CrossFireX and the Phenom II X4 940 – Competitive or Not?
by Gary Key on February 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Race Driver: GRID
The more serious racing fans on the staff tend to end up at iRacing.com or playing a modified version of Grand Prix Legends for our racing simulation fix. However, there comes a time to throw out physics and just have some fun. In that case, GRID is the game we play. We turn up all the options, set AA to 2x, and let the rubber burn in a Race Day event. Our results are captured via FRAPS.
At 1680x1050 in single card mode, we are GPU limited. All three platforms have close scores, but the Phenom II 940 does get a win here. The Phenom II leads the Q9550 by 4% in CrossFire average frame rates and 7% in minimum frame rates. The tables are reversed once we overclock the processors as the Q9550 has a 5% advantage in average frame rates and 6% in minimum frame rates, both close to the 7% clock speed advantage for the Q9550. The i7 runs like a Ferrari once we introduce CrossFire and overclocking into the benchmarks as it easily surpasses the other two platforms.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 21% and minimum frame rates by 25% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 19% in average frame rates and 25% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 42% and minimum rates increase 44%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 18%~30% average improvement in average frame rates with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
Turning the resolution up to 1920x1200 has us playing the same old record. The results follow the pattern set at 1680x1050. The Phenom II scores another win here in single card and CrossFire mode over the Q9550. The Core i7 continues to dominate the benchmarks although the Phenom II continues to make a very good showing in minimum frame rates.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 9% and minimum frame rates by 14% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 5% in average frame rates and 5% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 30% and minimum rates increase 33%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 18%~32% average improvement in frame rates for our collective group with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
Once again, our game play experience indicates there is no difference between the three platforms at our settings. Although frame rates were higher with the i7 in CrossFire mode, there was no appreciable difference in game play quality.
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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 XDi 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!