Core i7 vs. Penryn vs. Phenom II with HD 4870-X2 & TriFire

This review concludes our “Performance Meets Value” series as we benchmark five CPU platforms with our HD 4870-X2 and HD 4870-X3 Tri-Fire. In part one of “Core i7 vs. Penryn vs. Phenom II” which we published here in November, we used our GTX 280 and the HD 4870-X2 to benchmark our new Intel’s Core i7 920 processor against the Phenom II 720 X3 and also against our Q9550S at speeds up to 4.0 GHz.

This time, besides testing with Q9550s, Core i7 920 and Phenom II 720 X3, we are expanding our review to include AMD’s 955 X4 and 550 X2. That means that we are now benchmarking with five CPUs at three clockspeeds each. Our November review used Catalyst 9-9 with our HD 4870-X2, so now we are benchmarking with Catalyst 9-10 so that you can make some comparisons between the two Catalyst driver releases. In over a month of solid benchmarking – literally thousands of individual benchmark runs which we have gathered, analyzed and charted for you – we now have some solid evidence which finally answers the question as to what kind of CPU is needed for really fast graphics.

We are testing all of our CPU platforms with our HD 4870-X2 and HD 4870-X3 TriFire as the fastest graphics available to us. Our HD 4870-X2’s performance is very representative of the new HD 5870’s performance as well as the performance of HD 4870 CrossFire. By testing with HD 4870-X3 Tri-Fire, we can be certain that our performance levels will at least match this coming generation’s fastest single Fermi GPU (GF-100) as well as any AMD 5870 refreshes this year so as to be useful to our readers in deciding which CPU to pair with a fast graphics card. We always test at 1680×1050 and 1920×1200 resolutions and always with maxed out DX10 settings whenever possible and always with 4xAA/16xAF applied.

For our new testing in this review, we are now benching with Catalyst 9-10. This time, we will now use our brand-new highest performing Phenom II, 955 X4 in addition to 720 X3 and 550 X2 so as to test AMD quad-, tri- and dual-core CPUs. We will test them against our Q9550S and our new Core i7 920 that we purchased from NewEgg.com together with a Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard and 2×2 GB Kingston DDR3 PC18000. We added it to the 1×2 GB for tri-channel that we got from Kingston earlier this year which Karan tested. He found it to be extremely fast and stable in his review here. So now we have the highest performing and rather expensive Intel Core i7 system to set alongside their now midrange Penryn Q9550S and also to compare with the decidedly value AMD Phenom II X3. We will test performance at each CPU’s stock clock, 3.5 GHz for a clock-to-clock comparison, and at each CPU’s maximum overclock which turned out to be between 3.8 and 4.0 GHz. We are confident that our overclocked CPUs will easily match the performance in gaming of anything that AMD or Intel will release this year.

When we say “performance meets value”, we mean that the Core i7 X58 motherboard is almost double the price of its Phenom II counterpart, the entry-level i7 920 CPU itself is almost $100 more expensive than AMD’s flagship quad processor and the tri-channel DDR3 RAM is also more than double what one would pay for memory for the AMD DDR2 platform. We will also note that the AMD motherboard’s PCIe graphics bandwidth is limited to 8X + 8X which his half the PCIe bandwidth of the Intel motherboard. So we naturally ask, “is it worth it” even for really fast graphics?

Please continue on to the next page for the complete hardware and software setup of our three platforms – AMD’s Phenom II versus Intel’s Penryn versus Core i7. We shall see what happens when high performance finally meets value in PC gaming with fast graphics.

Test Configuration

• Intel Core i7 920 reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.5 and 3.8 GHz); Turbo (21X multiplier for 3.97 GHz of a single core) is on.

• Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 16x+16x).
• 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 18000 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC 16000 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
• ATi Radeon HD 4870-X2 (2GB, reference clocks 750/900) by VisionTek
• ATi Radeon HD 4870 (1GB, reference clocks 750/900) by ASUS
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive
• OCZ 850 watt power supply

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S (engineering sample reference 2.83 GHz and overclocked to 3.5 and 4.0 GHz; supplied by Intel)
• ASUS Rampage Formula (Intel X48 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 16x+16x).
• 4 GB OCZ DDR2 PC8500 RAM (2×2 GB, dual-channel at PC 8500 speeds)
• ATi Radeon HD 4870-X2 (2GB, reference clocks 750/900) by VisionTek
• ATi Radeon HD 4870 (1GB, reference clocks 750/900) by ASUS
• Onboard Supreme FX-II (ASUS Rampage Formula motherboard daughter-card)
• 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive
• OCZ 850 watt power supply

