Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965: Not Just A Speed Bump
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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The playing field levels a bit with the resolution cranked up in Half Life 2. This time around, the Athlons were still faster than anything from the Intel camp, but their margins of victory were only about 6 and 15 frames per second.
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With Quake 4 running at a higher resolution with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled, the GeForce 7800 GTX we used for testing became the bottleneck, and all of the systems tested post a nearly identical framerate. It's interesting to see that, while small, the Intel systems did end up with a slight advantage here.
