Valve Source engine particle simulation
Next up are a couple of tests we picked up during a visit to Valve Software, the developers of the Half-Life games. They had been working to incorporate support for multi-core processors into their Source game engine, and they cooked up a couple of benchmarks to demonstrate the benefits of multithreading.

The first of those tests runs a particle simulation inside of the Source engine. Most games today use particle systems to create effects like smoke, steam, and fire, but the realism and interactivity of those effects are limited by the available computing horsepower. Valve's particle system distributes the load across multiple CPU cores.

Thanks to a nicely multithreaded workload, the X3 8450 scores a clear win over the Core 2 Duo E7200 here. Once again, though, the X3 8750's additional core isn't sufficient to close the gap with the E8400.

Valve VRAD map compilation
This next test processes a map from Half-Life 2 using Valve's VRAD lighting tool. Valve uses VRAD to precompute lighting that goes into games like Half-Life 2. This isn't a real-time process, and it doesn't reflect the performance one would experience while playing a game. Instead, it shows how multiple CPU cores can speed up game development.

And just like that, a pattern begins to emerge. With relatively parallel workloads, the Phenom X3 8450 outperforms the Core 2 Duo E7200, but the Core 2 Duo E8400 more than holds its own against the X3 8750.