Test Configuration – AMD Hardware

• Phenom II 550 X2 at 3.1 GHz and overclocked to 3.5 and 3.9 GHz
• Phenom II 720 X3 at 2.8 GHz and overclocked to 3.5 and 3.9 GHz

• Phenom II 955 X4 at 3.2 GHz and overclocked to 3.5 and 3.9 GHz

• Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P (latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire 8x+8x).
• 4 GB OCZ Fatal1ty DDR2-PC8500 RAM (2×2 GB, dual-channel at PC 8500 speeds)
• ATi Radeon HD 4870-X2 (2GB, reference clocks 750/900) by VisionTek
• ATi Radeon HD 4870 (1 GB, reference clocks 750/900) by ASUS

• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 250 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives
• Silent Power 600 M, 600 watt power supply (supplied by Cooler Master)

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 9-10; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard”
• Windows Vista 64-bit SP1; very latest updates
• DirectX August 2009.
• All games are patched to their latest versions.

• vsync is off in the control panel and is never set in-game.
• 4xAA enabled in all games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3; all in-game settings at “maximum” or “ultra” with 16xAF always applied
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Vista 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths
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3DMark06

3DMark06 still remains the number one utility used for a system benchmark. We find that it is mostly useful for tracking changes within a single system. There are four “mini-games” that it uses for benchmarking graphics, as well as two CPU tests. The scores are weighed and added together to give an overall “score” and there is a further frame rate breakdown possible with these mini-games that we are charting for you.



Above is a scene from 3DMark06. These tests will still give your PC a real workout even though its default resolution is only 1280×1024. Here are the results of our 3DMark06 benchmark comparison using the benchmark at its default settings:



We can see that adding a HD 4870 to the HD4870-X2 in CrossFire-X3 does not make a lot of difference over just using the X2. And, if the synthetics are anything to go by, Core i7 “wins” by a significant margin. Now let’s check the mini-games which are used to benchmark graphics performance:



Here we can see that HD 4870 Tri-Fire does not scale too well over CrossFire. In fact, in quite a few of the individual runs, the Tri-Fire configuration is slower. This is often a function of drivers and you will see successive versions of Catalyst address them with varying success as performance trades back and forth. However, practically, as though we were ‘playing’ the 3DMark06 mini-games, we note the frame rate rankings and note that all five of our CPUs scale with their core clock increase. If they were games, they would all be quite playable and they would all give satisfactory performance. So, let’s move on to our second synthetic benchmark, Vantage.

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Vantage

Vantage is Futuremark’s latest test. It is really useful for tracking changes in a single system – especially driver changes. There are two mini-game tests, Jane Nash and Calico and also two CPU tests, but we are still focusing on the graphics performance.

Here is a scene from Vantage’s second mini-game.



Let’s go right to the graphs and first check the basic tests with the default benchmark scores:



Again we note a nice advantage for Core i7 but they are really just meaningless numbers. We see the CPUs line up perfectly as they scale according to clockspeed and amount of cores and refinements. So now let’s look at the mini-game framerates with our HD 4870-X2 and Tri-Fire configurations.



We note the frame rates with all five of our CPUs. Again they line up almost too predictably with core speed, number of cores and architectural refinements. Enough of the synthetics as we move on to PC games and to real world situations!

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Call of Juarez



Call of Juarez is one of the very earliest DX10 games. Techland’s Call of Juarez is loosely based on Spaghetti Westerns that became popular in the early 1970s. Call of Juarez features its Chrome Engine using Shader Model 4 with DirectX 10. Our benchmark isn’t built into Call of Juarez, but is an official stand-alone that is identical to the one that is built-into the game. It runs a simple flyby of a level that is created to showcase its DX10 effects. It offers good repeatability and it is a good stress test for DX10 features in graphics cards, although it is not quite the same as actual gameplay because the game logic and AI are stripped out of this demo.

Performing Call of Juarez benchmark is easy. You are presented with a simple menu to choose resolution, anti-aliasing, and two choices of shadow quality options. We set the shadow quality on “high” and the shadow map resolution to the maximum, 2048×2048. At the end of the run, the demo presents you with the minimum, maximum, and average frame rate, along with the option to quit or run the benchmark again. We always ran the benchmark at least a second time and recorded that generally higher score.

