AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Review

Page 10 - Performance: Gaming (3DMark Vantage, Crysis Warhead, World in Conflict)

For the first part of the gaming tests of the AMD Phenom II X4 we picked 3DMark Vantage, Crysis and Crysis Warhead. Although the first of the three is synthetic benchmark, it is still valuable for two reasons. First, this is the only benchmark created out of thin air specifically for DirectX 10 (most DirectX 10 games and applications are actually made with the DirectX 9 framework and merely have additional layer of DirectX 10 effects). Second, Futuremark, the company behind the whole 3DMark series of tests, at this time is developing a game that is based on the engine of Vantage, and a promising game it is expected to be.

Напомняме, at this time we have results only from AMD Phenom II 955 BE and Intel Core 2 Duo E8500, since we were unlucky enough to destroy our Core i7 motherboard in the middle of the tests for this review. We do hope to get a new X58 motherboard soon, so we could determine whether our i7 920 is OK and in shape to finish the gaming tests :) Then will also be the time we'll comment upon gaming results

3DMark Vantage

In the 3DMark Vantage test we recorded the CPU result and the summary result in Performance mode.

CPU tests in Vantage are extremely well optimized for multi-threading and that is clearly seen. With video cards of this caliber the gaming performance is frequently suppressed by the processor. More processor power (measured in cores and frequency) is always welcome and useful.

Crysis Warhead

The Crysis continuation. Crytek claim that a bit more effects are added as well as some engine optimization. HOCBenchare to blame for the easy and systematic result gathering from the game:

World in Conflict

The game is very appropriate for our tests, using DirectX 10 effects, soft particles, HDR smoke, awesome explosions and lighting effects. Because of the uncomfortable ways to test the recorded timedemo in World in Conflict, we used the integrated benchmark that is well known for its CPU dependence. Let's see if that's true: