Phenom II X3 720BE & CrossFire X Performance - Does it Compete?
by Gary Key on March 28, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Left 4 Dead
This game is a blast and addictive to boot - provided you like killing hundreds of zombies while trying to take care of your teammates and sustaining high blood pressure rates. What we really like about Source engine games is their ability to run well on variety of systems. We enable all options, set AA to 2x and AF to 8x, and play back a custom timedemo of a complete game session from the Runway chapter within the Dead Air campaign.
This title also favors the Intel processors. When comparing the 720BE to the X4 940 at 1680x1050, the 940 holds a 7% average frame rate advantage in single card mode, 4% in Crossfire, and a surprising 3% in the overclocked settings. We matched our stock 720BE clock and NB speeds with the X4 940 to see if the extra core really makes a difference in this game with the multi-core rendering option enabled. It actually did with the performance improvement averaging about 2% on this particular level.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 17% and minimum frame rates by 8% for the 720BE. Overclocking our 720BE by 35% resulted in a 19% improvement in average frame rates and 26% in minimum frame rates.
No real surprises here; the 1920x1200 results follow the pattern set at 1680x1050 for each platform. The X4 940 holds a 6% average frame rate advantage in single card mode, 7% in Crossfire, and 5% in the overclocked settings. Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 14% and minimum frame rates by 27% for the 720BE. Overclocking the 720BE resulted in a 25% improvement in average frame rates and 21% in minimum frame rates.
Our game play experiences revealed no differences between the three platforms. Although the frame rates were lower with the Phenom II platforms, it just did not matter in this game as minimum frame rates were at 60fps or higher in our tests. The 720BE certainly offers more than enough processing power for this title.
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Griswold - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Hi Bertha!StormyParis - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
do we have any idea of the %age of gamers who actually have an xfire (or nvidia's equivalent) config ? I personnally know of none, and always wonder when I see such a review what use it is...MrSpadge - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
All people that I know who do multi-GPU do it for BOINC or folding.TA152H - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
Does the 9550 have the same issues on the x48? You mentioned that the differences were minor, so I'm guessing they did, but, even a few fps seems relevant there, since that's all the more fluid AMD processors had.just4U - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
I agree with your conclusions about the 720BE. It's a nice compromise for those looking at Dual cores and Quads. It's also at a really reasonable price that competes against the 8400 and maybe to a lesser extent the 7500 which I think is priced to high. For those that want a Quad but might not be able to afford it this is a excellent substitute that's actually cheaper then the other two.. (go figure!)If someone offered me a 8400 or the 720BE for free and said choose I'd take the 720 without even a thought. Hell It's even got a selling point over the 920 in being a black edition with unlocked multi's.
abzillah - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
I have my phenom II 720 overclocked to 3570 Mhz using a Xigmatek cooler. Without the video card and hard drive, I spent $398 plus tax. This is for a gigabyte micro-ATX board, Corsair PSU, Mushkin 1066 DDR2 Ram, Case, Xigmatek CPU cooler and two Xigmatek case fans. Now I am waiting for the 4890 to come out and prospecting some SSDs for a Raid setup.I love how much money I saved that I can now use towards a video card and two SSDs. So far I love the performance on my new PC.
garbageacc3 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
you spent so little because you went with mATX.mATX mobos SUCK more than full ATX
albundy2 - Saturday, March 28, 2009 - link
troll much?i know your dad lost his job and your mother to an american, but would it not be more constructive to seek therapy. we didn't do it.
i know you hurt, would you like a hug? some gummy bears perhaps?
a OO buck load to the forehead?
your off to a great start kid. suicide, please consider it...
garbageacc3 - Sunday, March 29, 2009 - link
fag fuck much?i know you're a teabag loving faggot.
americunts are dumb, fat, and big'o smelly fishy PUSSIES and no one would want to fuck any of you fatties.
i don't want a hug cause your man tits would crush me.
you're already at a crappy end fat 40 yr old virgin fuck. go off yourself. remember, down the street, not across it.
castration, do it.
ap90033 - Wednesday, April 1, 2009 - link
Wow guess Mommy let you use her pc tonight eh?Get a life. No wait please post some other useless comment, I am sure that is your calling in life.