Investigations into Athlon X2 Overclocking
by Jarred Walton on December 21, 2005 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
FEAR Performance
FEAR is one of the more recent games to come on the market, and it is capable of bringing even high-end systems to their knees. It's a good game, and it's one of the better looking shooters, but you will most likely need to turn down detail levels to get acceptable frame rates on most PCs. We used the built-in benchmark utility, running version 1.01 of the game. A newer version is available, though I don't think performance changes all that much.
Incidentally, I failed to collect results for the OCZ VX RAM from FEAR, but given how close everything is, you're not missing out on much. (A few quick tests showed that the VX RAM was about identical to the Platinum... and the value and the PDP RAM as well.)
At the lowest two resolutions without antialiasing, overclocking can increase performance by 10-15%. Once you reach higher resolutions, though, the game is almost completely GPU limited. A 4% difference at 1024x768 and 1600x1200 with 4xAA is negligible and within the margin of error for the benchmark. (Results are only giving in whole numbers, causing the jagged appearance of our charts at the high detail settings.) 1600x1200 without AA is playable, as is 1024x768 with 4xAA. We would take the higher resolution over AA, though.
FEAR is one of the more recent games to come on the market, and it is capable of bringing even high-end systems to their knees. It's a good game, and it's one of the better looking shooters, but you will most likely need to turn down detail levels to get acceptable frame rates on most PCs. We used the built-in benchmark utility, running version 1.01 of the game. A newer version is available, though I don't think performance changes all that much.
Incidentally, I failed to collect results for the OCZ VX RAM from FEAR, but given how close everything is, you're not missing out on much. (A few quick tests showed that the VX RAM was about identical to the Platinum... and the value and the PDP RAM as well.)
At the lowest two resolutions without antialiasing, overclocking can increase performance by 10-15%. Once you reach higher resolutions, though, the game is almost completely GPU limited. A 4% difference at 1024x768 and 1600x1200 with 4xAA is negligible and within the margin of error for the benchmark. (Results are only giving in whole numbers, causing the jagged appearance of our charts at the high detail settings.) 1600x1200 without AA is playable, as is 1024x768 with 4xAA. We would take the higher resolution over AA, though.
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Puddleglum - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Neermind.. read this in the closing thoughts:"There is one other point to mention on the memory: overclocking with four 512MB DIMMs was almost a complete failure on the setup that we used. Other motherboards, or perhaps a BIOS update for this motherboard, might improve the results, but for now we would recommend caution with such attempts. If you want to run 2GB of RAM, two 1GB DIMMs would be a much better choice."
Good info.
bobsmith1492 - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Actually, switching supply efficiencies can change dramatically with load; I wouldn't count on the draw at the wall as a good indicator of system load change. The efficiency may change from, say 70% at half-load to 85% at 3/4 load, which, on a 400 watt supply, would show up as: 285.7 watts draw (lower power) and 352.9 watts draw (high power). Now, the system is drawing 50% more power, while the meter is only showing 23.5% more power draw.Something to keep in mind anyway as I don't know exactly what the difference in efficiency for that particular supply is....
Cerb - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
It would be nice to know. However, if it's like the 470w one, it is 'close enough' at all loads.http://www.silentpcreview.com/article173-page4.htm...">http://www.silentpcreview.com/article173-page4.htm...
bobsmith1492 - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
Yeah, from 2-400W it's pretty close. Nevermind me then. :)WRXSTI - Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - link
I cannot wait to get a 64 X2 chip! Maybe by next year is better...Futurebobis - Thursday, December 1, 2022 - link
Yo, sup past people