claptonman
New Member
It's time to do some benchmarking. Here I am testing the infamous FX series to the phenom II. A claim is that phenom IIs bench faster at stock using CPU benchmarks. Well, that may be true, but what about gaming? How does it compare at a gaming stand-point? How about the Bulldozer patch released by Microsoft and AMD? Well, let's find out.
I have yet to do a side-by-side test with an i5 2500k with everything else the same, but that's for another day. Here I am testing the similarly priced FX 6100 and Phenom II 960t.
Tests being run:
Unigine Heaven DX 11 Benchmark
Ran 3 times for each OS/CPU/overclock, average scores given.
Standard settings, 1920x1080.
The results from a benchmark may not be the same as in game, but its good for consistency. If one CPU performs better here, chances are it will perform better in game.
OS's being tested for the Phenom II:
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
OS's being tested for the FX:
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with Microsoft Bulldozer patch
All OS's are a clean install. No updates given besides the bulldozer patch. I needed to go to service pack 1 to install those.. Aero disabled.
Programs installed: Unigine Heaven Benchmark, and Nvidia driver 296.10 for windows 7.
Settings:
960T @3.3GHZ and 4GHZ. 4GHZ is the fastest I've gotten the 960t without overdoing the voltage, so this will be the “max” for the 960t.
FX 6100 @3.3GHZ, 4GHZ, 4.5GHZ.
All BIOS power saving features are disabled.
System being tested is the same as in my signature, besides the SSD and motherboard. I did these tests when I had my Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3. All settings for the CPU, GPU, and RAM confirmed by CPU-z and GPU-z.
All OS's installed cleanly to my Western Digital 750GB HDD Black, 64mb cache with no other partitions.
First up: 960T at 3.3ghz with windows 7.
960T at 4ghz.
Pretty obvious results. Higher overclock = better results. Does the overclock do much where it would be stupid not to do it? From the Minimum and average FPS readings, doesn't look like it much. Let's see what the FX does.
6100 at 3.3ghz.
At 4ghz.
At 4.5ghz.
Conclusion:
Does the FX outperform a Phenom II? Yes. At the same speeds, the minimum and average FPS are better for the FX. The max FPS for the Phenom II may be higher, but at that high of a FPS, you would not notice a difference.
The update for bulldozer? Does seem to make a difference. Outperforms at 4GHZ, but no where else. My conclusion for this is that the update does not effect gaming.
Final conclusion:
The FX is the better choice for gaming, if you can find a 6100 at the same price as a Phenom II, which I did. There are minimal gains comparing the FX to the Phenom II for gaming, but it still is better. If the prices are similar, why not get the FX?
A comment that has been floating around is that the FX is a dud. Does this seem like a dud? No. The FX is faster at gaming compared to the Phenom II, looking at the average and minimum FPS.
Hope you all liked the comparison I made.
Any comments/suggestions/criticisms are welcome.
I have yet to do a side-by-side test with an i5 2500k with everything else the same, but that's for another day. Here I am testing the similarly priced FX 6100 and Phenom II 960t.
Tests being run:
Unigine Heaven DX 11 Benchmark
Ran 3 times for each OS/CPU/overclock, average scores given.
Standard settings, 1920x1080.
The results from a benchmark may not be the same as in game, but its good for consistency. If one CPU performs better here, chances are it will perform better in game.
OS's being tested for the Phenom II:
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
OS's being tested for the FX:
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with Microsoft Bulldozer patch
All OS's are a clean install. No updates given besides the bulldozer patch. I needed to go to service pack 1 to install those.. Aero disabled.
Programs installed: Unigine Heaven Benchmark, and Nvidia driver 296.10 for windows 7.
Settings:
960T @3.3GHZ and 4GHZ. 4GHZ is the fastest I've gotten the 960t without overdoing the voltage, so this will be the “max” for the 960t.
FX 6100 @3.3GHZ, 4GHZ, 4.5GHZ.
All BIOS power saving features are disabled.
System being tested is the same as in my signature, besides the SSD and motherboard. I did these tests when I had my Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3. All settings for the CPU, GPU, and RAM confirmed by CPU-z and GPU-z.
All OS's installed cleanly to my Western Digital 750GB HDD Black, 64mb cache with no other partitions.
First up: 960T at 3.3ghz with windows 7.
960T at 4ghz.
Pretty obvious results. Higher overclock = better results. Does the overclock do much where it would be stupid not to do it? From the Minimum and average FPS readings, doesn't look like it much. Let's see what the FX does.
6100 at 3.3ghz.
At 4ghz.
At 4.5ghz.
Conclusion:
Does the FX outperform a Phenom II? Yes. At the same speeds, the minimum and average FPS are better for the FX. The max FPS for the Phenom II may be higher, but at that high of a FPS, you would not notice a difference.
The update for bulldozer? Does seem to make a difference. Outperforms at 4GHZ, but no where else. My conclusion for this is that the update does not effect gaming.
Final conclusion:
The FX is the better choice for gaming, if you can find a 6100 at the same price as a Phenom II, which I did. There are minimal gains comparing the FX to the Phenom II for gaming, but it still is better. If the prices are similar, why not get the FX?
A comment that has been floating around is that the FX is a dud. Does this seem like a dud? No. The FX is faster at gaming compared to the Phenom II, looking at the average and minimum FPS.
Hope you all liked the comparison I made.
Any comments/suggestions/criticisms are welcome.