Far Cry 2, Conclusion
Far Cry 2:
Games can provide a good way of testing a CPU, so long as the graphics card is provided with the lowest possible load, to prevent it becoming a limiting factor, or "bottleneck". Any modern enthusiast card, like the Radeon HD 4890 we're using for testing, will have no trouble with low settings and a resolution of 640x480.
PC game developes have quite a challenging task lately. Coding games to take full advantage of the multiple cores of a modern CPU is a difficult, and Far Cry 2 seems to be no exception. Results for the minimum frame-rate generally follow clock speeds, and again the Athlon II suffers slightly for its lack of Level 3 Cache.
The average frame rates tell a similar story, although not quite the same. The X2 250 pulls out another 15% win over the Athlon II, and the Phenom II X4 810 creeps closer to the X3 720’s performance level.
Looking at the bang-for-buck graph, it's clear that despite its shortcomings in comparison to the Phenom II series, the Athlon does cost the least per frame, or alternatively gets you the most frames for your dollar.
Last but not least, here we have the maximum FPS that each particular CPU could manage. This provides a good indication of which chip is going to push your graphics card the hardest, which is especially important for budget users, who may not have a modern wide-screen LCD. Results tend to follow clock speed, as the X2 550 and X3 720 put up a great show against their more expensive brethren, while the 2.4GHz X3 8750 lags behind.
Conclusion:
For someone on a shoe-string budget, the new Athlon II is certainly not a bad choice. It provides very acceptable performance at stock speeds, with a good chunk of headroom for overclockers. The latest Phenom II provides these features as well, with the added bonuses of an unlocked multiplier and the 6MB of Level 3 Cache that has proven useful. Coupled with the possibility, but no guarantee, of unlocking free cores, it's hard to argue against purchasing it.
For all the benefits that the two new CPUs bring, I still think the X3 720 is the real winner of the entire Phenom II line-up. It keeps pace or even beats the X4 810 for most real-world applications, it has the unlocked multiplier, and you are guaranteed three working cores from the beginning.
Thanks again to AMD Australia for providing samples. The Radeon 4000-series shootout is coming up - if you have any requests for a particular benchmark or test, let me know in the forums.
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