Even More Phenom II X4 940 Results
Valve BenchmarksValve released two benchmarks to reviewers which directly test multi-core performance and efficiency. The first test is a particle simulation which can utilize all four cores of the processors. Thousands of particles are simulated in a simple 3D environment, which puts the majority of the work on the CPU.
AMD again shows a pretty dramatic improvement, but even the Phenom II 940 cannot match the muscle that the Q9550 seems to bring to the table.
The second test uses a map building simulation which is used in Valve’s Source Engine. It is also multi-threaded, so can take advantage of multi-core parts.
Intel still holds the advantage here, even though it is a slower clocked part. AMD is awfully close though, which is good news for them as a company.
Microsoft ICE 64
This free image stitching program allows users to easily put together a portfolio of pictures that can be presented in a panoramic view. This is also a multi-threaded application which will take advantage of multiple cores.
AMD again has improved its position with the new part, but it still is slower than the Q9550. We are starting to get the picture that the Phenom II 940 is more of a competitor with the Q9400, which clocks in at 2.66 GHz and has half the L2 cache as the 9550. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the Q9400 is in the same price range as the 940.
Crysis
I used the integrated CPU benchmark that came with Crysis. This is a scene that features a lot of physics and not so much rendering power. I set the resolution to 1024×768 with High presets. The scene is run four times, and I take the average result from the last three runs.
The Intel part is significantly faster than what AMD offers in this particular benchmark, but when looking at the splash screen for Crysis we see that Intel had a big hand in optimizing performance for the game (or at least paid a good chunk of money to Crytek to have its processor logo on there).
Euler3D
This simulation models high speed airflow over an airfoil, and is multi-threaded to boot. It is heavily floating point intensive and represents a real-world application which measure performance quite nicely. 20 steps were used with either 1 or 4 threads.
Intel comes out ahead by a long shot in this particular application, and it has always had a strong showing. AMD has significantly improved its position here, and it certainly is no slouch. Still, the Q9550 finishes up significantly faster in single thread mode, but interestingly enough the AMD Phenom II seems to scale better in the multi-threaded test and doesn’t lose by as large a margin.
Windows Media Encoder 64
The final test is that of the freely available Microsft Windows Media Encoder 64. This true 64 bit program again is multi-thread capable, and represents one of the fastest growing uses for personal computers (video encoding and transcoding). I took a 250 MB 1080P WMV file and converted it to a 640 x 480 1 MB vbr file.
In a pleasant change of pace, the Phenom II seems to have edged out the mighty Q9550.
