super Pi 1.1 PCMark05 3DMark05 3DMark06 Doom 3 Quake 4 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