AMD Spider Platform - Phenom, 790FX, RV670

For our last set of game tests, we moved on to some in-game benchmarking with the Crysis SP demo and F.E.A.R. When testing processors with Crysis or F.E.A.R, we drop the resolution to 800x600, and reduce all of the in-game graphical options to their minimum values to isolate CPU and memory performance as much as possible.  However, the in-game effects, which control the level of detail for the games' physics engines and particle systems, are left at their maximum values, since these actually do place some load on the CPU rather than GPU.

Benchmarks with Crysis SP Demo and F.E.A.R. v1.08 DirectX 9 and 10 Gaming Performance

Crysis reported an edge for the Phenom processors over the QuadFX and Athlon 64 X2 4600+ systems, but the higher-clocked 3.2GHz Athlon 64 X2 6400+ was the fastest of the AMD-powered systems by a couple of frames per second.  The Intel-powered systems were in a league of their own, however.  The spread was almost identical in the F.E.A.R. benchmark, but in the F.E.A.R. test the QuadFX rig put up the best score from the AMD camp.  All of the Core 2-based systems finished with much higher framerates, once again.