Benchmark Results: Skyrim And Deus Ex: HR
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim employs DX 11 support to enhance performance. The Creation Engine used by Bethseda is the same one used for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and there’s been little to no visual improvement between generations. However, the faster implementation pays dividends for our purposes.
In AMD Desktop Trinity Update: Now With Core i3 And A8-3870K, we benchmarked with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and discovered that the Medium quality preset simply was not playable on any of the processors we tested at 1920x1080 (the A10 and A8 were arguably pretty fluid at 1280x720, though).
Dropping quality all the way to the Low preset does give AMD's new APUs a lot more room to breathe at our target resolution. It's just a bummer that the graphics quality is so terrible down there. Our benchmarks suggest this game is accessible to Trinity, but we'd strongly suggest an upgrade to discrete graphics and a step up to at least the Medium quality preset.
Intel's Core i3s, on the other hand, cannot muster playable performance, even at this game's most entry-level settings.
As we’ve described in the past, Deus Ex: Human Revolution excels in two key points: amazing story quality and excellent use of anti-aliasing modes made available through DX 11. Fortunately, Eidos Montreal made sure the game was GPU-friendly, even without DX 11 assistance. Our earlier testing with discrete graphics showed that Human Revolution is playable at 1920x1080 with medium details and 8x AF enabled across a broad spectrum of last year's graphics cards. So, it comes as no surprise that three of our four integrated engines turn in average frame rates in excess of 30.
The AMD A10-5800K averages close to 50 FPS, and its minimum dips to 37 FPS. That might leave a little bit of headroom for more demanding settings, but we wouldn't push this title much further. Intel’s Core i3-3225 is barely able to deliver an average in excess of 30 FPS, but its 23-frame minimum is a little low for our liking. You can expect frequent stutters, even with all detail settings as low as they go.