CrossFireX and the Phenom II X4 940 – Competitive or Not?
by Gary Key on February 2, 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 platforms. When comparing the Q9550 to the Phenom II 940 at 1680x1050 it holds a 7% average frame rate advantage in single card mode, 5% in Crossfire, and 20% in the overclocked settings even though the Q9550 only has a 7% clock speed advantage. Minimum frame rates for the Phenom II remain very competitive against the Q9550 until the processors are overclocked, but a 101fps minimum is still outstanding. The i7 continues to dominate the other two solutions in benchmark results.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 15% and minimum frame rates by 18% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 13% in average frame rates and 30% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 16% and minimum rates increase 31%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 17%~34% average improvement in average frame rates with the Core i7 benefiting the most.
No surprises here; the 1920x1200 results follow the pattern set at 1680x1050. All three solutions bunch together in the single card results and then spread out as we introduce CrossFire and overclocking into our equation. The Q9550 holds a 10% advantage over the Phenom II in CrossFire and 26% when overclocked. Minimum frame rates continue to be very good for the Phenom II in single card and CrossFire operation.
The Q9550 scores slightly better than the i7 in the single card and CrossFire mode as its 6% advantage in clock speeds (or perhaps the larger L2 cache) comes into play as we start to become more GPU limited at this resolution. The Phenom II has a 6% clock speed advantage over the Q9550 and a 12% advantage over the i7 that leads us to believe platform efficiency is a problem or the game engine optimizations favor Intel. We believe it is a combination of both.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 13% and minimum frame rates by 42% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 24% in average frame rates and 40% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 24% and minimum rates increase 48%. Overclocking our processors resulted in a 16%~34% average improvement in average frame rates with the Core i7 benefiting the greatest.
Our game play experiences revealed no differences between the three platforms. Although the frame rates were lower with the Phenom II, it just did not matter in this game as minimum frame rates were at 60fps or higher in our tests.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
You might want to read the article a bit more carefully. From the test setup page: "Our decision to go with a 790FX/SB750 combination on the AMD side is strictly based upon performance. The 790FX is about 3%~5% faster on average than comparable 790GX products. AMD continues to recommend the 790GX/SB750 as the platform of choice for the AM2+ and upcoming AM3 products. We disagree from a performance viewpoint; the 790FX/SB750 combination is simply the best choice in our opinion. Of course you will typically pay about $35~$40 or greater for the 790FX boards, but if you intend on running CrossFireX, we think it is worth the additional cost."You *can* find less expensive motherboards, but what will the *overall* experience with those board be? I for one would take a better motherboard with a less expensive processor every time over a faster default CPU clock and a cheaper motherboard. The motherboard is just too critical a component to ever warrant skimping in my book. YMMV, naturally.
side09 - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Should the fusion program that runs faster maybe be put into the calculations for AMD?CPUGuy - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Wow, I nearly forgot about that. I didn't see that mentioned as well. Fusion 1.0 is out and should be used in any and all AMD based benchmark reviews IMO.kuyaglen - Sunday, February 1, 2009 - link
2XAA ?Finally - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Seriously, who cares for Crossfire (or SLI)?Please. Stop making those useless enthusiast's enthusiast reviews and come back to the ground, AnandTech.
Please, go ahead, check the Steam survey hardware list.
Then tell me: How many people out of 100 do have SLI/Crossfire.
Then laugh.
Then stop testing this shit like it was important.
And here my suggestions for constructive improvement:
Test the new generation of HDDs with 500GB platters (e.g. Seagate 7200.12 series)
THAT would be interesting, because EVERYONE needs a good HDD, but no one needs Crossfire.
Finally - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
lies buried in the single-GPU results included in these benchmarks.No difference. No difference at all! (and I count 1-2 fps as no difference).
But those aren't usually shown, because CPUs get tested under highly artificial conditions... to show their advantage... IN THEORY.
In real life gaming performance it makes no difference, if you just intend to play with your quad-core... this is the real interesting result that could justify this article, nothing else.
Finally - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
...that CF/SLI sucks. Anytime. Big time.It never made sense, it will never make sense.
The time, you come back and drop in another card of the same class, there is a new generation available that easily tops your grandmother-CF/SLI and furthermore adds even DirectX 11 support and a plethora of other features into the deal...
2 GPUs+ is a failed strategy - unless you are some scientist... working on a super computer... actually trying to achieve something... other than that it's highly efficient money-burning 2.0
darkvader75 - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
It seems you are abit confused. The "Steam" hardware survey runs when Steam launches. SLI and Crossfire are not active on the desktop so Steam says "no crossfire or SLI detected." More people have SLI or Crossfire by a longshot then what you are seeing by a detection program that is failing miserably. Go pull Futuremarks independant ID results list if you would like to see SLI and Crossfire #'s. Also tons of people playing counterstrike source years later don't exactly count as the bulk of the comunity. This is a high tech cutting edge website for new data and information about computer electronics. If you want babyville information about basic garbage then you need to visit Znet.SirKronan - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
"Seriosly, who cares for Crossfire (or SLI)?Holy smokes, man. Get out of here. You can get a P45 board for $100, overclock the crap out of a Core 2 duo/quad, a couple of 4850's for $300 and you've got a SERIOUS amount of gaming power. I was an early adopter of the Asus P5Q Pro with a 4850 to go with it. I've since switched, but while I had it, a second 4850 would've been a fantastic upgrade path. You can take two 4850's and an economical P45 motherboard and give the more expensive GTX 280/285 a run for the money, even winning in many games. 2x4850 is the "common man's" multi-GPU setup, and many many have been very successful with such a platform, without paying through the nose. When the 8800GT came out, and nVidia substantially improved SLI, the consumer was in a similar situation.
And look at all the moderately-priced, AMD boards that will take AMD's new cost effective X2's and X3's?? I think this review applies to A LOT OF customers. How many people out there have a P45 board? How many people out there have a crossfire capable AMD board?? And out of those, how many have a 4850?
Well, now you know what you'll get for an upgrade path. Now you have a realistic preview of performance gains if you add a second 4850 some day. In some games, the benefits are great, and it will be worth your while. Now you know how the new Phenoms compare if you have a compatible AMD motherboard, or were considering one.
Thanks, Anand for giving such consumers the heads up. Very useful article.
Gazz - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
I agree that was a great reviewI am running a 3.2ghz x2 duel core on a MSI K9A2 platinum with 4gb of ocz 1055 and I have just installed my second His 4850 1gb of mem
graphics card
eventualy I hope to up my ram to 8 gb install vista or the win 7
and go to a 4 core cpu and a new pcu
my motherboard can hold 4 graphics cards
I still have not seen any tests with all AMD/ATI products on a vista win with that OC tool and with 4x 4850 1 gbmem
oh well all fun and games great article thankyou