High Performance Gaming on a Budget: Athlon II vs. Phenom II vs. Q9550S
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Half-Life 2 is still a popular game and it is the oldest game we review for this series. Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is an additional level for this 2004 game. Lost Coast was released October, 2005 as a free download to all purchasers of Half-Life 2. Lost Coast was developed as a playable tech demo that was evidently intended to showcase the newly-added high definition range (HDR) lighting features of the Source Engine. A flyby of this level is played during the HL2 video stress test and it is very repeatable. All in-game settings are maxed out, including 4xAA/16xAF. First we test at 1920×1200 with our HD 4870-X2:
Now with the GTX 280 at 1920×1200:
Now at 1650×1080 resolution with the HD 4870-X2:
Finally at 1680×1050 with the GTX 280:
Although all of our configurations breeze through this benchmark, clockspeed makes the biggest difference in the framerates we experience. Perhaps the Source engine slightly favors Penryn over Phenom II and the Athlon II architecture is the slowest at similar clocks.
This review needs to be updated regarding ET:QW.
The results of the Phenom II’s frame rates were evidently overstated. We cannot go back in time to find out exactly why; however, when we set up the older drivers on a new install, the results are very
similar to what we are posting in our latest review:
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=13034&page=12
My apologies for my error. Normally they would be caught with the very next driver testing.
Mark Poppin
November 22, 2009
It should be Athlon II X3 vs Phenom II X2, since they close in value
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