Core i3-2105 vs. Phenom II 970 X4 – the Importance of Hyper-Threading in Gaming
The Benchmark Suites – PC Mark and SANDRA
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista and 7 that offers one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts. A PCMark Vantage score is a rough measure of a computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks. We have used this bench for 3 three years and will soon be upgrading to PC Mark’s latest suite, PCMark 7.
The HDD Test suite in PCMark Vantage consists of the following 8 tests:
- HDD 1- Windows Defender
- HDD 2- Game HDD
- HDD 3- Importing pictures
- HDD 4- Windows Vista start-up
- HDD 5- Video editing
- HDD 6- Media Center
- HDD 7- Adding music to Windows Media Player
- HDD 8- Application loading
First we run the standard PCMark Vantage benchmark suite using our Core i3-2105 and GTX 580 and note that it scores the lowest overall.
Next up is the Phenom II and it will score better because it has four cores.
The Phenom II X4 is faster with PCMark Vantage than with the Core i3 platform. You may look over the individual scores to see the strengths and weaknesses of each processor and platform.
And now on to SANDRA 2012, another comprehensive benching suite.
SANDRA 2012
SANDRA, short for the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant is an information and diagnostic utility. It provides a tremendous amount of information about every hardware and software component in your PC. It also provides various benchmarks including for measuring and reporting disk performance. SANDRA 2012 was just released last week, and it has a lot of new functionality for the new APUs and the FX processors.
Aggregate Arithmetic Performance (GOPS)
First up is the Core i3-2105 and we see the GOPS is made up of several scores followed by a very detailed analysis.
Here is the detailed summary chart of SANDRA 2012 Core i3-2105 vs. Phenom II 970-X4
Let’s head for synthetic game testing.
The scope of this article is excellent. Thank you for uncovering so much ground here!
I see that PhII is a far better value, especially for overclockers. It pretty much trumps the Core i3 in most multi-threaded applications, while dominating in 4 games and being equal in the rest.
A note about HD 3000 and gaming.. low settings are FUGLY, aren’t they? Really, really, really ugly, right? 😛
Thank-you!
Actually, some games look fairly good on low settings. Some games scale the visuals much better than others. Some DX10 games on minimum look way better than many DX7 and some DX8 games on maximum settings, for example.
Very nice article. I recently bought a 2105 for an htpc and my gaming computer has a PhII. The 2105 is a much better choice for htpc because at this price point, I’m saving $40 with built-in graphics. The chip also runs much cooler and the whole system is therefore far quieter, costs less in electricity, etc.
For gaming, PhII at this price is the way to go because I need a dedicated card anyway, and overclocking. Of course, a 2500k for $100 more is also a good option.
My only criticism of the article would be a breakdown of the 3dmark11 scores. Theres so much info in there, and scrolling between images is cumbersome. I particularly like that test’s “productivity” breakdown (windows startup, etc).
Thank-you. You conclusion agrees with mine almost exactly.
The easiest way to compare the PCMark Vantage details between the Phenom II and the Core i3, is to open each chart in a separate window in your web browser and place them side by side. They will then line up and are very easy to compare.
However, for next time, I will try to make a chart for the important comparisons like was done for Sandra 2012.
Just curious which one had the lowest low min fps?
Minimums varied by game.
In essence it looks like more and more games are supporting >2 cores. Finally. And the PhII architecture is basically adequate today but Intel’s superior IPC is rapidly pulling ahead (when a 2/4 core can match a true 4 core chip in games that utilize 4 cores…well, it’s not looking good for AMD).
Looking forward to seeing a comparison of 2600K HT/HT off to see if this scales beyond 4 cores.
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