Phenom II X3 720BE & CrossFire X Performance - Does it Compete?
by Gary Key on March 28, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
FarCry 2
This title has beautiful graphics, an open ended environment, and is fun to play... but 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 and we report an average of three test runs.
Two things still hold true about this game. It favors the Intel processors, and once you provide enough GPU horsepower, the performance of the i7 platform is untouchable. 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. Does that mean the game play experience on the Phenom II platform is bad, certainly not, in fact it is very good. However, you can run higher resolutions and/or quality settings on the i7 platform and improve your game play experience without affecting performance.
In the 1680x1050 single card and CrossFire test, the 720BE trails the X940 by 4% on average even with a clock speed disadvantage of 7%. The 720BE does hold an L3 cache per core and Northbridge speed advantage but clock speed is still important in the game. Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 7% and minimum frame rates less than 1% for the 720BE. Once we overclock our 720BE, average frame rates increase 14% and minimum frame rates 19% over stock CF numbers.
At 1920x1200, the benchmarks reveal nothing new between the platforms. The Phenom II processors are competitive with a single card configuration with the 720BE only trailing the X4 940 by 3%. As we start to become CPU/GPU limited the 720BE trails the X4 940 by less than a 1% in the CrossFire tests. Adding a second card to the 720BE system for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 14% and minimum frame rates by less than 1%. Neither Phenom II competes with the Q9550 in either average or minimum frame rates. The i7 is just stupid fast in these benchmarks compared to the other systems.
When it comes to game play experience and not benchmark tests, all three platforms behaved in a similar manner 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.
Increasing Northbridge Speed for Performance Improvements
One of the quickest ways to extract additional performance on the Phenom II (also Phenom) platform is to increase Northbridge speeds. We are working on a separate article covering the advantages and disadvantages of this setting. Our initial results are positive for applications that heavily depend on memory throughput and low latencies. We thought it would be interesting to see what would occur if the Northbridge speed was raised from a stock 2GHz level to 2.8GHz on our 720BE processor in Far Cry 2. This is worst comparative game title for our AMD Phenom II processors today, so let's see if we have any performance improvements at 1680x1050.
At stock processor speeds with a single video card there is a 2% increase in average and minimum frame rates. We did not expect much as the data pipeline is not under a lot of stress at this point. As we move to our CrossFire X configuration at stock CPU speeds there is a 3% increase in average frame rates and 8% in minimum frame rates. Now it gets interesting as we overclock our CPU to 3.8GHz and are able to feed the data pipelines in a proper manner, at least we thought so. By increasing our NB speed to 2.8GHz, the average frame rates increase 11% and minimum frame rates increase 9%. We have noticed similar results at 1920x1200 in this game and in other applications.
All that required was a simple increase in CPU/NB VID from 1.200V to 1.375V with this particular CPU. Some CPUs will require additional voltage and/or improved cooling to clock up the Northbridge speed to this level. In our experiences to date with the Phenom II processors, all of our samples have hit 2.8GHz with 1.375V to 1.425V on good air-cooling.
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Hrel - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Great Article, good stuff to know. However, in the future, when you're doing a CPU article I'd appreciate it if you'd include results for the E8400 Core 2 Duo; as that was the processor to get for some time. I'm sure I'm not the only one that put that CPU in just about every computer built for some time. It'd be nice to see how it stacks up to the newer CPU's.On another note; it'd be nice if you could include performance results for the 8800GT/9800GT in future GPU articles; as that WAS the GPU to get for so long. I'm sure there are tons of people out there that still have that GPU running in their systems. No matter what the point of the article is or what level of intensity you're putting the cards through; it's always nice to have something to go off of to compare what you have now; to what's just coming out.
