Intel Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000, Mobile Penryn Speed

For our next set of tests, we moved on to some in-game benchmarking with Crysis and F.E.A.R. For testing purposes, with Crysis or F.E.A.R., we drop the screen 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.

In what arguably can be thought of as the most demanding game engine to date, the Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000 CPU shows it has just as much fight in it, if not more than our dual-core desktop CPUs.  The 2.8GHz stock speed X9000 numbers clock in right next to the 3GHz Core 2 Duo chip and far ahead of the tri-core Phenom.  At 3.2GHz, this 478-pin mobile chip toasts the 3GHz desktop chip by a solid 20% margin.

F.E.A.R., on the other hand is more system memory and bus bandwidth intensive than the Crysis benchmark.  This time around the X9000 Core 2 Duo mobile chip drops back to line up more within its clock speed envelope.  With an FSB of 800MHz, its additional L2 cache doesn't offer much more in terms of performance offset.  Regardless, especially when you consider its power consumption advantages and 35 Watt TDP, gaming-wise, the Core 2 Extreme Mobile X9000 lives up to its nameplate and then some.