Review: Core™ 2 the Extreme: Intel Retakes the Field

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Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2004 was configured with high settings enabled across its four display panels, with the max texture slider set at full and hardware lights at four. SimHQ's demo is a short dusk flight over Hong Kong city.

FS2004 again shows an amazing performance delta among the tested processors, with the E6700 outscoring the FX-62 by 40% and the X6800 by 50% at the lowest resolution. Configured with high settings in the various display panels, FS2004 sees this large margin largely vanish at 1600x1200 as the title's performance becomes more dependent upon the installed graphics board. And despite its clock frequency advantage over the two Core 2 processors, the 955 against trails far behind Intel's new parts.

Lock On: Flaming Cliffs was tested using the "SU-25T vs. two A-10" replay with the in-game options at a combination of high and medium settings (heat bluring off).

Flaming Cliffs continues the pattern of Intel's Core 2 parts dominating, though the performance scores are much closer than with the titles previously discussed. The X6800 outperformed the FX-62 by roughly 20% across all tested resolutions since Flaming Cliffs sees a smaller change in its reported frame rate with resolution scaling compared to most other titles. Likewise, the E6700 also outscores the FX-62 in a similar pattern, though at just a few frames slower than the Extreme part at each resolution; the higher clock frequency of the X6800 (2.93 GHz) showed very little impact compared to the E6700's 2.67 GHz clock speed. And the 955 was outperformed by 50% by the Core 2 parts and by roughly 20% by the FX-62.

rFactor was tested with a custom demo recorded on the Sardian Heights race track. The DX9 shader profile was selected for all tests.

rFactor displayed a pattern rather similar to that of Flaming Cliffs, with the two Core 2 processors producing almost identical scores at each tested resolution despite the differences in clock speed. The FX-62 trails behind both Core 2 parts by roughly 15%, a noteworthy, yet smaller, performance delta than what the earlier simulations displayed. And, last, the 955 naturally brought up the rear, producing only 2/3rd the frame rate of Intel's new design and falling behind the Athlon 64 by a solid 25-40% at various resolutions.

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