L4D2: CPU benchmarks - Phenom II very strong

[TheMailMan78]

I can't say I'm not surprised.

Left 4 Dead 2: Introduction and Engine
Although Valve once again used the Source engine for Left 4 Dead 2, the developers nevertheless modified the structure for the new game. According to Chet Faliszek, inventor of Left 4 Dead, the developers enhanced for example the shaders, the lighting, the particles and the water. Multi-core support, diverse (Post) effects like Color Correction, Motion Blur and FP16-HDR as well as Film Grain are still integrated. Due to Soft Shadows, Self Shadowing, Normal Maps and Wet Surfaces the sceneries appear a little more realistic than before. The Havok physics engine top the technical features of Left 4 Dead 2 off.

Left 4 Dead: Benchmark sequence and results
For our benchmarks we use a 60 second real-time demo sequence which takes place in the park from the second chapter of the "The Parish” Campaign. In the scene we have several Bommers and a Splitter as well as a lot of ordinary enemies. We use a Radeon HD 5870 to display the demo at 1680 x 1050 with maximal details and with as well as without 4x MSAA and 16:1 AF. So all in all the setting is quite challenging for the CPU. We are using the German cut version which runs about 40 percent faster than the international uncut version.

Left 4 Dead 2 benefits a lot from three respectively for cores and thus an Intel C2Q Q6600 is, without AA/AF, almost 45 percent faster than its dual-core counterpart, the C2D E6600. With 4x MSAA/16:1 AF the difference isn't lowered much. An AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE finally is fast enough to run into the graphics limitation (about 130 frame per second on average) - faster CPUs only increase the minimal framerate. As you can see from the results without AA/AF, the Phenom II CPUs are doing quite well and the X4 965 BE is on the same level as the Intel Core i5-750; the X3 720 BE is only slightly behind the Q9650 while the X2 550 BE beats the C2D E8400 noticeably. A Core i7-920 running at 3.5 GHz (Uncore at 2.8 GHz, DDR3-1400) can't really distance itself from the rest - it reaches a max fps results of up to 300 which actually is the engine limit.

Although Left 4 Dead 2 benefits a lot from more than two cores, you are well equipped with a processor like the C2D E6600 or the X2 6400+. Only during the final wave of infected, the framerate drops below 40 fps. So if you want to play Left 4 Dead 2 smoothly in any critical situation, you should have a C2Q Q6600 or a Phenom II X3 720 BE or a faster processor. Intel's SMT does not slow down the game, but doesn't increase the performance either.

Source

 

[ChromeDome]

just ordered

i'll be killing zombies with my AMD 5600+ just fine

 

[human_error]

We are using the German cut version which runs about 40 percent faster than the international uncut version.

As soon as i read that i turned off - the german uncut version has bodies vanishing after being killed pretty quick and doesn't have the detailed bodies which can have different bits blown off and have the correct organs in place, which would add a pretty decent load onto the CPU - if they want to do a proper test they should have tested with the maximum possible stress on the cpu - which would need the content missing from the german version.

Still it's good to see the game scaling well with better CPUs. It would have been nice to see them limit a core i7 to 2 real cores and 2 SMT/HT cores just to see if the SMT cores are as good as real cores, and if not how much slower they are (since we have dual core nehalem cpus coming to laptops soon i'm interested to see the effectiveness of SMT for this).

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Still no faster than Yorkfield clock for clock from what I see.

 

[Soylent Joe]

Interesting. Props to them though, I know doing CPU gaming benchmarks are a lot tougher to do than GPU benchmarks.

 

[wolf]

Still no faster than Yorkfield clock for clock from what I see.

Really? second test with no AA shows an i5 750 is indeed faster clock for clock, let alone i7.

Q9650 @ 3ghz = 108 min 163 avg

i5 750 @ 2.66ghz = 123 min 185 avg

i7 860 @ 2.8ghz = 127 min 189 avg

is that not faster clock for clock? But I tend to agree with human_error, in that the test should-have been done with the modded game files or US version to increase stress on the CPU even more.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

Really? second test with no AA shows an i5 750 is indeed faster clock for clock, let alone i7.

Q9650 @ 3ghz = 108 min 163 avg

i5 750 @ 2.66ghz = 123 min 185 avg

i7 860 @ 2.8ghz = 127 min 189 avg

is that not faster clock for clock? But I tend to agree with human_error, in that the test should-have been done with the modded game files or US version to increase stress on the CPU even more.

I was talking about Phenom 2 with the tread title was referring to as being strong in this game. While it is performing well in this game it's still no better than Yorkfield clock for clock. Bloomfield and Lynfield performed quite well. Either way who is going to be running a 5870 at 1680x1050 with no AA? As soon as you add 4xAA and 16xAF they all perform the same anyways.

 

[wolf]

LoL my bad! completely overlooked PII vs Yorkfield

nevertheless its totally i5/i7 ftw, can hardly argue with that, especially with i5 being so affordable, and even hit no HT obviously faster clock for clock.

 

[lemode]

nice to see that the i7 860 benched fine. was surprised how smooth l4d2 demo ran with a 250 and the 860.

 

[BababooeyHTJ]

LoL my bad! completely overlooked PII vs Yorkfield

nevertheless its totally i5/i7 ftw, can hardly argue with that, especially with i5 being so affordable, and even hit no HT obviously faster clock for clock.

Seriously, I want that i5 750 pretty bad. It would be a nice upgrade from my Q9650. On most apps because of turbo mode I'm sure that it spanks my overclocked Q9650.