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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Hrel - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Great Article, good stuff to know. However, in the future, when you're doing a CPU article I'd appreciate it if you'd include results for the E8400 Core 2 Duo; as that was the processor to get for some time. I'm sure I'm not the only one that put that CPU in just about every computer built for some time. It'd be nice to see how it stacks up to the newer CPU's.On another note; it'd be nice if you could include performance results for the 8800GT/9800GT in future GPU articles; as that WAS the GPU to get for so long. I'm sure there are tons of people out there that still have that GPU running in their systems. No matter what the point of the article is or what level of intensity you're putting the cards through; it's always nice to have something to go off of to compare what you have now; to what's just coming out.
7Enigma - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
My gaming computer I built back in January uses the E8500 as at the time it was for me the best bang for the buck. I have it OC'd to 3.85GHz on stock voltage, with tremendous headroom if I ever decide to up the voltage (Xigmatek 120mm rifle cpu cooler). If I was building today I would probably go with the AMD X3, but for my gaming (currently on 19" LCD with plans to go to 24" probably in the next 2 years), the E8500 has more than enough grunt.atlmann10 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
The percentage of people who actually use a computer to it's abilities today is so minimal its almost self defeating. This percentage on this boards and most hardware discussion boards would be a good bit different. But, when you average that to the computer users in the US that is unremarkable at any percentage level. Do not get mad at me; because, I am not talking at least specifically, on the large part of people on here. Software development much less released product is so far behind the hardware market it is also unremarkable. Yes maybe somewhere between 3-10% of high end newly releases games put a computer to a decent percentage of usage but that percentage is unremarkable at best. Next month AMD releases the rest of the Phenom 2's and in September INTEL releases it's newest processors to make this even more so. I think when I upgrade (probably the middle of this summer (Julyish), I will most likely go for the 920. But the arguments especially some of the more ridiculous in this exact forum are childish, and I imagine that super harsh comment was posted by a 13 year old. At least I would hope so, if not you (that commenter specifically) need to truly evaluate you mental sense of operation. For childish comments like that you need to go to the Nickelodeon website, if they have a discussion of this type of equipment. Anyway; the main point of my post is this, Software developers need to get off there A77, and make some products that use the hardware to at least a 50% level more than 5% of the time.Beno - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
this just shows that those games arent written for quad core processors.Summer - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
The article did a good job concluding that one can build a good gaming machine without spending too much. Emphasizing on real game performance is a plus especially to the average consumer who just wants a decent system to play today's popular games. Hopefully the average anandtech reader won't think too much about the article and turn it into another AMD versus INTEL e-penis thread.SIDENOTE: I'll definitely be looking forward to the Northbridge article.
nubie - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
What about performance of the x2 7750 that you can buy on ebay for $49 (free shipping) and Newegg for ~$65 (+tax and shipping)?I haven't even seen a review of this processor that I can remember, is it Phenom I or II? Is it built from a quad-core die like the x3?
They seem to overclock well, would they do for a real budget gaming system, say ~$300-400 for the entire system including a HD4xxx or 9800 series card?
I appreciate your "mainstream" bias, but some people have no money and just want to run the games or keep their system usable without laying out more than $100 for an upgrade.
Roland00 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
The x2 7750 is a Phenom 1 chip with two cores disabled. I haven't seen reviews here but there have been several reviews at other sites. It is comparable at stock to an e5200 from intel (the x2 7750 is barely faster, but not by much.)Once you start OC either chip the e5200 is a better chip for it has far more OC headroom. In addition the e5200 is comparable in price to the x2 7750.
Eventually we are going to get Phenom II dual cores but that is going to be several months from now.
nubie - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Yeah, I found an e5200 for $59 on ebay, as soon as I can get my P6N RMA'd by MSI to support 45nm processors I am going to try for 4Ghz (my Scythe Infinity should be up to the task ;) )If AMD and DFI hadn't dropped support for my Infinity-AM2 I might have stayed with AMD.
Thanks for the info on the Phenom 'x2'. I wonder when we will get a Phenom II tech processor for under $100 (preferably closer to $50).
iamezza - Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - link
The x2 7750 actually does really well in gaming benchmarks compared to the e5200, but gives up a bit in application performance.It uses a lot more power than the intel chips though and has less overclocking headroom.
It does have a potentially better upgrade path with the AM2+ socket being able to accept future AM3 CPUs from AMD whereas the intel socket 775 won't be getting any new CPUs for it.
buzznut - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
So I didn't see too many comments that were actually about the article, go figure.I think its awesome that someone is writing articles that are for "the rest of us", people who cannot afford the latest and greatest and have to make compromises to build themselves a new system. Or don't receive products to test and so are able to build the most ridiculous, benchmark busting, $4000, top of the top end behemoth.
If I had seen this article a month ago, I might not have bought the PII X4 940 and yet I am still glad I did. I do alot more than just gaming on my pc.
I would find it even more interesting to take the intel processors and clock them to 3.8ghz (or same speed as the AMD proc.) and run the same battery of tests; yes I know that is not the point of this article.
And I see why you would want to see the max performance available from each chip.
About a year ago or even as recent as 6 months ago, everyone was saying what a stupid move it was for AMD to acquire ATI and basically counting AMD out as far as competing ever again. Right now, AMD doesn't look too stupid to me. Seems to me they are doing quite well with developing the "platform" as their strategy for getting their share of the market.
Look at the way Nvidia and Intel are fighting right now. I think AMD has the right idea and are moving in a sound direction. I think they have compelling products, certainly from a budget pc users standpoint. I know others will not agree, judging from AMD's bottom line in the recent past and even currently, but they appear to be moving in a positive direction.
I think AMD's graphics division is firing on all cylinders now.And as "bad" as the original Phenom was, the have become competitive again with Phenom 2. I am pretty impressed with the turn around.