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Finally it is time once again for us to take the gaming industry’s fastest performance graphics card and couple it with a wide range of processors from both AMD and Intel. Having not seen the light of day for some time now, we present you with 35 different processor configurations that were tested in 7 different games using the GeForce GTX 295. Due to popular demand the latest Core i7 and Phenom II X4 processors have also been added to the mix… Previously we have carried out similar tests using the GeForce GTX 280 and the dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card. The Crossfire enabled Radeon HD 4870 X2 results were particularly interesting as they seemed to give the quad-core processors more of an edge over the dual-core parts. Furthermore, the older AMD Athlon64 X2 processors really showed their age when paired with this extreme graphics card. Therefore this latest installment does away with the Athlon64 X2 processors, as they are now simply too slow. For those still interested in how this old work horse handles modern day GPU’s please look over our CPU scaling articles based on the GeForce GTX 280 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics cards. The slowest processors, or at least the lowest on paper to be featured in this article, will be the Core 2 Duo and original Phenom processors. The fastest will be of course the Core i7 processors, while we also expect the Core 2 Quad and Phenom II X4 processors to put on a good show. What we are most interested in is how much faster the Core i7 processors might be with this powerful graphics card when testing at a range of resolutions, including 2560x1600. Generally the graphics card does become the performance bottleneck at these extreme resolutions, though this also depends entirely on the game. Games such as Crysis for example, which are heavily GPU bound, will likely show very little difference in performance when using a range of processors. Then on the other hand, a game such as Far Cry 2 which does require quite a lot of CPU power as well as GPU power, will almost always show strong performance gains when using a superior processor. Those in the market for a GeForce GTX 295 graphics card, which I might add costs upwards of $500 US, can use this article to determine which CPU will benefit them the most. For everyone else, it is an interesting indication of how your CPU might handle this impressive flagship product. Before you jump into the benchmarking section of this article please check out the next page where we list system specs and explain a few aspects of the testing... |
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