CrossFireX and the Phenom II X4 940 – Competitive or Not?
by Gary Key on February 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Far Cry 2
This is another highly awaited title from last year that has beautiful graphics, an open ended environment, and is fun to play... but the traveling between missions tends to get repetitive. If you dial up the graphics options, the game rewards with you some fantastic visuals courtesy of the Dunia Engine. The game also features the most impressive benchmark tool we have seen in a PC game. We set the performance feature set to Very High, graphics to High, and enable DX10 with AA set to 2x. The in-game benchmark tool is utilized with the Ranch Small level.
We learned two things about this game. It favors the Intel platforms, and once you provide enough GPU horsepower, the i7 is untouchable. This is especially true once the i7 is overclocked. Although not shown, our single card results with the i7 at 4.00GHz resulted in an average frame rate of 68.8 with the minimum at 54.2 and maximum at 106.2. Single card results with the Q9550 and Phenom II 940 overclocked only increased frame rates by 1fps. If you wanted to pick a single benchmark and show a large disparity in gaming performance between the Intel and AMD platforms, this is the one to use. We would highly suggest to AMD that they send an engineer to UbiSoft for game engine optimizations.
In the 1680x1050 single card tests, the Intel platforms are slightly ahead of the AMD setup; even minimum frame rates favor Intel in this game. Enable CrossFire and we see the Q9550 leading the Phenom II 940 by 7% with minimum frame rates being equal. The i7 CrossFire results are impressive with a 31% frame rate increase over the Q9550 and 41% over the Phenom II 940. Once we overclock our processors, scores improve for the Q9550 and Phenom II 940 with frame rates increasing 22% and 20% over stock CF numbers respectively. The i7 shows a similar 19% increase when overclocked. Even though the Q9550 has a 7% clock speed advantage over the Phenom II 940, frame rates improve by 17% in the overclocked CrossFire results.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 5% and minimum frame rates less than 1% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 12% in average frame rates and minimum frame rates actually decrease by 5%. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 42% and minimum rates increase 15%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 19%~22% average improvement in average frame rates with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
At 1920x1200, the benchmarks reveal nothing new between the platforms. The Phenom II 940 is competitive with a single card, trails the Q9550 by 8% in CrossFire and 9% when overclocked, even though we start to become CPU/GPU limited on these two platforms. The Q9550 does hold a 17% advantage in minimum frame rates in the overclocked tests. The i7 is just stupid fast compared to our other two platforms with its standard CrossFire results being 8% and 18% faster than the overclocked Q9550 and Phenom II 940 processors respectively. Overclocking the i7 puts it in another league altogether.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 12% and minimum frame rates decrease by 8% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 18% in average frame rates and minimum frame rates do not change. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 53% and minimum rates increase 26%. Overclocking our processors resulted in a 22%~26% average improvement in average frame rates with the Q9550 benefiting the greatest.
When it comes to game play experience and not benchmark tests, all three platforms responded the same at our specified settings. We did not notice any advantages with the improved frame rates that the i7 offers over the other two platforms. However, with the i7 we could change the graphic settings to Very High and increase AA to 4x and still experience very good game play. It was as if nothing changed except now we were looking at the savannahs of Africa in a much better way. These same settings were not always a pleasant experience on the other two platforms during heavy action scenes, but the game remained playable for the most part.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
You might want to read the article a bit more carefully. From the test setup page: "Our decision to go with a 790FX/SB750 combination on the AMD side is strictly based upon performance. The 790FX is about 3%~5% faster on average than comparable 790GX products. AMD continues to recommend the 790GX/SB750 as the platform of choice for the AM2+ and upcoming AM3 products. We disagree from a performance viewpoint; the 790FX/SB750 combination is simply the best choice in our opinion. Of course you will typically pay about $35~$40 or greater for the 790FX boards, but if you intend on running CrossFireX, we think it is worth the additional cost."You *can* find less expensive motherboards, but what will the *overall* experience with those board be? I for one would take a better motherboard with a less expensive processor every time over a faster default CPU clock and a cheaper motherboard. The motherboard is just too critical a component to ever warrant skimping in my book. YMMV, naturally.
side09 - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Should the fusion program that runs faster maybe be put into the calculations for AMD?CPUGuy - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Wow, I nearly forgot about that. I didn't see that mentioned as well. Fusion 1.0 is out and should be used in any and all AMD based benchmark reviews IMO.kuyaglen - Sunday, February 1, 2009 - link
2XAA ?Finally - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Seriously, who cares for Crossfire (or SLI)?Please. Stop making those useless enthusiast's enthusiast reviews and come back to the ground, AnandTech.