Here are Call of Juarez DX10 benchmark results at 1920×1200:



Call of Juarez shows very little performance differences between the two, three or four CPU cores or their core speed at 1920×1200 resolution with either the HD 4870-X2 or with Tri-Fire. Clearly framerates are mostly dependent on the graphics, not the CPU. Here you will have the similar results with the Phenom II at 3.1 GHz as the tri-core at 2.8 GHz or with the 920 i7 at 3.8 GHz.

Now on to 1650×1080 resolution:



Some of the CPUs at their stock speed are a little weaker than the faster CPUs in the game’s minimums and averages. However, there is really no practical difference in the game playing experience once the CPU is overclocked.

It really takes our multi-GPU video card to play Call of Juarez fully maxed out. The HD 4870-X2’s frame rates are completely satisfactory at 1920×1200 with completely maxed-out details and with 4xAA/16xAF applied with any of our CPUs. Clearly this game is dependent on the graphics once you get a reasonably fast CPU to pair it with.

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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 maximum “very high” including 4xAA and we force 16xAF in the control panel. Here is Crysis’ Island Demo benchmark, first at 1920×1200 resolution with the HD 4870-X2, Tri-fire, and our five CPUs; but we will save our comments until after our charts are displayed:



And now at 1680×1050:



For the first time we see Tri-Fire making a noticeable difference over just using a single HD 4870-X2. We see the Core i7 begin to pull away from all of the other CPUs and especially it differentiates itself at 16×10. Conversely, we see Core i7 fall flat with the HD 4870-X2 against the other CPUs. We suspect hyper-threading for some of the variability we see with Core i7.

Generally, however, CPU clockspeed is king and the faster the CPU with any given graphics, the faster Crysis runs and much more noticeably so with faster graphics. Here we see minimums and averages vary considerably – sometimes making the difference between playable and unplayable, depending on CPU clockspeeds. In this case, overclocking your CPU makes sense if you want playable framerates without making too many visual sacrifices by lowering settings.

Crysis is quite playable with our HD 4870-X2 and an even better experience with Tri-Fire with all of our overclocked CPUs; even with 4xAA/16xAF, if you are willing to tweak some of your graphics settings a bit downward. We see a big difference from our last article where a single GPU, our GTX 280, did not make much difference at any CPU speed or at either resolution. So it appears that faster multi-GPU graphics do require a faster CPU with Crysis.

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S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky



Prologue: S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky became a brand new DX10 benchmark for us when GSC Game World released a prequel story expansion to the original Shadows of Chernobyl, last year. Both games have non-linear storylines which feature role-playing game elements. In both games, the player assumes the identity of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; an illegal artifact scavenger in “The Zone” which encompasses about 30 square kilometers. It is the location of an alternate reality story surrounding the Chernobyl Power Plant after another (fictitious) explosion.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky features “a living breathing world” with highly developed NPC creature AI. It uses the X-ray Engine – a DirectX8.1/9/DX10/10.1 Shader model 3.0 & 4.0 graphics engine featuring HDR, parallax and normal mapping, soft shadows, motion blur, weather effects and day-to-night cycles. As with other engines using deferred shading, the original DX9c X-ray Engine does not support anti-aliasing with dynamic lighting enabled, although the DX10 version does.

We are using the stand-alone “official” benchmark by Clear Sky’s creators. Clear Sky is top-notch and worthy to be S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s successor with even more awesome DX10 effects which help to create and enhance their game’s already incredible atmosphere. Unfortunately, DX10 comes with steep hardware requirements and this new game really needs multi-GPU to run at its maximum settings. We picked the most stressful test out of the four, “Sun shafts”. It brings the heaviest penalty due to its extreme use of shaders to create DX10/DX10.1 effects. We ran this benchmark fully maxed out in DX10.0 with “ultra” settings plus 4xAA, but did not apply edge-detect MSAA which chokes performance even further.

We present S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Clear Sky DX10 benchmark “Sun shafts” at 1920×1200:

Now at 1680×1050:



We do not see much variance in frame rates anywhere. Only a few frames per second separate the fastest CPU from the slowest one although you might want to be over 3.0 GHz. The biggest differences are generally at the maximum which makes zero difference to the playing experience. Practically there is no real difference gained with any CPU; the video card will make the most difference with Clear Sky’s performance. We also see Tri-Fire also having issues with the minimums in some cases.

