“Quad Core vs Dual Core” Shootout: Intel’s Q9550s vs. E8600, Part Two

Next we move on to Vantage, Futuremark’s latest test. Of course, we feel the same way about Vantage as we do about 3DMark06 – it is really useful for tracking changes in a single system – especially driver changes. As it has become the new de facto standard for measuring PC video gaming performance, we will use it also. There are two mini-game tests: Jane Nash and Calico. Also there are two CPU tests but we are still focusing on the graphics performance.

Here is a scene from Vantage’s second mini-game shown at 1920×1200 resolution and with every setting fully maxed out.

Lets go right to the graphs and first check the Basic Tests with the default benchmark scores:

Again, this synthetic test matches the E8600’s highest performance with the Q9550S at default.  We also note that Vantage is a better test for graphics than 3DMark06 appears to be. So, let’s look at Vantage’s mini-game frame rates:

Let’s move on to real games and real world situations and see what advantage – if any – quad core has over dual. Still, nothing really even in Vantage that you would notice actually playing these benchmarks as if they were games and nobody will play this “title”. Enough of the synthetics, as we move on to PC games!