Gamers: Do You Need More Than An Athlon II X3?

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AMD's Athlon II X3 440 is such a capable little chip, and and it costs so little. Is there any real point in spending more money on your gaming machine’s CPU? We explore this question with a head-to-head challenge against Intel's venerable Core i7-920.

Minimum FPS Benchmarks: Single Radeon HD 5850

Now, let's consider the minimum FPS results. Here, a 10 FPS delta between 20 FPS and 30 FPS might mean the difference between playability and a slide show.

The results are more tightly knit than the average benchmarks were, but differences here are more meaningful. Considering 60 FPS the usable limit, at 1280x1024, the Core i7-920 has a slight lead in Far Cry 2 and a more significant advantage in World in Conflict. The Stalker and Crysis results are equal for all intents and purposes.

As the resolution is increased, the story doesn't change much. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat demonstrates an affinity for the Athlon II X3 440 system that really shows itself at 1920x1080, but disappears at 2560x1600 when the graphics subsystem becomes a major bottleneck.

Don Woligroski
144 Comments Comment from the forums
  • welshmousepk
    good read, though unsurprising. certainly justifies these lower end processors in gaming rigs.

    the whole thing seems to slightly contradict the 'balanced PC' articles though. why put such a cheap CPU in a system with such a powerful GPU? is the budget really going to be THAT tight?
    Reply
  • sohei
    good point in this article....if you have money ....you have 1 solution for every application you run on your pc....(high end cpu) folks with money dont have to think...is simple ...but if you have less money to spend ...an AMD cpu is your (my) choice
    Reply
  • Verkil
    Still no GTA4? I'm still having thoughts getting an Athlon II X3 because I'll be playing GTA4 and all your Athlon II X3 gaming benchmark does not include GTA4.
    Reply
  • slinkoguy
    Looks like you guys got a Deneb core. Unlock that thing and let us see those results! :D
    Reply
  • haplo602
    hmm ... I see an interesting pattern here. the latest Intel architecture is 3x as expensive yet an AMD cpu on a generation older architecture can still keep up reasonable.

    except very high end gaming, I realy do not see a reason to go after the i7.

    what I am missing from the article is the X3 vs Intel cpus in the same price range. maybe a followup would do some good :-)
    Reply
  • tacoslave
    should have overclocked the 440 because thats what most will be doing when they use this processor for gaming
    Reply
  • Jarmo
    tacoslaveshould have overclocked the 440 because thats what most will be doing when they use this processor for gaming
    I'd guess at least 90% of users never overclock anything.
    To be fair though, probably 90% of Tom's readers do.
    Reply
  • Stardude82
    Do it again with a 5750 or a GTS 250..or lower with a 5650 and a GT 240. You know something modern, but not in excess of the cost of the motherboard and CPU. This is my same problem with the G6950/720 article.. I don't think I've ever seen a good article showing differences with difference CPU's in the middle end. With more of a GPU is bottle neck, the CPU should matter even less.
    Reply
  • retrac1324
    I like how Opera web browser was mistyped: Oprah
    Reply
  • HalfHuman
    nice comparison. seems that the triple core is quite strong enough for gaming. i believe that xfire is crazy technology though and only an almost negligible number of gamers use it. i also do not see the point of using such a strong(expensive) video card with a budget cpu. a money conscious gamer would get a 57xx or something in that zone.

    my thought is that for single card users (not necessarily 58xx type not because it's not good but is for sure not budget friendly) and normal monitors (1680x1050) a triple or even dual core amd is enough.
    Reply