Fallout 3


We have played this game numerous times and still have not visited every location on the map or completed all seventy or so side-quests. It could be that the game’s ambiance does not seem to match its predecessors. Alternatively, maybe some of the bugs present that result in NPC characters disappearing have us longing to play Oblivion or KOTR again. Even so, we still love the game. We have moved on to playing the new content pack, Operation: Anchorage, until Dragon Age: Origins ships.

The game engine is based on the one utilized in Oblivion with a few updates, so performance is similar. We set the quality settings to Ultra, AA to 2x, and AF to 8x. Our test consists of following a path back to Megaton and in the process fighting off a couple of Raiders. We utilize FRAPS to capture our results.

Fallout 3 - AT Benchmark

Truthfully, this game does not benchmark well. The game’s level-of-detail mechanism makes constant changes as you cross the map. The LOD adjustments create a seesaw effect in the frame rates and it is difficult to tell if the sudden pause or shudder in frame rates is from the video card or the game engine. That said, the Intel i7 platform simply performs best in this game.

Once again, in our single card testing at 1680x1050 each setup is very close with the Intel Q9550 holding a 4% advantage in average frame rates over the Phenom II 940. The Phenom II posts slightly better minimum frame rates once again. In CrossFire testing the Q9550 holds a small 1% advantage, close to our error of margin. The Q9550 picks up some steam when overclocked and holds an 8% advantage over the Phenom II 940 in average frame rates and 13% in minimum frame rates with a 7% clock speed advantage. The i7 leads our two competitors in overclocked CrossFire performance by 6% and 13% respectfully.

Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 4% and minimum frame rates stay the same for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 2% in average frame rates and 11% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 3% and minimum rates decrease by 7%. Overclocking our processors resulted in a 14%~19% improvement in average frame rates with the Q9550 benefiting the most.

Fallout 3 - AT Benchmark

The 1920x1200 results are similar with the Q9550 and Phenom II 940 scoring nearly the same in single card and CrossFire. We just do not see any real benefits in having CrossFire at stock speeds with the Q9550 or Phenom II 940. Once we overclocked each processor, we noticed an 11% increase in CrossFire performance on these two platforms. The Q9550 holds a slight advantage in minimum frame rates with CrossFire when overclocked while the Phenom II 940 leads at stock clock speeds.

Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 4% and minimum frame rates by 15% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of less than 1% in average frame rates and no changes in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 6% and minimum rates increase 5%. Overclocking our processors resulted in a 12%~17% improvement in average frame rates with the Core i7 benefiting the most.

Our Core i7 scores better with a single card setup than the other two platforms with CrossFire. The same holds true with the stock i7 CrossFire results scoring higher than our two overclocked competitors do. Overclocking the i7 CrossFire setup results in a 17% increase in average frame rates that required a 50% increase in core clock speeds.

As far as game play experiences, we noted no differences between the Intel Q9550 and Phenom II 940 platforms. Each one offered a very good experience with minimum frame rates on each platform being acceptable. The amount of LOD adjustments in the game was disconcerting at times . When we experienced them, the game stutter was minimized on the i7 setup compared to the other two platforms with CrossFire enabled. All three platforms responded in the same manner with a single card setup. Overall, we would not recommend CrossFire for this game at present; even overclocking the processors resulted in a minimum improvement in frame rates.

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  • jrch2k8 - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    first of all, nice article. i mention it cuz im upgrading my pc this month and this article make my choice clear XD

    i will go for a AMD plataform, my god nice move from these guyz, i think p2 is the best price/performance cpu around (maybe ill wait for p2 925 for ddr3).cuz i7 is a really expensive upgrade.

    i went to new egg and add to my cart 1 cpu, ram, and 2 radeon hd 4850 using mid range components nothing top notch

    intel i920 6gb ddr3 tc roughly 1108$ :(
    intel 1940 "" "" roughly 1350$ :( :(
    amd p2 920 4 gb ddr2 dc nice 673$
    amd p2 940 "" " " nice nice 713$
    amd p2 940 "" "" 4870 CF 800$ XD

    that is a hugeeeee money diff for a 30% perf diff at most and with that extra bucks put a nice air cooling and OC so ... and you dont need to worry too much in near future like with intel and their insane socket change every 2 weeks (i know 775 have been for a while but even if is the same physical socket every mobo/chpset need a specific cpu number so is like changing the socket anyway)

    and with linux and not winbloat vista perf is going to be hell better and winxp in my other hd ofc for some game that doesnt work with wine XD
  • ssj4Gogeta - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    Most mobos support Core 2 Duo, Quad, and Pentium dual core processors (i.e., all core-based processors). So I don't think it is a valid argument.
  • raystormer - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    first of all to me the fx chipset is old compared to the new 790gx /w 750southbridge chipset plus it supports crossfire which u mention the 790fx is suppose to be better,don;t know how u came to that conclusion furthermore something about those scores do'nt seem right...cause i have seen beachmarks with the phenon 2 smoking the i7 920 @3.6...so u trying to tell me that @3.9 it performs slower bull$%#@
  • ssj4Gogeta - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    the i7 was also overclocked. read the article.
  • BLaber - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    What was the Phenom II's North Bridge Uncore part) speed set to when oc to 3.9Ghz in above article.
  • TDMFHK - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=802&...">http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=802&... how the PII is on top in their test (i know other video card etc etc... but how ??????????).Something is fishy with this FarCry2.
  • Goty - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    You really can't compare the two sets of results since the system specs aren't the same.
  • m4dd0g - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    Any chance of seeing how the phenom acts with 6gb RAM like the top intel box? Not sure why you had different memory configs there, I understand its DDR3 v DDR2 but why more of it?
  • Goty - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link

    The i7 supports triple-channel DDR3 while the other processors support dual-channel DDR2, so the normal memory configurations are 3GB or 6GB for the i7 and 2GB or 4GB for the C2Q and PHII.

    Getting 6GB on the PHII system would be a little dumb because you'd have to go with 3x2GB DIMMs (just like the i7 box) and then you wouldn't be able to operate in dual-channel mode.

    I highly doubt the performance difference between 6GB and 4GB of RAM is noticeable anyway.
  • niva - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link

    I've been wondering the same...

    Even more bothersome is that they chose 4gb for the DDR2 system which makes no sense, for an equivalently priced system you can afford 8Gb of RAM on the AMD system easily and gain a significant boost out of the extra RAM. So if any one of these systems should have a disadvantage in RAM it should be the intel system but whatever.

    I'm running an original phenom with 8 gigs, the chip with the errata which I've never seen manifest. I'll buy one of these phenom 2 chips after I get back from my trip to Russia in March though and actually do a slight OC on it as it seems to take it so well.

    Cheers!

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