Performance Meets Value – Core i7 vs. Penryn vs. Phenom II
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:
And now at 1680×1050:
This time the HD 4870-X2 is really handicapped by two factors with our Phenom II X3. First, its stock clock speed is 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 makes a small difference over tri-core. We will test AMD’s quad- versus tri- and dual-core in part two of this review to 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 this time our Core i7 pulls ahead of Penryn and Phenom II.
This same pattern with our HD 4870-X2 is repeated with the GTX 280 – clock speed matters and evidently more than a dual-core CPU is needed for the minimums of World in Conflict. We even note that our Intel quad-core CPUs at 3.5 GHz are pulling away from the AMD tri-core clocked +400 MHz higher.
Finally we see a “win” for Core i7.
very thorough and informative, i glanced over it but i will read it later. looking at the graphs and conclusion good stuff look forward to seeing more cpu’s put to the test.
The almost constant flat-lining from the different processors yet again proves the GPU is by far the most important factor for gaming.
I agree that the cpu bottlenecks that people talk about so much are very very overblown.
But they still do matter in gaming. Of course not as much as a video card but they are still very important.
The games you tested are older games. They don’t take use of more than 2 cores decently.
Just about every recent release however is coded to use more than 4 cores. And there are some very LARGE performance differences even when playing at good resolutions and high settings. Recent Source games, Capcom games will make use of more cores because the engines they use have been updated for multi core support.
I’m going to show a couple of examples.
Reisdent Evil 5
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,690488/Processor-benchmarks-with-Resident-Evil-5-Core-i7-reigns-Phenom-strong-Update-Lynnfield-results/Practice/
A 2.4GHz Q6600 beats a 3.0GHz e8400
The 3.1GHz Phenom II X2 550 gets 54.2FPS and the Phenom II X4 945 @ 3.0GHz gets 81.5
The settings were at 1680 x 1050 all settings max.
DiRt 2
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,700780/Dirt-2-CPU-benchmarks-with-DirectX-9-and-DirectX-11-Phenom-doing-well-quad-cores-rule/Practice/
Max Details @ 1680 x 1050
62% increases for Quad Cores over Dual Cores
e8400 @ 3.0GHz gets 37FPS
Q9650 @ 3.0GHz gets 63FPS
Dragon Age Origins
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,698761/Dragon-Age-Origins-CPU-benchmarks-75-percent-boost-for-quad-cores/Practice/
e6600 @ 2.4GHz gets 28FPS vs the Q6600 @ 2.4GHz that gets almost double the fps at 49FPS.
The infamous Grand Theft Auto 4
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,669595/GTA-4-PC-CPU-benchmark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2
Prototype
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,688240/Prototype-CPU-Benchmarks-System-Requirements-and-Screenshots/Practice/
Left 4 Dead 2
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,699110/Left-4-Dead-2-CPU-benchmarks-Phenom-II-very-strong/Practice/
ARMA 2
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687620/ArmA-2-tested-Benchmarks-with-18-CPUs/Practice/
Batman Arkham Asylum
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/batman-arkham-asylum,2465-9.html
All of these games has been tested with high settings at decent and very common gamer resolutions like 1680 x 1050.
There are lots and lots more but I don’t feel like posting any more links. I think that I’m able to make show my point with these games. Just about every recent release comes with great quad core support. I’d be more surprised if a recent game didn’t come out with quad core support.
Thanks for you comments. Let’s look, one at a time at each of your examples:
RE5, they do not test with AA or AF and only at 16×10. Of course, the bottleneck is shifted to the CPU.
Dirt 2, same issues. I test everything with 4xAA/16xAF. The author agrees with me:
” In most systems, especially with DirectX 11, the graphics card is the limiting factor. ”
Prototype. Ph II 940-X4 is barely 3 FPS behind i7. Watch that difference disappear at 19×12 and with faster clocks.
L4D. As with with all Source engine games, the practical difference is minimal. Again, they do not test with AA/AF – which is silly.
ARMA2, I also test; except that I use the highest details and with different results.
Batman AA. Here is what THG concludes:
“We now see that a dual-core Phenom II CPU at 2.5 GHz can handle a minimum frame rate of over 40 FPS. This means that even a sub-$100 CPU should be able to deliver excellent performance with Batman: Arkham Asylum.” Dropping the CPU core speed to 2.0 GHz; why don’t they go to 1 GHz to make a point?
GTA4. They test at 10×12. Ridiculous. Enough said.
You may like Part 2 of my review. It is greatly expanded to include the same 3 CPUs and also now with Ph II 550 X2 and Ph II 955 X4. I am also now testing with HD 4870-X2 and HD 4870-X3 TriFire to up the graphics ante.
It takes me a few weeks to run over 1,000 benchmarks on 17 games for 5 CPUs at three clock speeds and at two resolutions for my upcoming article. –Look for it December 21st.
My test games are certainly not old. However, look for me to add Dragon’s Age: Origins, Left4Dead, Wolfenstein, Borderlands, Dirt2, and CoD MW2 in the coming weeks.
Quad core is becoming more useful for brand new games. Eventually it will be necessary. But not yet.