Manufacturer: N/A Price: $ N/A US Author: Steve Date: 03/06/2010

[ Conclusion ]

Although we have only just got through results from the Core i7 9xx, Core i3 5xx, Phenom II X4 and Phenom II X2 series processors, we have recently completed testing on four more processor series with another four currently in the works. So then there is still a lot more data to come, but already we have some interesting results. There are a few ways in which these results can be taken. For example, in almost every test the Core i7 was found to be far superior to the Phenom II X4, and while these processors do not compete directly in the market place, they are flagship products. The most expensive Phenom II X4 processor is the 965, which costs just under $200 US. The cheapest Core i7 processor is the 920, and at $290 it is considerably more expensive. Then of course you have the associated motherboards and memory kits, all of which are much more expensive for the Core i7 platform. Something worth considering is that although the Core i7 clearly is the superior processor, can all that extra horse power be converted into better gaming performance? When we conducted our CPU scaling articles with the Radeon HD 5970 we found that the extra power of the Core i7 was of no benefit. This was due to the heavy use of AA/AF, which placed limitations of the GPU’s before the CPU. Therefore it could be said that when enabling the kind of quality settings that owners of Radeon HD 5970 or Radeon HD 5870 Corssfire configuration would generally play with, there is almost no difference in performance between the Phenom II X4 and Core i7 processors. However what the data recorded in this article suggests is when future games became more demanding on the CPU, the Core i7 is going to provide a higher level of performance. While this is a very likely scenario, the Core i7 has been available for well over a year now and in that time we have not seen games become most CPU dependent. Therefore in terms of value, the Phenom II X4 still makes more sense for gaming purposes. Getting away from the Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 comparison for a moment, we found the Core i3 vs. Core i7 comparison to be just as interesting. Now keep in mind that the Core i3 540 processor costs half as much as the cheapest Core i7 processor. For the most part the Core i3 was not a great deal slower than the Core i7, and more often than not provided higher minimum frame rates than the Phenom II X4. In fact, we often found that the Core i3 and Phenom II X4 would deliver very similar clock for clock performance when comparing the average frame rate. It is almost guaranteed that if we were making heavy use of AA/AF quality settings, that there would be almost no difference in performance between the Core i7 and Core i3 processors. Still, when conditions are right, like what we saw when testing Far Cry 2, the Core i7 can be over 70% faster than the Core i3 when comparing clock for clock data. Overall we have certainly come across some interesting results that were very different to those of our Radeon HD 5970 article, primarily because much less stress was being placed on the GPUs. Still to come we have the Core i5, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium G, Pentium E6xxx, Phenom II X3, Athlon II X2, Athlon II X4 and Sempron 1xx processors, so stay tuned...

<- Previous Page Table of Contents Introduction Testing Methodology Crysis Warhead - Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 9xx Crysis Warhead - Phenom II X2 vs. Core i3 5xx Crysis Warhead - Complete Comparison Far Cry 2 - Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 9xx Far Cry 2 - Phenom II X2 vs. Core i3 5xx Far Cry 2 - Complete Comparison S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 9xx S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Phenom II X2 vs. Core i3 5xx S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Complete Comparison World in Conflict - Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 9xx World in Conflict - Phenom II X2 vs. Core i3 5xx World in Conflict - Complete Comparison Company of Heroes - Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 9xx Company of Heroes - Phenom II X2 vs. Core i3 5xx Company of Heroes - Complete Comparison Supreme Commander - Phenom II X4 vs. Core i7 9xx Supreme Commander - Phenom II X2 vs. Core i3 5xx Supreme Commander - Complete Comparison >>> Conclusion <<<

JohnnyR

Posted on: 03/18/2010 03:56 AM Been waiting for the core 2 duo and quad benches for along time. Are they ever coming? Are you not allowed to show them? A lot of us still have so called old tech.

ProX	Posted on: 03/08/2010 11:26 AM Thanks for all the hard work. I was amazed at how well the little Core i3 processors do. I am keen to see how these compare in these tests to the Core i5...

Dave P

Posted on: 03/08/2010 12:42 PM well done. it looks like my overclocked phenom ii x2 550 with all four cores enabled is enough to get the most out of my radeon hd 5850. i am keen to see how the slower core 2 duo processors go as well.

