Introducing the New Phenom II 980 BE vs. Core i7-920 – value meets performance again

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 this game with the most demanding settings. We use fully maxed details with 4xAA/16xAF; soft shadows ‘off’, as they do not play well with AA. Let’s test 2560×1600 and 1920×1200; superwide-screen resolutions just stretch the image and distort it.

At 1920×1200 resolution there is no difference in practically playing F.E.A.R. between the fastest and the slowest CPU configurations as the minimums are already sufficiently high. However, in this old DX9 game, the Core i7 90 is faster than the Phenom II X4 980 BE although the Phenom nearly catches up at the highest resolution when it is overclocked.