Please, go ahead, check the Steam survey hardware list.
Then tell me: How many people out of 100 do have SLI/Crossfire.
Then laugh.
Then stop testing this shit like it was important.
And here my suggestions for constructive improvement:
Test the new generation of HDDs with 500GB platters (e.g. Seagate 7200.12 series)
THAT would be interesting, because EVERYONE needs a good HDD, but no one needs Crossfire.
Finally - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
lies buried in the single-GPU results included in these benchmarks.No difference. No difference at all! (and I count 1-2 fps as no difference).
But those aren't usually shown, because CPUs get tested under highly artificial conditions... to show their advantage... IN THEORY.
In real life gaming performance it makes no difference, if you just intend to play with your quad-core... this is the real interesting result that could justify this article, nothing else.
Finally - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
...that CF/SLI sucks. Anytime. Big time.It never made sense, it will never make sense.
The time, you come back and drop in another card of the same class, there is a new generation available that easily tops your grandmother-CF/SLI and furthermore adds even DirectX 11 support and a plethora of other features into the deal...
2 GPUs+ is a failed strategy - unless you are some scientist... working on a super computer... actually trying to achieve something... other than that it's highly efficient money-burning 2.0
darkvader75 - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
It seems you are abit confused. The "Steam" hardware survey runs when Steam launches. SLI and Crossfire are not active on the desktop so Steam says "no crossfire or SLI detected." More people have SLI or Crossfire by a longshot then what you are seeing by a detection program that is failing miserably. Go pull Futuremarks independant ID results list if you would like to see SLI and Crossfire #'s. Also tons of people playing counterstrike source years later don't exactly count as the bulk of the comunity. This is a high tech cutting edge website for new data and information about computer electronics. If you want babyville information about basic garbage then you need to visit Znet.SirKronan - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
"Seriosly, who cares for Crossfire (or SLI)?Holy smokes, man. Get out of here. You can get a P45 board for $100, overclock the crap out of a Core 2 duo/quad, a couple of 4850's for $300 and you've got a SERIOUS amount of gaming power. I was an early adopter of the Asus P5Q Pro with a 4850 to go with it. I've since switched, but while I had it, a second 4850 would've been a fantastic upgrade path. You can take two 4850's and an economical P45 motherboard and give the more expensive GTX 280/285 a run for the money, even winning in many games. 2x4850 is the "common man's" multi-GPU setup, and many many have been very successful with such a platform, without paying through the nose. When the 8800GT came out, and nVidia substantially improved SLI, the consumer was in a similar situation.
And look at all the moderately-priced, AMD boards that will take AMD's new cost effective X2's and X3's?? I think this review applies to A LOT OF customers. How many people out there have a P45 board? How many people out there have a crossfire capable AMD board?? And out of those, how many have a 4850?
Well, now you know what you'll get for an upgrade path. Now you have a realistic preview of performance gains if you add a second 4850 some day. In some games, the benefits are great, and it will be worth your while. Now you know how the new Phenoms compare if you have a compatible AMD motherboard, or were considering one.
Thanks, Anand for giving such consumers the heads up. Very useful article.
Gazz - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
I agree that was a great reviewI am running a 3.2ghz x2 duel core on a MSI K9A2 platinum with 4gb of ocz 1055 and I have just installed my second His 4850 1gb of mem
graphics card
eventualy I hope to up my ram to 8 gb install vista or the win 7
and go to a 4 core cpu and a new pcu
my motherboard can hold 4 graphics cards
I still have not seen any tests with all AMD/ATI products on a vista win with that OC tool and with 4x 4850 1 gbmem
oh well all fun and games great article thankyou