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PT Boats: Knights of the Sea



PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is a stand-alone DX10 benchmark utility released by Akella last year. It is actually a tech demo of their upcoming simulation-action game. This DX10 benchmark test runs reliably and apparently provides very accurate and repeatable results.

We set the only settings options available to us as follows:

DirectX Version: DirectX 10

Resolution: 1920×1600 and 1680×1050 at 60 Hz

Image Quality: High

Anti aliasing: 4x

Here are the results of the PT Boats DX10 benchmark, first at 1920×1200:



Now at 1680×1050 resolution:



We note that with our HD 4870-X2, we see the stock Phenom II lagging a bit behind the Q9550S and Core i7 – until it is overclocked. Strangely, our Core i7 seems to have the worst minimums. It could be driver issues or perhaps more likely to do with i7’s hyper-threading. We feel that most users with i7 will not do any adjustments in their BIOS just to play games, so we left hyper-threading on for all of our current testing. We have begin to test with it on versus off and have noted that hyper-threading is an issue with some games. With our single GPU, GTX 280 in the last review, there was no practical difference running PT Boats on any CPU. With this one, we see Tri-Fire taking advantage of faster CPUs to produce higher averages and maximums.

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FarCry 2



Far Cry 2 uses the name of the original Far Cry but it is not connected to the first game as it brings you a new setting and a new story. Ubisoft created it based on their Dunia Engine. The game setting takes place in an unnamed African country, during an uprising between two rival warring factions. Your mission is to kill “The Jackal”; the Nietzsche-quoting mercenary that arms both sides of the conflict that you are dropped into.

The Far Cry 2 game world is loaded in the background and on the fly to create a completely seamless open world. The Dunia game engine provides good visuals that scale well. The Far Cry 2 design team actually went to Africa to give added realism to this game. One thing to especially note is Far Cry 2’s very realistic fire propagation by their engine that is a far cry from the scripted fire and explosions that we are used to seeing.

First we test Far Cry 2 benchmark at 1920×1200 – both of the resolutions we tested at are with AI enabled:



Last time Core i7 was slower when paired with our GTX 280 and a bit faster with the HD 4870-X2 but not enough to make any practical difference. This time Tri-Fire takes advantage of all four cores and the faster clock speed as well as perhaps i7’s hyper-threading except for a few stumbles, here and there at lower clockspeeds. Now let’s check out 1680X1050:



We see the same thing with 1920×1200 as we do with 1680×1050. Both of our graphics configurations can play Far Cry 2 very satisfactorily at the resolutions chosen for them with any CPU including the Phenom II at its stock clock at even the minimum frame rate, although it has a nice increase when it is overclocked. Contrasted with last month’s tests, we see Core i7 920 taking advantage of our fastest graphics.

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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.

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X3: Terran Conflict



X3:Terran Conflict (X3:TC) is another beautiful stand-alone benchmark that runs multiple tests and will really strain a lot of video cards. X3:TC is a space trading and combat simulator from Egosoft and is the most recent of their X-series of computer games. X3:TC is a standalone expansion of X3: Reunion, based in the same universe and on the same engine. It complements the story of previous games in the X-Universe and especially continues the events after the end of X3: Reunion.

Compared to Reunion, Terran Conflict features a larger universe, more ships, and of course, new missions. The X-Universe is huge. The Terran faction was added with their own set of technology including powerful ships and stations. Many new weapons systems were developed for the expansion and it has generally received good reviews. It has a rather steep learning curve.

First we note the results at 1920×1200:



Now at 1680×1050:



There is no reason to be dissatisfied with any of the configurations that we tested, except at the minimums. Playing with the HD 4870-X2 or Tri-Fire, we prefer the fastest clock speed possible from any CPU although the Phenom II lags behind the Intel CPUs in the averages and maximums. Tri-Fire has no advantage over our HD 4870-X2 in this game; mostly disadvantages except in the maximums. Core i7 squeaks by, but not by much over Penryn or Phenom II. Here a stock-clocked dual core will suffice.

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Enemy Territory: Quake Wars



Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is an objective-driven, class-based first person shooter set in the Quake universe. It was developed by id Software and Splash Damage and published by Activision. Quake Wars pits the combined human armies of the Global Defense Force against the technologically superior Strogg, an alien race who has come to earth to use humans for spare parts and food. It allows you to play a part, probably best as an online multi-player experience, in the battles waged around the world in mankind’s desperate war to survive.

