CrossFireX and the Phenom II X4 940 – Competitive or Not?
by Gary Key on February 2, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Race Driver: GRID
The more serious racing fans on the staff tend to end up at iRacing.com or playing a modified version of Grand Prix Legends for our racing simulation fix. However, there comes a time to throw out physics and just have some fun. In that case, GRID is the game we play. We turn up all the options, set AA to 2x, and let the rubber burn in a Race Day event. Our results are captured via FRAPS.
At 1680x1050 in single card mode, we are GPU limited. All three platforms have close scores, but the Phenom II 940 does get a win here. The Phenom II leads the Q9550 by 4% in CrossFire average frame rates and 7% in minimum frame rates. The tables are reversed once we overclock the processors as the Q9550 has a 5% advantage in average frame rates and 6% in minimum frame rates, both close to the 7% clock speed advantage for the Q9550. The i7 runs like a Ferrari once we introduce CrossFire and overclocking into the benchmarks as it easily surpasses the other two platforms.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 21% and minimum frame rates by 25% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 19% in average frame rates and 25% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 42% and minimum rates increase 44%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 18%~30% average improvement in average frame rates with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
Turning the resolution up to 1920x1200 has us playing the same old record. The results follow the pattern set at 1680x1050. The Phenom II scores another win here in single card and CrossFire mode over the Q9550. The Core i7 continues to dominate the benchmarks although the Phenom II continues to make a very good showing in minimum frame rates.
Adding a second card for CrossFire operation improves average frame rates by 9% and minimum frame rates by 14% for the Phenom II. The Intel Q9550 has an improvement of 5% in average frame rates and 5% in minimum frame rates. The Core i7 average frame rates improve by 30% and minimum rates increase 33%. Overclocking our processors resulted in an 18%~32% average improvement in frame rates for our collective group with the Q9550 benefiting the most.
Once again, our game play experience indicates there is no difference between the three platforms at our settings. Although frame rates were higher with the i7 in CrossFire mode, there was no appreciable difference in game play quality.
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Joe Schmoe - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
This was a very good article. I'm not quite ready to build a new system just yet. But it is tax return season. I'm glad the Phenom II is competitive. We all win when AMD puts out a nice chip. I was about to jump on the I7 band wagon but decided to just grab a q6600 and save my coins for now. Hopefully this will end some of the endless flame wars going on through the forums.
Aquineas - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
First of all, thanks for the hard work you put into testing. Many folks are getting hung up on 5-10 percent performance differences and making a big deal out of it . I think the most important part of the article is the part where it says, repeatedly (paraphrased):"We couldn't perceive a difference in gaming performance between platforms."
That being said, I think 18 months from now we'll see more games where the CPU differential matters more, which is right around the time I'll be doing my next system build.
myterrybear - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
I agree with this as well, great job on the article & shows the point as I have ALWAYS said, when it comes down to it would ya even notice the diffrence between the 2 if you had just sat down on it & started to do stuff on it ??Yeah exactly 6 or 8 gig ram on Phenom II would be interesting, I know I've found 4 gigs on Phenom I to be very nice now that I am running a full 64bit os ( win 7 beta) on a oc to 3 ghz Phenom 9850 be. I'm just awaiting to see how things will be once I get my Phenom II 940 any second now. :)
myterrybear - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
My thing that I am noticing with all these tests of core i7 vs phenom II is the fact the systems are not even ramwise. I mean what would a core i7 run like with 4 gigs of ram or if the phenom II platform had 6 gigs of ram.it's a valid argument I think.
Aquineas - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Honestly, it probably wouldn't matter much. If I were the author I'd re-run the test with 8GB on the PII, but it's probably less than a 2 percent differential.BlueBlazer - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Love to see Intel and AMD in SLI numbers!ThePooBurner - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Am i the only one that noticed that the results for the PhenomII were just about identical between resolutions? There should have been some form of difference unless the AMD platform is being artificially hard-capped for some reason. Otherwise that the frame rates would be identical when upping the resolution makes no sense at all. I suggest looking into it further.ThePooBurner - Monday, February 2, 2009 - link
Err, Crysis Warhead is what i meant by FarCray2.7Enigma - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
This is a perfect example of why the full data is so incredibly important in teasing out the details.Yes if you look at the graphs they show a very close clustering for the single card, CF, and overclocked CF, but if you look to the right of the names you will see the min and more importantly max will scale with upgraded components. Not to the same level as one would like but there appears to be some really REALLY rough sections as the min frame rate is almost identical across the board (look at single vs. CF you see the same frame rate). That is probably due to some driver issue where both cards are not being utilized and the single card is not optimized well either.
ThePooBurner - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
I think you are missing my point. When going to a higher resolution it is expect that the frame rates for a card will change. Both the min and the max as well as the average. In almost every single game tested the values for the ATi cards at all resolutions are nearly identical. This smells very fishy to me and makes me think there is some sort of artificial limit being placed on the ATi hardware.