![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , May 19, 2009
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Real World Gameplay CPU Scaling
Four processors; Intel Core i7 920, Intel Core 2 QX9650, AMD Phenom II X4 810, & AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE. Seven games. REAL WORLD GAMEPLAY at stock clocks and all overclocked to 3.6GHz, head to head, & apples to apples.
Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradise has been an incredibly popular game on consoles. Now, with the PC version: Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box that great driving experience has been brought to the PC, as probably one of the best driving games out there. The graphics are visually appealing in this game, based on DirectX 9 but using features such as HDR, shadows, day/night time change and high resolution textures. We will simply be racing in this game for ten minutes making sure to do stunts, blast through bill boards and just simply play the game like it is meant to be played.
The in-game settings above are common to each CPU. SSAO was disabled so that we could utilize antialiasing, which does not function with SSAO in this game. This game looks better with AA instead of SSAO anyway.
One thing about Burnout Paradise to be aware of up front is that this game has a 60FPS cap. The gameplay framerate is locked at 60FPS and cannot be overcome by disabling VSYNC. Therefore, our Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX configuration will "max out" the game very well at this framerate cap as you will see in each graph.
While focusing on this game might seem a bit of a waste, we think it is almost more important here to show where there are no differences as there are differences in gameplay.
Highest Playable Settings
Default Frequencies
We found this game to perform brilliantly across all our test CPUs. Our Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX configuration is able to accelerate this DX9 game with ease, allowing a high graphics setting. With our CPUs at default frequencies we did not find that any one CPU was able to push the graphics to higher playable settings than the other. We found that 2560x1600 with 8X AA and 16X AF was playable with the highest possible in-game quality settings. We did try 12X and 24X CFAA, but those levels of anti-aliasing were not playable at 2560x1600. All CPUs at default returned realworld gameplay that would be indistinguishable from system to system by most gamers in our opinion.
One aspect of performance that is important to notice, however, is the consistency of framerates on this CrossFireX configuration. Faster CPUs allow a multi-GPU configuration to maintain a more consistent framerate in our testing. You will see this throughout the evaluation, and this game is no exception.
At default frequencies, looking at the graph, you can see that the Intel Core 2 QX9650 actually has the most consistent framerates. All other CPUs have more downward framerate spikes. From a default frequency standpoint the QX9650 has an advantage at default frequencies, and in this game that means a more consistent framerate, albeit imperceptible without graphing the data.
Highest Playable Settings
Overclocked
Overclocking our CPUs to 3.6GHz provided more consistent framerates across the board; however we were not able to raise our in-game settings. We were already playing at the highest possible settings with our CPUs at default frequency. The only room for improvement is the GPU dependent setting of 12X CFAA, which was not playable at 2560x1600 in this game. The overclocked CPUs did smooth out our framerates though as you can see. The AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE suffered from more downward spikes than the rest when overclocked.
Apples to Apples
In our A2A testing we aim to "benchmark" each CPU at the exact same in-game settings. To create a more CPU-dependent test we have disabled AA and are running the game at 2560x1600 with the highest in-game settings.
Intel vs. AMD - Overclocked at 3.6GHz
Quite simply, we are flat lined here with the 60FPS cap in this game. When your minimum and average framerates are nearly the same you know you are going to get a smooth experience.
Intel
All our Intel CPUs at default or overclocked frequencies also provided smooth framerates with no differences in this game.
AMD
Our AMD CPUs showed a bit of difference if you look at this graph compared to the Intel graph above. The AMD Phenom II X4 810 and AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE at default frequencies had a lower minimum framerate than the other CPUs, but at 48 FPS we can hardly say that is slow.