Jonny Intel

Posted on: 03/08/2010 01:27 PM Great article about CPU scaling instead of the usual super jizzed up 1920x1200 8xMSAA/AF 5970 CFX, which obviously is limited by the GPUs. Though you could have thrown in better multi-cores games such as Dragon Age, RE5, Dirt2, AvP, BF:BC2, GTA4 etc.

chemiczny_ali

Posted on: 03/08/2010 02:55 PM Who've done those graphs? All graphs are wrong. They've added min fps and max fps. LOL. Someone better fix this cos it's looking a bit embarrassing.

Steve Posts: 76 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 03/08/2010 08:26 PM Posted by chemiczny_ali on 03/08/2010 03:55 PM Who've done those graphs? All graphs are wrong. They've added min fps and max fps. LOL. Someone better fix this cos it's looking a bit embarrassing. Embarrassing? Hardly they have been arranged by their combined min/average result on purpose.

chemiczny_ali

Posted on: 03/08/2010 09:22 PM On purpose? Maybe to mislead the reader? What combined graph shows? Absolutely nothing! If you want to show performance of several processors/gpu's do it right way... http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5830_6.html#sect1

Dave P

Posted on: 03/08/2010 10:53 PM It showed nothing? More often than not the results aligned as they should anyway so I don't know what you are crying about.

Steve Posts: 76 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 03/08/2010 11:04 PM Posted by chemiczny_ali on 03/08/2010 10:22 PM On purpose? Maybe to mislead the reader? What combined graph shows? Absolutely nothing! I was almost not going to bother but I will. If it were you making the graphs how would you arrange the data, by the average or minimum result?

chemiczny_ali

Posted on: 03/09/2010 05:30 AM I would arrange the graphs with the average BUT with adding minimum which is far more important for me. Have you looked at my link? But I'm starting realize that your graphs are not that useless I was thinking at first point.

Telimektar

Posted on: 03/09/2010 08:22 AM Those graphs are perfectly fine, thanks for a great article.

Steve Posts: 76 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 03/09/2010 09:42 AM Posted by Telimektar on 03/09/2010 09:22 AM Those graphs are perfectly fine, thanks for a great article. You are more than welcome and thanks for the feedback, makes all the hard work worth it

Dan

Posted on: 03/09/2010 05:32 PM Good article. But I do think that the stacked charts are biased and favor the intel processors (in this case). AMD Processors which are usually slower both in mininum fps and average fps are punished "twice" in such a stacked chart and the overall bar length gives impression of bigger performance difference then the actual difference. Also, although the observation that i7/i3 processors consistently provide better minimum fps is very valuable for potential buyer, minimum fps are based on a single data point and I do not think have the same weight as average fps.

graf

Posted on: 03/09/2010 09:49 PM The graphs were confusing to me as well, until i figured out what you were doing. If you explained how you were graphing in the text, i missed it. I would suggest putting in a subtitle with something like 'summation of average and minimum values' and/or move the text for the average to the left side of its colored area. Other than that, the article was interesting and informative.

bob smith

Posted on: 03/10/2010 07:37 AM sweet article, it helped me with a number of purchase decisions, i was worried about amd x4 965 vs intel i7 920 and now i know the amd will be just as good as the intel for gaming, i also know that i don\'t really need to over-clock to get great performance, i saw that the amd system only had 4 gigs of ram and the intel had 6 gigs, did the intel system really need 6 gigs? did the amd system get close to using all 4 gigs of ram? i am still trying to decide how much ram to get, the graphs are great, at this level of detail for all these tests i almost want a spread-sheet to do sorted comparisons where i can type in the prices to see added value, thank you for the value judgements on overall performance, the conclusions about the intel i3 are as funny as the conclusions about the amd x4 955 and the radeon 5970, i almost fell out my chair laughing when i first thought about buying a $200 cpu for a $600 gpu (i have no idea why my co-workers call me a nerd), newer dx11 games and multi-core game tests will be an amazing next article (supreme commander 2 on 3 monitors), is there any chance you could post some of the huge resolution screen shots of the min fps game-play? i would love to see how many units moving and shooting or huge explosions it took to bring down the intel i7 @ 4GHz to around 30 fps, i am still wondering about the bottlenecks around a radeon 5850, which cpu do you think would be the right match for gaming? not too slow to cause a bottleneck but not too fast to be a waste of money for gaming, i hate bottlenecks, these tests kick ass, i think this shows another example where gaming hardware is way more advanced then gaming software, crysis had the best graphics and stupid ai, i hope game coders realize that they can use the cpu more to make smarter ai while still having great graphics or use the cpu to help with more graphics, like the old unreal engine with 100% cpu graphics, with all this hardware pc games should be way better than ps3 and xbox36, right?

