"We test Intel's Core 2 Duo and Extreme using real-world gaming. Don't let a bunch of canned benchmarks lie to you about gaming performance, real gameplay experience tells a different story. Unless of course you game at 800x600."
Those were the words of Kyle. Now, I completely agree that no one likes to game at 800x600. So here are the 1600x1200 with the key difference: Crossfire setups. No one likes to game with an obsolete graphic card, now, do they?
Don't give me that bullshit that no one can afford to game with SLI. If you can buy an expensive top of the line processor, why not complement your system with top of the line graphics? In other words, why hamper your CPU capabilities because of your GPU? *cough* Kyle *cough*
Our gaming performance analysis starts out with Quake 4 running at 1600 x 1200 with High Quality visual settings. We used version 1.2 of Quake 4 and SMP was enabled:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12587.png
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Our F.E.A.R. test should be fairly familiar by now, as it is the built in performance test included with the game. Computer settings were left at "Maximum" while the graphics settings were set to "High" with the resolution cranked up to 1600 x 1200. F.E.A.R. ends up still being more GPU than CPU bound at these settings, even with a pair of X1900 XTs at its disposal, but we do see some separation among the processors:
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12591.png
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Rise of Legends is a newcomer to our game benchmark suite and what an excellent addition it is. This Real Time Strategy game looks very good and plays well too; it serves as good filler until the next Command & Conquer title eventually arrives for those looking for a RTS fix. We ran with the resolution set to 1600 x 1200 and the graphics settings set to the medium defaults. We recorded a custom playback of a 3 vs. 2 multiplayer battle and played it back at 4x speed, recording the average frame rate for 10 minutes of the battle. The 10 minutes we focused on contained a good mix of light skirmishes between opponents, base/resource management with very few characters on the screen and of course some very large scale battles.
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12593.png
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Oblivion has never been kind to Intel's NetBurst processors, but it loves the new Core 2 processors:
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12589.png
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12590.png[[/CENTER]
[url]http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=13[/url]
[COLOR=LightBlue]Mod Edit: Image tags removed. Please do not hotlink images per:[/COLOR]
[QUOTE] The [H]ard|Forum Rules:
(14) Do not post MATERIAL where you do not have permission to distribute it electronically or otherwise. This includes posting images directly from a website (Bandwidth Theft) Images are to be hosted personally or by a third party host.[/QUOTE]
Those were the words of Kyle. Now, I completely agree that no one likes to game at 800x600. So here are the 1600x1200 with the key difference: Crossfire setups. No one likes to game with an obsolete graphic card, now, do they?
Don't give me that bullshit that no one can afford to game with SLI. If you can buy an expensive top of the line processor, why not complement your system with top of the line graphics? In other words, why hamper your CPU capabilities because of your GPU? *cough* Kyle *cough*
Our gaming performance analysis starts out with Quake 4 running at 1600 x 1200 with High Quality visual settings. We used version 1.2 of Quake 4 and SMP was enabled:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12587.png
-----
Our F.E.A.R. test should be fairly familiar by now, as it is the built in performance test included with the game. Computer settings were left at "Maximum" while the graphics settings were set to "High" with the resolution cranked up to 1600 x 1200. F.E.A.R. ends up still being more GPU than CPU bound at these settings, even with a pair of X1900 XTs at its disposal, but we do see some separation among the processors:
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12591.png
-----
Rise of Legends is a newcomer to our game benchmark suite and what an excellent addition it is. This Real Time Strategy game looks very good and plays well too; it serves as good filler until the next Command & Conquer title eventually arrives for those looking for a RTS fix. We ran with the resolution set to 1600 x 1200 and the graphics settings set to the medium defaults. We recorded a custom playback of a 3 vs. 2 multiplayer battle and played it back at 4x speed, recording the average frame rate for 10 minutes of the battle. The 10 minutes we focused on contained a good mix of light skirmishes between opponents, base/resource management with very few characters on the screen and of course some very large scale battles.
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12593.png
-----
Oblivion has never been kind to Intel's NetBurst processors, but it loves the new Core 2 processors:
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12589.png
[IMG]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/core2duolaunch_07130680720/12590.png[[/CENTER]
[url]http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=13[/url]
[COLOR=LightBlue]Mod Edit: Image tags removed. Please do not hotlink images per:[/COLOR]
[QUOTE] The [H]ard|Forum Rules:
(14) Do not post MATERIAL where you do not have permission to distribute it electronically or otherwise. This includes posting images directly from a website (Bandwidth Theft) Images are to be hosted personally or by a third party host.[/QUOTE]