SimHQ.com - Technology Zone - Review: Falcon 4.0: Allied Force - Part 5

Whereas most 3D game benchmarking has clearly shown AMD's Athlon 64 processors consistently outperforming Intel's P4 line, especially in the last year when the Prescott core applied the heat brakes to Intel's traditional reliance upon higher clock speeds for greater performance, the Falcon 4: Allied Force testing conducted for this article belies that pattern with the P4 3.73GHz Extreme Edition giving very similar scores to those of FX-55. The retail, boxed Intel single-core, however, currently sells for roughly $200 more than the FX-55, so the AMD part still remains the better buy insofar as Allied Force alone is concerned. For those with lighter wallets, though, the Athlon 64 3800+ showed that good performance can be had for significantly less outlay of cash. Yet for the ultimate performance for Allied Force, and for those considering the updated Falcon 4 as one more reason to go high-end dual core, there's no competition in this section of the processor market; while the P4 840 Extreme Edition can be found for slightly less than the X2 4800+, the latter unquestionably rules the roost in not just Allied Force but every measurable performance area. While hyper-threading might still be a boon to Intel's single-core performance in Allied Force, the 840's meager 3.2GHz just isn't able to overcome its architectural limitations compared to AMD's X2 design, leaving the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ as the undeniable holder of the dual core speed trophy.

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What's been your experience Falcon 4.0: Allied Forces multiplayer? View the results of our poll here.

Have you read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of our Falcon 4.0: Allied Force Review Series?

Read our Interview with Lead Pursuit's Executive Producer, Joel Bierling here.

Frank "BA_Dart" Giger's parody on Part 1 is here.

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