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
My gaming computer I built back in January uses the E8500 as at the time it was for me the best bang for the buck. I have it OC'd to 3.85GHz on stock voltage, with tremendous headroom if I ever decide to up the voltage (Xigmatek 120mm rifle cpu cooler). If I was building today I would probably go with the AMD X3, but for my gaming (currently on 19" LCD with plans to go to 24" probably in the next 2 years), the E8500 has more than enough grunt.atlmann10 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
The percentage of people who actually use a computer to it's abilities today is so minimal its almost self defeating. This percentage on this boards and most hardware discussion boards would be a good bit different. But, when you average that to the computer users in the US that is unremarkable at any percentage level. Do not get mad at me; because, I am not talking at least specifically, on the large part of people on here. Software development much less released product is so far behind the hardware market it is also unremarkable. Yes maybe somewhere between 3-10% of high end newly releases games put a computer to a decent percentage of usage but that percentage is unremarkable at best. Next month AMD releases the rest of the Phenom 2's and in September INTEL releases it's newest processors to make this even more so. I think when I upgrade (probably the middle of this summer (Julyish), I will most likely go for the 920. But the arguments especially some of the more ridiculous in this exact forum are childish, and I imagine that super harsh comment was posted by a 13 year old. At least I would hope so, if not you (that commenter specifically) need to truly evaluate you mental sense of operation. For childish comments like that you need to go to the Nickelodeon website, if they have a discussion of this type of equipment. Anyway; the main point of my post is this, Software developers need to get off there A77, and make some products that use the hardware to at least a 50% level more than 5% of the time.Beno - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
this just shows that those games arent written for quad core processors.Summer - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
The article did a good job concluding that one can build a good gaming machine without spending too much. Emphasizing on real game performance is a plus especially to the average consumer who just wants a decent system to play today's popular games. Hopefully the average anandtech reader won't think too much about the article and turn it into another AMD versus INTEL e-penis thread.SIDENOTE: I'll definitely be looking forward to the Northbridge article.
nubie - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
What about performance of the x2 7750 that you can buy on ebay for $49 (free shipping) and Newegg for ~$65 (+tax and shipping)?I haven't even seen a review of this processor that I can remember, is it Phenom I or II? Is it built from a quad-core die like the x3?
They seem to overclock well, would they do for a real budget gaming system, say ~$300-400 for the entire system including a HD4xxx or 9800 series card?
I appreciate your "mainstream" bias, but some people have no money and just want to run the games or keep their system usable without laying out more than $100 for an upgrade.
Roland00 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
The x2 7750 is a Phenom 1 chip with two cores disabled. I haven't seen reviews here but there have been several reviews at other sites. It is comparable at stock to an e5200 from intel (the x2 7750 is barely faster, but not by much.)Once you start OC either chip the e5200 is a better chip for it has far more OC headroom. In addition the e5200 is comparable in price to the x2 7750.
Eventually we are going to get Phenom II dual cores but that is going to be several months from now.
nubie - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Yeah, I found an e5200 for $59 on ebay, as soon as I can get my P6N RMA'd by MSI to support 45nm processors I am going to try for 4Ghz (my Scythe Infinity should be up to the task ;) )If AMD and DFI hadn't dropped support for my Infinity-AM2 I might have stayed with AMD.
Thanks for the info on the Phenom 'x2'. I wonder when we will get a Phenom II tech processor for under $100 (preferably closer to $50).
iamezza - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
The x2 7750 actually does really well in gaming benchmarks compared to the e5200, but gives up a bit in application performance.It uses a lot more power than the intel chips though and has less overclocking headroom.
It does have a potentially better upgrade path with the AM2+ socket being able to accept future AM3 CPUs from AMD whereas the intel socket 775 won't be getting any new CPUs for it.
buzznut - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
So I didn't see too many comments that were actually about the article, go figure.I think its awesome that someone is writing articles that are for "the rest of us", people who cannot afford the latest and greatest and have to make compromises to build themselves a new system. Or don't receive products to test and so are able to build the most ridiculous, benchmark busting, $4000, top of the top end behemoth.
If I had seen this article a month ago, I might not have bought the PII X4 940 and yet I am still glad I did. I do alot more than just gaming on my pc.
I would find it even more interesting to take the intel processors and clock them to 3.8ghz (or same speed as the AMD proc.) and run the same battery of tests; yes I know that is not the point of this article.
And I see why you would want to see the max performance available from each chip.
About a year ago or even as recent as 6 months ago, everyone was saying what a stupid move it was for AMD to acquire ATI and basically counting AMD out as far as competing ever again. Right now, AMD doesn't look too stupid to me. Seems to me they are doing quite well with developing the "platform" as their strategy for getting their share of the market.
Look at the way Nvidia and Intel are fighting right now. I think AMD has the right idea and are moving in a sound direction. I think they have compelling products, certainly from a budget pc users standpoint. I know others will not agree, judging from AMD's bottom line in the recent past and even currently, but they appear to be moving in a positive direction.
I think AMD's graphics division is firing on all cylinders now.And as "bad" as the original Phenom was, the have become competitive again with Phenom 2. I am pretty impressed with the turn around.