Core i7 vs. Phenom II X2 vs. X4 scaling performance analysis
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 was also released with updated visuals but it is also not very demanding on graphics cards. 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 is CoD4, first at 2560×1600 resolution with all in-game settings completely maxed out plus 4xAA:
Now we go on to 1920×1200 and we shall reserve comment until after all of the graphs.
Finally we test at 1680×1050:
This time we generally see Core i7-920 faster than our Phenom quad-core counterpart although it doesn’t make the gameplay practically any smoother. We see results similar to Unreal Tournament 3 where a popular multiplayer game is very playable even on midrange graphics cards from the last generation and it plays very smoothly with this generation’s top video cards. Only with HD 5870 CrossFire at our highest resolution settings, do we see any differences between the dual-core and the quad-core Phenom II. At no point did overclocking any of our CPUs make any practical difference to the gameplay although we do see the framerates increase with higher CPU core speeds.
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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