Quake Wars is an OpenGL game based on id’s Doom3 game engine with the addition of their MegaTexture technology. It also supports some of the latest 3D effects seen in today’s games, including soft particles, although it is somewhat dated and less demanding on video cards than many DX10 games. id’s MegaTexture technology is designed to provide very large maps without having to reuse the same textures over and over again. For our benchmark we chose the flyby, Salvage Demo. It is one of the most graphically demanding of all the flybys and it is very repeatable and reliable in its results. It is fairly close to what you will experience in-game. All of our settings are set to ‘maximum’ and we also apply 4xAA/16xAF in game.

First we test at 1920×1200 resolution:



Now at 1680×1050:



All of these video cards and CPU combinations at any clockspeed have no trouble handling this game fully maxed out. Phenom II at all of its tested clocks, trades blows with Penryn and Core i7. We do see faster frame rates with our tri-core over our dual Phenom II but not with four cores, suggesting that this game takes a small advantage over dual core with faster graphics. Only the Phenom II 550 X2 lags a bit behind the rest of our CPUs. In some cases, Tri-Fire paired with the slower CPU is slower than the HD 4870-X2; until it is overclocked, then Tri-Fire is faster.

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F.E.A.R.



F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Armed Assault – is a DX9c game by Monolith Productions that was originally released in October 2005 by Vivendi Universal Production. Later, there were two expansions with the latest, Perseus Mandate, released in 2007. Although the game engine is aging, it still has some of the most spectacular effects of any game. F.E.A.R. showcases a powerful particle system, complete with sparks and smoke for collisions as well as featuring bullet marks and other effects including “soft shadows”. This is highlighted by the built-in performance test, although it was never updated. This performance test will tell you how F.E.A.R. will run, but both of its expansions are progressively more demanding on your PC graphics and will run slower than the demo. We always run at least two sets of tests with all in-game features at ‘maximum’. F.E.A.R. uses the Jupiter Extended Technology engine from Touchdown Entertainment.

We test with the most demanding settings. Fully maxed details with 4xAA/16xAF; soft shadows ‘off’, as they do not play well with AA. Let’s start first at 1920×1200:



Now at 1680×1050:



The HD 4870-X2 and Tri-Fire still appear to be having driver issues and some hiccups with its minimums as it did with the earlier Catalyst drivers. Even so, there is not much difference between the fastest and the slowest CPU with either card as the maximums are already ridiculously high; it doesn’t matter if Core i7 has maximums in the 600s while Phenom II is in the 400 frames per second rate range. There is really no practical difference that you will see playing F.E.A.R. with any CPU combination that we tested.

We see tight grouping of the Phenoms according to clockspeed. There is no difference between a dual- tri- or a quad-core. This game is faster on Intel CPUs, but not so that you would really notice in playing it.

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Lost Planet

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a Capcom port of an Xbox 360 game. It takes place on the icy planet of E.D.N. III which is filled with monsters, pirates, big guns, and huge bosses. This frozen world highlights high dynamic range lighting (HDR) as the snow-white environment reflects blinding sunlight as DX10 particle systems toss snow and ice all around. The game looks great in both DirectX 9 and 10 and there isn’t really much of a difference between the two versions except perhaps shadows. Unfortunately, the DX10 version doesn’t look that much better when you’re actually playing the game and it still runs slower than the DX9 version.

We use the in-game performance test from the retail copy of Lost Planet and updated through Steam to the latest version for our runs. This run isn’t completely scripted as the creatures act a little differently each time you run it, requiring multiple runs. Lost Planet’s Snow and Cave demos are run continuously by the performance test and blend into each other.

Here are our benchmark results with the more demanding benchmark, Snow. All settings are fully maxed out in-game including 4xAA/16xAF. First at 1920×1200 resolution:



And now at 1680×1050:



Here we see that CPU clock speed is not important with Lost Planet with either of our video cards. There is no real difference with any combination of hardware that we used at either resolution. Again, we see some issues with Core i7 variability especially with Tri-Fire.

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Unreal Tournament 3



Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series. UT3 is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game by Epic Games. Unreal Tournament 3 provides a good balance between image quality and performance, rendering complex scenes well even on lower-end PCs. Of course, on high-end graphics cards you can really turn up the detail. UT3 is primarily an online multiplayer title offering several game modes and it also includes an offline single-player game with a campaign.

