14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like AMD's upcoming Phenom II X4 processors just keep showing up in the news, as we are getting closer to their official introduction in the first quarter of 2009. According to the most recent details, AMD's yet-to-be unveiled 45nm quad-core processors are expected to deliver an impressive gaming experience, as the Phenom II X4 940, running at 3.0GHz, has been tested and benchmarked using one of the latest titles in PC gaming, namely Crysis Warhead.
We have already seen how one of the company's upcoming Phenom II X4 processors will be capable of offering users an impressive overclocking potential, as it was able to reach clock speed close to 6GHz, using an extreme cooling solution. It appears that the new desktop CPU from AMD has also been tested using one of today's most performance demanding gaming applications, with the results being almost instantly leaked on the Internet.
According to website MyDrivers, the Phenom II X4 940, running at a clock speed of 3GHz, has been tested on a platform that includes an ASUS M3A70-T Deluxe motherboard, which was featured with AMD's 790FX and SB750 chipset combo. The test platform also included two 2GB DDR2 1066 memory modules, a Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB graphics card and a Windows Vista 64-bit SP1 operating system. The results returned were rather impressive, as the AMD-powered rig was tested with these settings: DirectX 10 set to high, Shaders set to very high, and the resolution set to 1920 by 1200 pixels at 32-bit and with Anti-Aliasing set off.
Unfortunately, we don't have any specific graphics or pictures of the test platform, but we do have the numbers, with 36FPS for the lowest score, 47FPS on average, and a maximum of 84FPS. Taking a look at these scores and then comparing them with the one achieved by an Intel Core i7-based system, we can actually say that AMD's upcoming processors will make for a reliable alternative to Intel's high-end desktop CPU lineup.