Science Mark 2.0 is an attempt to put the truth behind benchmarking. In an attempt to model real world demands and performance, SM2 is a suite of high-performance benchmarks that realistically stress system performance without architectural bias.  Science Mark 2.0 is comprised of 7 benchmarks, each of which measures a different aspect of real world system performance.

Pov-Ray is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports. We used Pov-Ray 3.7beta15 for all tests, since it supports Dual Core CPUs. We used the built-in benchmark as suggested from the developers.

The Intel XE6800 was the fastest in these tests and in the POV Ray benchmark, it is more than double the performance of the D930.

- Nero Digital

One of the major advantages in having a Core2Duo processor can be witnessed in video encoding. Nero Digital is one of the better known Digital formats, offering both an ASP and AVC encoder.

For our tests, we used the latest version of Nero Recode, v2.3.1.8, as packaged in Nero Reloaded v7.5.0.1. As a source, we used a typical VOB file of 5mins duration. We encoded with each processor, in two modes (ASP, AVC) with exactly the same preferences (Same bitrate and Dual pass). The encoding time displayed below, is what Nero Recode reported. Obviously, the lower the time taken, the better. All results are displayed in seconds.

The Intel XE6800 does a fantastic job and encodes a 5min Mpeg4 AVC file in 491secs. That is about a fifth less the time taken by the E6600 and half the time of the Intel D930.