Core i5-2500K vs. Phenom II X4 975 BE CPU Review

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is based on an entire new game engine called Dunia, which is based on DirectX 10 when played under Windows 7 or Windows Vista with a DirectX 10-compatible video card. We used the benchmarking utility that comes with this game, setting video resolution to 1440 x 900, overall image quality to “high” (this  is the lowest possible setting if you want to run this game at DirectX 10), setting all “Performance” options to “low,” disabling both anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, and running the demo “Ranch Long.” The results below are expressed in frames per second.

We ran this game twice with each CPU. First, we used the CPU or chipset integrated graphics. Then we added a GeForce GT 430 video card, which is an entry-level DirectX 11 video card. We used an entry-level video card because we wanted to see the impact each CPU had in the performance achieved (when using high-end video cards, the CPU role in gaming performance is reduced).

Let’s compare the results of the CPU and chipset integrated graphics first. The integrated graphics processor of the Core i5-2500K (3.30 GHz) proved to be 90% faster than the one embedded in the Core i5-661 (3.33 GHz). It was 75-76% faster than the one used  in the AMD 880G chipset. However, don’t keep high expectations, because you won’t be able to play Far Cry 2 with any integrated video solution.

When we installed a GeForce GT 430, all four CPUs achieved the same performance level.