For our tests, we used the very latest game patch for Unreal Tournament 3, released after its ‘Titan’ pack. The game doesn’t have a built-in benchmarking tool, so we used FRAPS and did a fly-by of a chosen level. Here we note that performance numbers reported are a bit higher than compared to in-game. The map we use is called “Containment” and it is one of the most demanding of the fly-bys. Our tests were run at resolutions of 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050 with UT3’s in-game graphics options set to their maximum values.

One drawback of the way the UT3 engine is designed is that there is no support for anti-aliasing built inso we forced 4xAA in each vendor’s control panel. We record a demo in the game and a set number of frames are saved in a file for playback. When playing back the demo, the game engine then renders the frames as quickly as possible, which is why you will often see it playing it back more quickly than you would actually play the game.

Here is Containment Demo, first at 1920×1200 with our two video cards shown side-by-side:



Now at 1680×1050:



There is absolutely no problem playing this game fully maxed out with either of our graphics configurations and with any of our CPUs at our chosen resolutions. We do notice that both overclocking and the amount of cores do make a difference with the Unreal engine; there is good scaling from both overclocking and from moving from dual- to tri- to the quad-core CPUs. However, Tri-Fire has no advantage over playing with our HD 4870-X2.

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Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare



Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is a first person shooter running on a custom engine. It has nice graphics but the engine is somewhat dated compared to others and it runs well on modern PCs. It is the first CoD installment to take place in a modern setting instead of in World War II. It differs from the previous Call of Duty games by having a more film-like plot that uses intermixed story lines from two perspectives; that of a USMC sergeant and a British SAS sergeant. There is also a variety of short missions where players control other characters in flashback sequences to advance the story. Call of Duty 4’s move to modern warfare introduced a variety of modern conventional weapons and technologies including plastic explosives.

There are currently about 20 multiplayer maps in CoD4. It is very popular and there is a new expansion for it. CoD Modern Warfare 2 has also just been released and we will soon add it to our benchmark suite. For multiplayer, CoD4 includes five preset classes and introduces the Perks system. Perks are special abilities which allow users to further customize their character to suit their personal style. Our timedemo benchmark was created by ABT’s own Senior Editor and lead reviewer, BFG10K. It is very accurate and totally repeatable.

Here are the results at 1920×1200 resolution:



How about almost no variation between the three CPU’s performance? Let’s check out 1680×1050:



We see results similar to Unreal Tournament 3. A popular multiplayer game is very playable even on mid-range graphics cards from the last generation and it plays very smoothly with this generation’s video cards and stock clocked CPUs. This time the frame rates do not even appear to be tied to the CPU’s clockspeed – nor the number of cores with our HD 4870-X2; only slightly more with TriFire. We also note that TriFire does not scale well with this game. All of our tested configurations just breeze through this benchmark.

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Half-Life 2: Lost Coast



Half-Life 2 is still a popular game and it is the oldest game that 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.

As usual, we test first at 1920×1200:



Let’s check out 1680×1050:



Although all of our configurations breeze through this benchmark, clock speed makes the biggest difference in the frame rates that we experience with our two graphics configurations. Perhaps the Source engine slightly favors Penryn over Phenom II and it may even take some advantage of Core i7’s hyper-threading or other architectural enhancements. Tri-Fire is not faster than our HD 4870-X2.

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ARMA 2



ARMA 2 is our newest benchmark and it is taken from the third installment in their series of realistic modern military simulation games from Bohemia Interactive. It features a player-driven story with more than 70 weapons and over 100 different vehicles. With a game world of 225 square km that is taken from actual surveillance photos, you can expect truly massive online battles with five distinct armed groups to choose from. ARMA2 can be considered a tactical shooter where the player commands a squad of AI – or many squads – with elements of real-time tactics.

ARMA 2 Demo was released in late June, 2009 and coming in at 2.6 GB, the ARMA 2 demo allows you to experience the same game play that is featured in the full version of ARMA 2 – including multiplayer, as well as a few of the vehicles, weapons and units. The ARMA2 demo also contains a part of Chernarus terrain, a small section of the full game world set in the fictional “Black Russia”. There is also a massive performance hit on any platform when maximum details are enabled at the resolutions that we test; AA is set to “high”.

