System Builder Marathon, Dec. 2009: $700 Gaming PC

Benchmark Results: Crysis And Far Cry 2

Despite sporting a powerful graphics solution, it’s no surprise that this stock system doesn’t put up a good show in Crysis. While last month’s Phenom II-based PC handled high details all the way up to 1920x1200, this system barely squeaks out playable performance at our lowest resolution.

Once overclocked, both systems offer the same level of playability, but the September PC did manage to put up the higher numbers at low resolution.  

Stock performance at Very High details is painful, but overclocking brings out some level of playability. As resolution is increased, the added graphics muscle of the Radeon HD 4870s help this gaming box pull away from our previous $650 PC. 

Clearly, these Far Cry 2 results are CPU-limited for both the stock and overclocked PC. If included in this chart, the overclocked September PC would lead at all resolutions.  

The picture sure changes when we crank details to Ultra and enable 4x AA. Here the pair of Radeon HD 4870s offer far better playability, at least up until the need for more than a 512MB frame buffer at 2560x1600. The stock December PC once again totally fails to impress.