Phenom II X3 720BE & CrossFire X Performance - Does it Compete?
by Gary Key on March 28, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
The oldest title in our test suite is still the most played. CoH has aged like fine wine and we still find it to be one of the best RTS games on the market. We look forward to the Tales of Valor standalone expansion in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we crank all the options up to their highest settings, enable AA at 2x, and run the game under DX9. The DX10 patch offers some improved visuals but with a premium penalty in frame rates. We track a custom replay of Able Company’s assault at Omaha Beach with FRAPS and average three test runs for our results.
Single card scores at 1680x1050 are fairly close between each platform. In this particular game, the Phenom II X4 940 offers slight better performance than the X3 720BE in the single card and CrossFire results with a 1% advantage thanks to a higher clock speed. When overclocked the 720BE finishes ahead ever so slightly but within our margin of error on the benchmark. Installing a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 42% and minimum frame rates by 43% for the X3 720BE. Overclocking the 720BE resulted in a 9% improvement in average frame rates and 5% in minimum frame rates, indicating we are largely GPU limited at this point.
In our previous testing with the 8.12 drivers, the Intel systems would generate minimum frame rates in the 23~24fps range on a couple of runs and then jump to their current results or higher on the others. Guess what, we still noticed that problem with the 9.3 drivers. However, the hitch and pausing we encountered previously was mitigated somewhat in our new tests. It was only in intensive ground scenes with numerous units that we really noticed the problem and it was primarily with the Q9550 platform. Both Phenom II systems had extremely stable frame rates along with very fluid game play during the heavy action sequences.
The Phenom II X4 940 leads the group at 1920x1200 with a single card. The X4 940 is 4% faster in average frame rates in single card mode and 2% faster than the 720BE in CrossFire. The X4 940 has a 8% advantage in minimum frame rates in single card results and 7% in CrossFire. When overclocked, both Phenoms are equal for all intent purposes. Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 57% and minimum frame rates by 62% for the 720BE. Overclocking the 720BE only improved frame rates 5% as we continue to be GPU bound at this resolution.
What about the game play experience? As we mentioned earlier, the Intel Q9550 platform had some problems with minimum frame rates throughout testing - not just in the benchmarks, but also during game play in various levels and online. The i7 platform would behave in the same manner at times, but the game play experience with it has certainly improved with the 9.3 driver set and BIOS upgrades. The problem is very likely driver related in some manner (as the man who helped to start DirectX once put it, "the drivers are always broken"), but nevertheless this continues to be a problem on the two Intel platforms.
We could not discern any differences between the X3 720BE and the X4 940 during game play. Actually, how could we, the frame rates were basically even in all situations. Even the slight gap in minimum frame rate differences between the two processors did not create any problems during our gaming sessions.
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strikeback03 - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
What is the need for a 9400M in a carPC? How much GPU does it take to run a front end?tshen83 - Sunday, March 29, 2009 - link
If you haven't figured out by now, both Intel and AMD flush higher TDP CPU parts down the consumer's throats, and save the really good CPUs(performance per watt) for the data centers in the 2P space.My original post was meant to tell Gary Key, the author, that his "paid" assertion that "Phenom is competitive as a gaming platform" is flawed, because all gaming benchmarks are GPU bound. It means CPU can be a lot weaker before it will show up on the FPS charts.
There is no reason to save 30 dollars to get the X3 at all because the X4 is just a dinner bill away from the X3. Have some mac and cheese for dinner and you would have had enough money to get the Phenom x4 920.(Not that it is a smart choice at 125W TDP, but surely beats the X3 by far.)
There are actually far better AMD CPUs to get than the Phenoms. AMD Shanghai 2376s are at the same price now, and allows scalability to 2 Socket and takes only 75W TDP also. Tyan S2912G2NR board is 60 dollars at newegg to support two Shanghais. Phenom x4 is the CPU that didn't make the "Shanghai" grade, and got flushed down to unsuspecting consumers. x3 is a castrated x4. You get the point.
BTW, i7 920 will get far better longevity as a platform than any AMD processor right now. Nehalem-EP would likely bankrupt AMD for good this time(In fact AMD is already broke a few times if it wasn't selling blood to the Dubai oil suckers) Your argument that Phenom IIs will outlast Socket 775 is correct, except in the case of AMD going belly up, then, you are stuck with a 125W TDP heater that's half the speed of the i7-920.
Good luck, I am taking off for the day. Get ready for tomorrow, when Nehalem-EP will be revealed, and it will put AMD out of its pathetic misery.
moriz - Sunday, March 29, 2009 - link
some bold assertions. care to prove any of those?out of the three tech giants (Intel, nVIDIA, AMD), AMD currently has the best platform: only AMD can deliver the complete package using only their products. this will be a pretty big advantage down the road, and i think Intel and nVIDIA both know this.
therefore, AMD is not going away.
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
Don't feed the TROLLS.tshen83 - Monday, March 30, 2009 - link
Only AMD can deliver the complete "CRAP" package to idiots pretty much. Let's see, the CPUs aren't as good as the Nehalems. The GPUs get their butts kicked in GPGPU modes. It takes AMD's 800 Stream processors to fight Nvidia's 240. Talk about freaking copy and paste engineering.In the enterprise market, IT managers will soon realize that the glorious AMD days(HP DL585) are gone, and 8 Socket Nehalem-EX will be a 128 thread monster with 1-2TB of ram(128 FB-DIMMs), killing off Itanium(HP Superdome) along the way.
"AMD is not going away". Really? I have AMD's tombstone marked June 2010, with Hector Ruiz's name on it too. The Global Foundry spinoff dollars won't even last them 3 months.
Hacp - Sunday, March 29, 2009 - link
Does the Opteron have unlocked multipliers? I'm thinking no!Repr - Sunday, March 29, 2009 - link
so far the E8x00 series have been the most wanted choice for gaming machines (in the netherlands at least). however after checking a few price comparison sides i found out that the x3 720 is cheaper then the E8400. i would wonder how the tripple core would fight up against the intel dual core.hansmuff - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Thanks for the article.I do have a request: for those games where you use timedemos or other recorded input files, would you be willing to link to them in the article?
It'd be nice to compare one's own machine to those benchmarked.
Thank you!
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
My guess is they want to keep them closed so "optimizations" don't take place that would give an unfair advantage to one side or the other.Roland00 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
This article was near perfect in what I am looking for in a price for your buck comparison. Showing the difference between cpus at different frequencies, with/without cross fire, and showing the minimum frame rate in an easy to read manner. To top it all off you had real analysis in the text.Well I am glad to know the X3 PhenomIIs are comparable with gaming, with a nice oc and sometimes needing Crossfire.
Then again at the price an X4 PhenomIIs are you may just want to get an X4 PhenomII
Currently newegg has the x4 920 at 164. It has a promo code for 30 dollars ( AMD32530 ). Making the cpu $134 with free shipping and most places no tax.