IL-2: Sturmovik Forgotten Battles – Aces Expansion Pack was tested in OpenGL and with all video options set to medium (normal for Objects detail) using the Black Death track.
Maddox Games’ title shows the most appreciation for a faster front side bus, giving at 640×480 almost a 15% increase between the 3.4 and 3.46 EEs and almost 7% between the 660 and 3.73. The advantage does lessen slightly as the resolution increases, and the 3.46 commands a noticeable performance lead over the newer parts, again showing that higher frequencies enabled by a deeper pipeline are no guarantee of better performance in all applications.
Far Cry is undoubtedly the most graphically advanced title in SimHQ’s current benchmark suite (though this is likely to change once Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is released). As such, all in-game advanced video options were placed at low-medium settings to hopefully prevent the Radeon X800 XT from bottlenecking the test results. Testing consisted of repeated run-throughs of the Research map in God mode since that particular level includes an excellent combination of the beach, jungle, and interior settings found throughout the game.
As expected Far Cry scales extremely well with graphics processing, and this is born out by the scores generated with the Radeon X800 XT in use. Nevertheless, performance between the processors tested was less than 5%, even at 640×480, with that small delta vanishing at higher resolutions as the game’s frame rate obviously becomes limited by the graphics card. None of the CPUs are truly able to differentiate themselves here.
Call of Duty is based on id Software’s Quake 3 engine, and as such in-game video settings were placed at their highest options since the title hardly stresses the latest high-end graphics boards. Scores were derived from the Dawnville demo using the in-game timedemo utility to capture performance. The “com_maxfps” console command was also used to lift the default frame rate cap of 85.
Call of Duty seems to benefit from the 925XE’s 1066 MHz FSB more than core clock speed, though it’s possible that the frame rates at lower resolutions are limited at a driver level for the graphics card.
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