AMD FX Vs. Intel Core i3: Exploring Game Performance With Cheap GPUs

Benchmark Results: Just Cause 2

Performance Target: 30 FPS Minimum

Unlike the prior two titles, Just Cause 2 did help demonstrate the difference between processors in our previous analysis. Last time around, the Core i3-2100 managed to achieve a 28% higher minimum frame rate and a 15% higher average frame rate compared to the FX-4100.

This game is hard on AMD's Radeon HD 5570; we had to drop to 1366x768 for a 30 FPS minimum frame rate.

Despite our previous benchmark results, CPU choice makes very little difference when we step down to lower-end graphics cards. Average frame rates are notably better than the other games we’ve tested, too (showing 40 FPS+ for all configurations). Maybe the load will shift to our CPUs when we raise the performance target to 40 FPS minimum and 60 FPS average?

Performance Target: 40 FPS Minimum, 60 FPS Average

Intel's Core i3-2100 has a very slight advantage paired up to AMD's Radeon HD 6950. But the 4 FPS spread isn't something you'd identify while playing through this game. This does support what we saw from the Radeon HD 7970, though.

We had to drop the Radeon HD 5570-based configuration to 720p and the 6770 to 1680x1050 in order to hit our performance target. As we've seen several times already, the Radeon HD 6850 and 6950 are able to handle 1080p without any trouble.