Benchmark Results: Far Cry 2 And Stalker: Clear Sky
An old gremlin is back to haunt us. We observed some very strange gaming results in our Socket AM3 platform launch coverage—results that were odd enough to warrant a follow-up and close cooperation with Nvidia to diagnose. Well, nothing ever came of those efforts really, despite an exhaustive number of benchmarks being run to test the possible cause of slow-downs with Core i7 and Nvidia graphics hardware. Bear in mind that the results we’d see here would differ dramatically if we were using ATI hardware—a fact demonstrated on page two of my most recent Editor’s Corner analysis.
The consequence is a positive for AMD though, as the Phenom II X4 955 and Core 2 Quad Q9550 deliver the most compelling experiences in Far Cry 2 without anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering enabled. Let’s see what turning on the visual details (and further taxing the graphics hardware) does to the results.
Core i7’s lagging performance continues, even with details cranked up. The Core 2 Quad actually serves up the best numbers followed closely by the Phenom II X4 955. It’s a miniscule difference, though. Do we see the same gaming conundrum surface In Stalker: Clear Sky?
Nope. Intel’s Core i7/Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 reasserts its dominance (to be fair, we’re talking about tenths of a frame per second, on average here). Stalker is a particularly graphics-intensive title, so we’re seeing the GeForce card keep scores fairly normalized. We’d expect the same—to a higher degree—with AA enabled.
All of our tested processors fall within one frame per second of each other at both 1680x1050 and 1920x1200—both resolutions largely unplayable with anti-aliasing turned on. If you wanted faster frame rates in this one, you’d need a beefier GPU.
Fortunately, the issues encountered in Far Cry 2 with i7 hardware and Nvidia GPUs end on this page. Moving forward, everything else looks much more normal.
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I can barely believe this article started off talking about the Dragon platform, then you go and use a 280gtx in the gaming benchmarks even though you know it throws up varying results with the Nehalems.
Here's an idea - use the Dragon platform. I'm sure you can find a 4890 or 4870 X2 lying around somewhere.
I wouldn't even have spotted that. Good point well made.
It's St George's day, I want a dragon!
The newest version of WinRAR, on the other hand, follows after previous iterations and utilizes as many threads as you can throw at it—hence the Core i7’s commanding victory.
More odd is the X3 720s parity with AMD’s X4 940—a CPU that is both 200 MHz faster and one core stronger. Nevertheless, AMD shows very well against Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q9550, besting it by 16 seconds in our 334 MB compression routine.
Does this not suggest memory is critical?
would've liked to seen benchmarks with a 720 with unlocked core and overclocked to 3.2ghz involved so we can guage value for money better.
These are enthusiast parts and therefore primarily used in gaming machines.
I don't know of anyone who sits at their computer all day doing number crunching tasks (were the i7 excels) who cares about a 20% difference in execution time (you go for a coffee / watch TV / play a game / "play"
So basically, unless you have a very specific application (you're a video editor for instance), what's the point in paying the 3x - 4x price premium for an i7 over an AMD? If you do, you're a mug - especially if the only reason is to brag you've got a faster machine.
So basically, unless you have a very specific application (you're a video editor for instance), what's the point in paying the 3x - 4x price premium for an i7 over an AMD? If you do, you're a mug - especially if the only reason is to brag you've got a faster machine.
Absolutely right. AMD is offering best buck for money here. Thinking selling my Core2Duo 6600 and going for Phenom II 955.
Why you don't use DDR3 1600MHz CL7 ???
Who will buy DDR3 1600MHz with CL6 ?
An overclocked X3 720 its a steal.
Superb value for money
An overclocked X3 720 BE its a steal.
Value for money cant get any better than this
An overclocked X3 720 BE its a steal.
Value for money cant get any better than this
An overclocked X3 720 BE its a steal.
Value for money cant get any better than this
I`m looking to build myself an i7 rig or AMD Phenom II one. What I`m looking at, are video conversions and lots of multitasking apps. It will take me a while to complete that, partly because I`m still saving for it, partly because I still don`t know if it`s worth extra 2000$ for i7 965 setup. And reading this article, I`m more confused than before.
Clearly i7 965 trashes amd in any test, but for what I need, it seems that 955 PhenomII will do just fine.......financially, I cannot afford another upgrade anytime soon....
So...what I really want? A super fast, future proof i7 chip or just a fast quad that will do for now??? I don`t know....I think I`ll stick wit my dual core for the next couple of years, cos I`m too confused..........
Picture of the heatsinks seems to be reversed in the pic describing the reduction in size of the new heastsink.
the 955 is a better processor than the i7 920 simply because of price, its like $50 cheaper, generally plays games better, and is almost as fast in every other area.
another thing to note: motherboards for intel are more expensive than amd ones.
bueno con una combinacion de un phenom II 955BE 16gb de DDR3-1333 pc3-10500 y cuatro targetas de graficas Ati Radeon HD4890 en un mother MSI
790FX-GD70 y cuatro discos Seagate de 500GB funcionan mejor en graficos que cualquier core i7 a la misma velocida ya que los board con chips intel solo pueden tener 3 targetas de video.