Alien: Isolation

If first person survival mixed with horror is your sort of thing, then Alien: Isolation, based off of the Alien franchise, should be an interesting title. Developed by The Creative Assembly and released in October 2014, Alien: Isolation has won numerous awards from Game Of The Year to several top 10s/25s and Best Horror titles, ratcheting up over a million sales by February 2015. Alien: Isolation uses a custom built engine which includes dynamic sound effects and should be fully multi-core enabled. We take the average frame rate as our marker with a scripted version of the built-in benchmark.

For this test we used the following settings with our graphics cards:

Alien Isolation Settings
  Resolution Quality
Low GPU Integrated Graphics 1280x720 Ultra
ASUS R7 240 1GB DDR3
Medium GPU MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB 1920x1080 Ultra
MSI R9 285 Gaming 2G
High GPU ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB 1920x1080 Ultra
MSI R9 290X Gaming 4G

Alien Isolation on MSI R9 285 Gaming 2GB ($240)

Alien Isolation on MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB ($245)

Alien Isolation on MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB ($380)

Alien Isolation on ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB ($560)

Alien Isolation in this case favors a higher IPC, and so as a result the Intel processors are quite high on the list. The biggest differences are when using the high-end graphics cards: the R9 290X and the GTX 980, which give a 10-20% increase in favor of the Pentium.

Stock Comparison: Legacy Gaming Comparison: Total War: Attila
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  • Lolimaster - Monday, July 18, 2016 - link

    If they don't put the full 4MB l2 for Bristol Ridge desktop, don't even bother to release it.

    Im actually thinking that they decided to axe BR for desktops and will be focused on Zen FX, survive with FM2+ a bit more for value and then unveil Raven Ridge Zen APU at CES.
  • Visual - Tuesday, July 19, 2016 - link

    The "Pages in this review" links are messed up and lead to one page after what they say.
    In addition, your "remember me" checkbox for login when posting comments remembers nothing.
  • prodikl - Tuesday, July 19, 2016 - link

    Could you guys please add a few more data points in your comparisons, e.g. against an i3, an i7, a celeron, tegra x1 etc. instead of just immediate-neighbor comps? I have no at-a-glance idea of how this stacks up against other CPUs in the grand scheme of things.
  • LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, July 19, 2016 - link

    If I can't get a lower-power desktop variant with the integrated GPU, Carizzo does nothing for me. I'd be happy to swap a Braswell N3700 board that Intel is falling down on with the iGPU drivers (overscan/scalling settings are broken, it's been a year with no fix), but that's what I need to get one of these;; I don't need a desktop unit without a GPU, and I don't need a notebook. I need a media center, and Carizzo would be ideal for it.
  • eek2121 - Tuesday, July 19, 2016 - link

    Nice review on the 1060! Oh wait...
  • jfelano - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link

    Not a gamer, so who cares. AMD continues to smoke Intel at performance per dollar.
  • Xanavi - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link

    Please get rid of Outbrain
  • achamate - Monday, August 22, 2016 - link

    I have no need for Intel CPU, ever, to do everything including heavy applications and games. Maybe benchmarks numbers are not AMD favor, but 99% of users wont see any difference. Save money still on AMD side and I hope stays like that. I do have a laptop with i5, by accident, a very cheap used one but I still use AMD for heavy editing or gaming. If I get a recent generation i7 for free I will sell it, for sure. Again, is probably 99% people out there wont see any difference. Spend your money on video, memory, ssd and hot dogs, thats all. Thanks.
  • h3r3t1k - Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - link

    I'm looking to pair my RX 460 which is PCIe x8 with either the X4 845 or 880K. Should I go for the 845 with this card?
  • wiboonsin - Sunday, November 26, 2017 - link

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