Core i7 vs. Phenom II X2 vs. X4 scaling performance analysis
CRYSIS
Next we move on to Crysis, a science fiction first person shooter by Crytek. It remains one of the most demanding games for any PC and it is also still one of the most beautiful games released to date. Crysis is based in a fictional near-future where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried on an island near the coast of Korea. The single-player campaign has you assume the role of USA Delta Force, ‘Nomad’ who is armed with futuristic weapons and equipment. Crysis uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering.
A standalone but related game, Crysis Warhead was released last year. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power Crysis and Warhead and it is an extended version of the CryEngine that also powers FarCry. As well as supporting Shader Model 2.0, 3.0, and DirectX10’s 4.0, CryEngine2 is also multi-threaded to take advantage of dual core SMP-aware systems and Crytek has developed their own proprietary physics system, called CryPhysics. However, it is noted that actually playing this game is a bit slower than the demo implies.
GPU Demo, Island
All of our settings are set to the in-game maximum’s “very high” including 4xAA even for 2560×1600 and we force 16xAF in the control panels. Here is Crysis’ Island Demo benchmark, first at 2560×1600 resolution:
Here we see even HD 5870 CrossFire struggle at our highest settings and with 4xAA enabled. Neither the GTX 480 nor the single HD 5870 suffer the slideshow minimums of CrossFired HD 5870 which leads to us to believe that it is an issue with CrossFire. A single HD 5870 struggles and a second one in CrossFire does not remedy it; actually the microstutter and stutter becomes even worse. To properly take advantage of your second card, the first card has to be able to play the game without choking; in that case, adding a second card will add to the gaming experience. When we update our testing with GTX 480 or GTX 580 SLI in a future article, we will examine multi-GPU and Crysis again.
Both of the single video cards show scaling with clock speed although the Phenom IIs take a higher performance hit in the minimums as they are clocked down from 3.6 GHz. Next we test at 1920×1200.
This time we see CrossFired HD 5870s again stumble compared to the single card with the Phenom II X2 although the averages do improve; Core i7 920 at 3.8 GHz and CrossFired HD 5870s can actually play Crysis with our extreme settings. No single video card can yet do this although the HD 5870 and GTX 480 scale with both CPU clock speed and the Phenom II X4 is ever so slightly faster across the board than the X2. HD 5870 CrossFire is faster on Core i7 920 although it is a toss up between the Intel Platform and the AMD platform with the single GPU video cards.
Finally at 1680×1050 resolution:
Here we see HD 5870 CrossFire again have the fastest framerates when paired with overclocked Core i7 920. The GTS 480 and HD 5870 also are faster with Core i7-920 at all clockspeeds with frame rates increasing marginally with clockspeed. However, we do not see the Phenom II X4 run much more quickly than the X2, so we would have to say that Crysis does not take advantage of more than two cores. Overclocking you CPU will also help you especially with your minimums.
Flat-out amazing!!! I’ve never seen anything so epic like this. So, there was not any microstuttering in any of the above games, where the “measured” 40 fps appeared to look more like “perceived” 25 fps? I guess microstuttering is not noticeable if the measured fps is above 70-80, since half of this (45 fps) would still appear to be relatively smooth. Anything below 30 fps becomes really noticeable, so were there ever 40-50 fps instances with 2x 5870 CF that felt like 25fps or so? I’ll take your word for it, if you were actually watching 10,000 hours worth of benchmarking, ha (just kidding, don’t shoot my head off)!
Surprised there are not more comments. For a single video card it does look like a dual core is more than enough. Sure there are a few games that take advantage of four cores, but the fact remains they remain in the minority.
Bobert, I’ve been saying the same thing for months now.
Wow, very thorough and detailed article. It’s one thing to test CPU performance using a single video card, but it must take some brawn to do it for three different video configurations.
There’s so much data here to look at in so many ways. I suppose if you would have included an SLI setup we would then be able to determine how CPU speed affects SLI vs. Crossfire. If I’m looking at this data right, though, it seems Crossfire sees benefits from quad cores more than single video cards do.
Far Cry 2 seems to be a good example of this. Also Far Cry 2 shows interesting relationships between CPU and the GTX 480. The single HD 5870 doesn’t really react to CPU speed and cores the same way dual 5870s and the GTX 480 do. That’s pretty interesting.
So well done. If I only had one suggestion is that I would like to see GTA4 benched, mainly because I own it and good, thorough, and updated benchmarks of it are not easy to come by.:)
Concerning the Far Cry 2 numbers, despite being beaten with faster processors, the HD 5870 paired with the 2.6 dual core is actually outperforming the Crossfire and Nvidia setup. That’s what I find a bit interesting here.
AWESOME REVIEW.
This is EXACTLY what review websites ARE NOT putting out.
A non GPU-bottlenecked review showing how i7 really does have a significant gaming lead over Phenom II.
God you’d be surprised how many AMD fanboys still believe (and spread rumors) that Phenom II is plenty for 5870 crossfire. Psh. Plenty on today’s games maybe, but that is due to the PC gaming community being SNARED by the noob console community and their half a decade old setups.
Ok I’m ranting.
Two Thumbs!!
Raidur means it shows how Phenom II bottlenecks 5870 crossfire.
Everyone knows i7 is faster in games.
PS. I’m not Raidur.
PSS. I’m Raidur.
PSSS. Or am I?
Awesome review GJ.
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