CrossFireX and the Phenom II X4 940 – Competitive or Not?
by Gary Key on February 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Race Driver: GRID
The more serious racing fans on the staff tend to end up at iRacing.com or playing a modified version of Grand Prix Legends for our racing simulation fix. However, there comes a time to throw out physics and just have some fun. In that case, GRID is the game we play. We turn up all the options, set AA to 2x, and let the rubber burn in a Race Day event. Our results are captured via FRAPS.
At 1680x1050 in single card mode, we are GPU limited. All three platforms have close scores, but the Phenom II 940 does get a win here. The Phenom II leads the Q9550 by 4% in CrossFire average frame rates and 7% in minimum frame rates. The tables are reversed once we overclock the processors as the Q9550 has a 5% advantage in average frame rates and 6% in minimum frame rates, both close to the 7% clock speed advantage for the Q9550. The i7 runs like a Ferrari once we introduce CrossFire and overclocking into the benchmarks as it easily surpasses the other two platforms.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 21% and minimum frame rates by 25% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 19% in average frame rates and 25% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 42% and minimum rates increase 44%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 18%~30% average improvement in average frame rates with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
Turning the resolution up to 1920x1200 has us playing the same old record. The results follow the pattern set at 1680x1050. The Phenom II scores another win here in single card and CrossFire mode over the Q9550. The Core i7 continues to dominate the benchmarks although the Phenom II continues to make a very good showing in minimum frame rates.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 9% and minimum frame rates by 14% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 5% in average frame rates and 5% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 30% and minimum rates increase 33%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 18%~32% average improvement in frame rates for our collective group with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
Once again, our game play experience indicates there is no difference between the three platforms at our settings. Although frame rates were higher with the i7 in CrossFire mode, there was no appreciable difference in game play quality.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
68 Comments
View All Comments
megabuster - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
If it's not too troublesome next time please include a few pictures of your hardware set up. :)none12345 - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
There are errors in the benchmark charts on page 9....and maybe other pages..In the first chart you have the overclocked 9550 CF at the top of the chart, yet if you look at the min and max frame rates it is NOT the top performer, the core i7 beats it with 5 more min frames and 12 more max frames. The overclocked phenom ii cf shoudl also beat it with 11 higher min frames tho 13 less max frames.
In the second chart, the clear winer by the min/max frames is the overclocked phenom ii CF, it had a 9 higher min fps and 6 higher max fps yet its rated lower then the core i7. It had 21 more min fps yet only 2 less max fps then the 9550 but was ranked way lower.
Your score or min/max numbers are fubar...something is really wrong with those charts.
Maybe some of the other charts are messed up too, but this page stood out like a sore thumb.
Gary Key - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
The charts are sorted by Average Frame Rates, unfortunately our engine does not allow multiple sorts on values. Let me see if I can do something different in the SLI article with an Excel chart, or I might just separate all the values into individual charts..7Enigma - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Gary, Let me just throw my opinion in to keep it sorted by average frame rates.That is probably the most important data point (next to possibly minimum) and so is a good way of ranking. I will thank you again and ask that all future reviews use your format of showing all 3 data points as it is very important in determining the better card for a specific game at a specific resolution/detail setting.
balancedthinking - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
The Phenom II massively gains gaming performance with an overclocked Nortbridge because it directly boosts the cache performance.Reviews like the one from the german site p3d showed an increase in gaming performance worth 300-500mhz core frequency for an overclock of only 400 mhz NB frequenzy!
The NB runs stock @ only 1800 mhz. Good overclocks are in the range of 2600 - 2800mhz. Imagine the performance that is missing in the OC results from anand!
That is why the Q9550 can pull ahead when overclocked, because due to architecture, the cache gets overclocked too wenn you raise the reference clock.
The Phenom II 940 offers great potential when tweaking the NB clock but you have to do it manually in contrast to Q9550!
So please Anand, redo the Phenom II 940 OC tests with the Northbridge frequency maxed out. Only that would be a fair comparison.
Gary Key - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
The NB frequency is at 2486MHz in these tests. I have it listed on page two now. I could not go higher and maintain this clock speed in Vista 64. Raising the NB speed to 2712 meant lowering CPU speed to 3842MHz. I test both values and our 3955/2486 combo performed the best.Kiijibari - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Perfect :)Thx a lot.
Kiijibari - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
I agree, an info concerning the NB clock of the Phenom2 is missing.@anandtech: Please add it.
cheers
Kiiji
Kiijibari - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
From the article:"(17.5x226, DDR2-1205, 5-5-5-18)"
That means, that the NB was clocked with 2034 MHz, if nobody changed the default multiplier 9
CPUGuy - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
balancedthinking,Thanks for providing this tidbit of information regarding how cache is overclocked on the Intel vs AMD CPUS. If this review is based on what you said then it should be amended for re-testing.