Here are our results at 1920×1200 resolution:



Clockspeed clearly matters, but only by a frame per second or two. Let’s look at 16×10:



It no longer appears that there is anything more than just frame rate scaling tied to CPU core speed; the number of CPU cores do not appear make a real difference. In this case, our Q9550S beats Core i7 in most of the testing and the Phenom II hangs right in with the Intel CPUs.

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Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.



Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is an air combat video game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was released in United States on March 6, 2009. You have the opportunity to fly 54 aircraft over real world locations and cities in somewhat realistic environments that are created with satellite data. This game is a more of a take on flying than a real simulation and it has received mixed reviews.

The game story takes place during the time of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. H.A.W.X. is set in the year 2014 where private military companies have replaced government-run military in many countries. The player is placed into the cockpit as an elite ex-military pilot who is recruited by one of these corporations to work for them as a mercenary. You later return to the US Air Force with a team as you try to prevent a full scale terrorist attack on the United States which was started by your former employer.

H.A.W.X. runs on DX10.1 faster and with more detail than on the DX10 pathway. ATI video cards can take advantage of DX10.1 while our GTX 280 is necessarily restricted to the DX10 pathway.

H.A.W.X. is our newest benchmark. Here are our results at 1920×1200 resolution:



Let’s see what testing at 1680×1050 shows.



Again we see some rather interesting results with H.A.W.X. With the HD 4870-X2, the Phenom II 550 X2 falls behind X3 and X4 and Core i7 beats up on Penryn. We note good scaling with CPU speeds and the number of cores do matter – although all of our configurations have no problem with this game.

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Conclusion

This has been quite an enjoyable exploration for us in comparing our Penryn Core2Quad Intel PC with Intel’s highest performing CPU, Core i7, and also with Phenom II 550 X2, 720 X3 and 955 X4. We finally do see that higher performing graphics make more of a difference then they did with our last testing setup for the previous review with the GTX 280.

As you can see from our benchmarks, if you want absolutely the very fastest frame rates with your HD 4780-X2 or with HD 4870-X3 Tri-Fire – and cost is no object – you will chose the fastest quad-core CPU you can afford and overclock it as far as you can. We also see that as your graphics gets more powerful, generally your CPU needs to also be progressively faster to match it. We noted that there was generally less difference with varying clock speeds and the amount of CPU cores needed with our single GTX 280 from the last review; often the differences were magnified by using the faster HD 4870-X2 and certainly they are more noticeable with our HD 4870-X3 Tri-Fire setup. So, future and more powerful video card purchases should be considered whenever you upgrade your CPU.

However, this fact is to be noted. If you are looking for bang for buck now, with a single video card of the HD 5870 class of card or HD 4870 CrossFire, Core i7 is generally overkill for gaming and often it not the fastest when compared to either our (now midrange) Q9550S or even the decidedly budget Phenom IIs.

Of our fifteen gaming benchmarks, even with our HD 4870-X3 Tri-Fire setup, only World in Conflict seems to really benefit from a quad-core so as to make any practical difference to the game play – and Core i7 was also the fastest. The rest of the benchmarks demonstrate that all five of our CPUs run fairly close in performance to each other and the results are satisfactory once they are overclocked a bit. We even note that overclocking is not necessary if you don’t mind sacrificing just a few frame rates.

Our current conclusion from this and past testing would still confirm that graphics are the single most important factor for determining most game frame rates at maximum detail – not the CPU. As long as you have a decent tri- or dual-core, you are not really losing much by not having four CPU cores – other than bragging rights – in most games.

Our current performance versus value series has drawn to a close – for now. We will revisit it in the future when we have much faster graphics than our HD 4870-X3 Tri-Fire setup – perhaps with Fermi SLI or with HD 5870 CrossFire, this coming year. We are also saying goodbye to Vista64 as we have moved to Windows 7 for all of our subsequent testing.

In the meantime, this editor is leaving for Las Vegas, Nevada tomorrow morning. Consumer Electronic Show (CES) starts January 7, and this editor expects to report live for ABT beginning tomorrow and on through its conclusion Sunday, January 10th, 2010. Many reviews, interviews and articles will follow the show in the coming weeks as we bring you “what’s coming” for 2010 and beyond.

In the meantime, feel free to comment below, ask questions or have a detailed discussion in our ABT forum. If you have any requests on what you would like us to focus on at CES, let us know. We want you to join us and Live in Our World. It is fast expanding and we think you will like what you progressively discover here.

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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