Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 955 & 975X Express Chipset: 65nm is Here
Hi-Res Gaming: HL2 & Quake 4
We took a different approach for this next batch of in-game benchmarks. In a recent poll of our readers, we found that 1280x1024 is the most popular resolution that our readers use to play their games. So, for this next set of tests we configured Half Life 2 and Quake 4 to run at that resolution with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled, and re-ran our benchmarks.
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Although the framerates are lower, this Half Life 2 benchmark tells basically the same story as the one on the previous page. The Athlon 64 FX-57 was clearly the fastest CPU we tested, followed by the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, and then the Pentium Extreme Edition 955. The 840XE and 3.73GHz XE finished behind the 955.
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When we re-ran our custom Quake 4 benchmark at a higher resolution with anti-aliasing enabled, the test systems were clearly limited by the 256MB GeForce 7800 GTXs we used. The Intel powered systems all posted the same framerate, as did the AMD powered systems. What may be surprising is that this time around, the Intel based systems were technically the "fastest", although only .6 FPS separated them from the AMD based systems. In GPU-bound circumstances, the type of CPU used in the system has a minimal impact on performance in most circumstances.