ProX

Posted on: 03/10/2010 08:41 AM The Core i7 system is triple-channel and the Phenom II is dual-channel. So one has 3 sticks of 2GB memory and the other has 2. At the end of the day I am yet to see a game that performs better with 6GB of memory when compared to 4GB so this is a none issue, maybe Steve has more info on this. Also for most people 2560x1600 is a huge resolution, add another 30" screen and you can pretty much just halve the performance. Not sure what Xbox 360 games you have been playing but the PC equivalent always looks worlds better in my opinion. Half the reason why Crysis never went to console is because it was way to demanding.

don´t like it

Posted on: 03/10/2010 09:16 PM There´s no such information about phenom II NB Overclock speed. In fact the Crossfire Scaling changes a lot with NB overclocked to 2.6ghz or 2.8ghz. Phenom II is bandwith Starved. It´s not true for the I7. Core i7 has turbo mode. Phenom II does not. So when overclock a Phenom II you have to overclock the NB clock ALSO. cheers Rodrigo

Please read this!!!

Posted on: 03/10/2010 09:32 PM http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3533&p=5 the guys at anand got 12% more speed just with NB Overclock. Well, I got huge 3000 points in 3dmark 2006 JUST WITH NB OVERCLOCK with phenom II. Also I got some 7000 ponts in 3dmark 2001 just with NB OVERLOCK The rule is... if you overlock your processor to 4ghz , you will need at least 2.8 to 3.0ghz NB Speed.

ProX

Posted on: 03/10/2010 11:04 PM Clearly neither of you guys can read. First of all they were not using turbo mode. Second of all they said they overclocked the processors as close to their standard settings as possible for fair results. Finally if you look at the 2.0GHz and 2.4GHz data the margins are the same at 4.0GHz so put that in ya pipe and smoke it.

Steve Posts: 76 Joined: 2010-02-08

Posted on: 03/27/2010 10:24 PM Posted by White on 03/27/2010 10:18 PM PS: On part 2 if you are doing C2Q please do 45nm. Also, would have been nice to see how i5 fairs with these result, although I expect them to be very similar to i7. Thanks for the feedback. The Core 2 Duo E8xxx series and Core i5 results along with half a dozen other processors will be online in the first week of April.

White

Posted on: 03/27/2010 09:18 PM Great job Steve. I've been waiting for this article and you put a lot of arguments to rest. This is the first properly done article I have seen today that compares i7 and Phenom II in gaming performance. The dual core results are interesting as well. Great job! 2 thumbs!! PS: On part 2 if you are doing C2Q please do 45nm. Also, would have been nice to see how i5 fairs with these result, although I expect them to be very similar to i7.

Julian

Posted on: 04/07/2010 12:37 AM Great article keep the benches coming!

Pdp

Posted on: 09/05/2010 11:17 PM Yes we all know Intel have a better chips at the top end, benchmarking is fair enough but thats just bragging rights. But, in the real world of gaming the i7 965extreme costs £650 the x4 965 £120. But ya sure don't get 5.5 x the performance. On some benchmarks even the little i3 has better performance than its bigger brother. My point being its all about bang per buck. Even the X2 555 gets to within 75% minimum frame rate (crysis) of the i7 965 and that costs a meager £70, thats a wopping 9x price difference. Then you have the possability of unlocking 3 or all of the cores. With a descent motherboard. So its £800 i7/+mobo vs £170 X2 555/+ mobo. I know what I'd choose everytime. The £600 saving I go for X2 HD 5850 and water cooling. For even better performance. Then again any improvement over 60fps you won't notice any way as it's above the refresh rate of 90% of tft monitors!!!!!!!!!!!