Core i7 vs. Penryn vs. Phenom II with HD 4870-X2 & TriFire
World in Conflict
World In Conflict is set in an alternate history Earth where the Cold War did not end and Russia invaded the USA in 1989 and the remaining Americans decided to strike back. World in Conflict (WiC) is a real-time tactical/strategy video game developed by Massive Entertainment. Although it is generally considered a real-time strategy (RTS) game, World in Conflict includes gameplay typical of real-time tactical (RTT) games. WiC is filled with real vehicles from both the Russian and the American military. There are also tactical aids, including calling in massive bombing raids, access to chemical warfare, nuclear weapons, and far more.
Here is yet another amazing and very customizable and detailed DX10 benchmark that is available in-game or as a stand-alone. The particle effects and explosions in World in Conflict are truly spectacular! Every setting is fully maxed out. First we see the results at 1920×1200 resolution:
We see real differences with two cores versus three cores versus four cores, especially in the minimums. Intel quad-core CPUs also have the edge over the Phenom X4. And now at 1680×1050:
This time the HD 4870-X2 is really handicapped by two factors with our Phenom II X2/X3. First, their stock clockspeeds are barely enough to keep World in Conflict‘s minimum frame rates in the teens; an overclock is required to do better. Secondly, it appears that the Core i7 and the Q9550S “extra” core(s) makes a definite progressive difference over dual- and tri-core. In now testing AMD’s quad- versus tri- and dual-core in part two of this review, we get a better idea of how much difference the number of cores make to this game’s performance. We also see great scaling with CPU speed and faster graphics and this time our Core i7 pulls ahead of Penryn and Phenom II.
You would need a Phenom II X4 overclocked as high as it can go to have a playable experience; the dual- an tri-cores fall short – clock speed matters and evidently more than a dual- or tri-core CPU is needed for the minimums of World in Conflict.
We see a “win” for Core i7 although Penryn’s Q9550S comes close with our 4870-X2 and Phenom II X4 is still playable at 3.9 GHz. For this game you definitely want the fastest quad you can get your hands on.
Nice thorough testing. I think you should consider adding some GTA4 benchmarks to either this or future testing.
Thank-you. Perhaps in future I will add GTA4.
I have switched from Vista 64 to Win 7 64 and I am definitely adding a few new game benchmarks to my benchmarking suite after I am done with my CES articles. The only one that is certain AtM is L4D to replace Lost Coast.
Oh yeh for your charts you also have the 720 listed for all the AMD processors, when I’m sure you meant to say the 550 and 955. I mean I was able to figure out which is which by the X2, X3, and X4, but others might not.
You’re right and thank-you for pointing it out. It is somewhat funny that we all missed it, if quite embarrassing to me.
As soon as I catch up with my other articles on CES and GF-100 Fermi, I will redo those charts. I had a lot of trouble with the site and HTML errors and after they were fixed, this article got really hurried up for publication so as to be published before I left for CES.
The Phenom II CPUs are always in the same order (as determined by X2, X3, and X4):
550-X2
720-X3
955-X4