Shadow of Mordor

The final title in our testing is another battle of system performance with the open world action-adventure title, Shadow of Mordor. Produced by Monolith using the LithTech Jupiter EX engine and numerous detail add-ons, SoM goes for detail and complexity to a large extent, despite having to be cut down from the original plans. The main story itself was written by the same writer as Red Dead Redemption, and it received Zero Punctuation’s Game of The Year in 2014.

For testing purposes, SoM gives a dynamic screen resolution setting, allowing us to render at high resolutions that are then scaled down to the monitor. As a result, we get several tests using the in-game benchmark. For low-end graphics we examine at 720p with low settings, whereas mid and high-end graphics get 1080p Ultra. The top graphics test is also redone at 3840x2160, also with Ultra settings, and we also test two cards at 4K where possible.

Shadow of Mordor on ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB ($560)

Shadow of Mordor on ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB ($560)

Shadow of Mordor on MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB ($380)

Shadow of Mordor on MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB ($380)

Shadow of Mordor on MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB ($245)

Shadow of Mordor on MSI R9 285 Gaming 2GB ($240)

Shadow of Mordor on ASUS R7 240 DDR3 2GB ($70)

Shadow of Mordor on Integrated Graphics

The only real difference here between the newer Core i3-7350K and the older Core i7-2600K is with our mid-range cards (GTX 770 and R9 285), whereby the older CPU seems to have a deficit 'in general' to the other CPUs we've tested. This might be CPU instruction related, although these results aren't seen on the other cards.

Gaming: GRID Autosport Power and Overclocking
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  • eldakka - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link

    "celeron - duel core"

    Calm down, breathe. It's not something worth dueling over!
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Monday, February 6, 2017 - link

    Yeah eldakke, "duel" vs "dual" is also something that gets my heart rate up. :-)
  • Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Monday, February 6, 2017 - link

    Username checks out
  • AssBall - Friday, February 17, 2017 - link

    Duel core? Funny mine never got into a fight.....
  • R0H1T - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Yeah that's true except when people find out that there's this thing called Ryzen just on the horizon. Seems to me that the HT pentium & unlocked is just a way to sell more of these KL chips & Intel are hoping/waiting for Coffee Lake to counter Zen.

    There's no way a dual core is justified today, even if unlocked or with HT, unless you're absolutely on a shoestring of a budget &/or KL is the only thing you want. It's such bad value for money atm that no one should be recommending it, not at this point in time.
  • lopri - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link

    I have to agree. Not necessarily because there is anything wrong with this chip technically but because of the competitive landscape where Intel's own quad-core chips can be had for the same or lower prices.
  • Meteor2 - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link

    I think the only thing which can be recommended at the moment is not to buy a CPU until Zen is released, in case AMD live up to their hype in performance and price their products competitively (I.e. cheaper than Intel).
  • bananaforscale - Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - link

    And see how Intel reacts. Gimme a 20% price drop on hex cores!
  • Jumangi - Saturday, February 4, 2017 - link

    They would be misleading gamers badly as is this Anandtech review. Their gaming becnhmarks are just woefully out of date its getting embarassing. There are already games that have come out like Farcry 4 that literally won't run if the system doesn't have 4 full cores. Any real gamer is screwing themselves over by trying to skimp on a CPU like this. Any legit tech site would never reccomend less than a 4 core CPU in 2017.
  • Meteor2 - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link

    @nathanandrews hasn't that always been the case? Except, you might not be able to afford an i7, and (as these results show) you're better buying an i5 and a better GPU for gaming.

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