Intel Q9450 vs Phenom 9850 - ATI HD3870 X2

[JumpingJack]

Those games are not that heavy (hard on the hardware) to run (the CoH test is ed up). AMD will not show advantages before Intel L2 cache isn't that advantageous (more demanding threads, more memory will decrease that advantage) able to use its large cache or communication with other hardware is increased. It is impossible to see that just viewing the numbers legion shows.
What that test showed at legion was pretty much the difference L2 (size and speed) cache is doing for whatever run the test was done for. More conclusion apart from that is hard to make. Deneb that will have 6 MB L3 cache will gain some, if the latency is decreased it will gain some more in average FPS.
What was most interesting (just knowing the average FPS) in the legion test was that you will get the same game experience with cheap X2 compared to one expensive C2Q using 4870X2 running those games.

Well, I agree about COH, Intel blows AMD away on those test by >50% clock for clock.... so i don't accept that as representative.

however, every one of those tests are high-res multithreaded games (1900x1200, full AA).... it isn't that it is weak on the software, it's that the 4870 X2 is such a powerful card, at high resolutions and full AA the bottlenecks stay on the CPU... in fact, there is evidence that even the highest end Intel CPU at 3.0 GHz still bottlnecks this card, meaning there is even more performance being held back.

What the legion tests show are exactly what I have been showing in this thread.... and counters your assertion. Intel is currently better at gaming code, single or multithreaded. It also explains, again, why every (and that EVERY) site that evaluated the 4870 X2 used an Intel cpu.... again, to evaluate the competency of a component, you remove the ambiguity of any other bottlenecks by using the fastest support system available.


But it is not L2 cache that is doing this.... Intel has far superior branch prediction, and gaming code is the branchiest you will find. Deneb will be an improvement over Agena no doubt, but it will not overtake even a Kentsfield in gaming.

Jack