Crysis Warhead
We measured Warhead performance using the FRAPS frame-rate recording tool and playing over the same 60-second section of the game five times on each processor. This method has the advantage of simulating real gameplay quite closely, but it comes at the expense of precise repeatability. We believe five sample sessions are sufficient to get reasonably consistent results. In addition to average frame rates, we've included the low frame rates, because those tend to reflect the user experience in performance-critical situations. In order to diminish the effect of outliers, we've reported the median of the five low frame rates we encountered.

We tested at at relatively modest graphics settings, 1024x768 resolution with the game's "Mainstream" quality settings, because we didn't want our graphics card to be the performance-limiting factor. This is, after all, a CPU test.

In Warhead, as in most of today's games, a pair of fast cores translates into better performance than three or more slower cores. As a result, the Core 2 Duo E8400 maintains higher frame rates than the Phenom II X3 720, and both of those processors are faster than the Phenom II X4 810. Among the quad cores, the X4 810 outperforms the Q8200. And, in a photo finish, the DDR2 and DDR3 configurations of the X4 810 perform almost identically.

Far Cry 2
After playing around with Far Cry 2, I decided to test it a little bit differently by recording frame rates during the jeep ride sequence at the very beginning of the game. I found that frame rates during this sequence were generally similar to those when running around elsewhere in the game, and after all, playing Far Cry 2 involves quite a bit of driving around. Since this sequence was repeatable, I just captured results from three 90-second sessions.

Again, I didn't want the graphics card to be our primary performance constraint, so although I tested at fairly high visual quality levels, I used a relatively low 1024x768 display resolution and DirectX 9.

The new Phenoms edge out their ostensible rivals from Intel by very small margins here. Again, fewer, faster cores prove to be the best choice for this game, and DDR2 continues to match DDR3 on the X4 810.

Incidentally, some of the scores for Core 2 processors here are higher than you may have seen in our other recent reviews. After running into some strange results, I wound up re-testing the Core 2 processors in Far Cry 2, and several of them came out faster. I'm not sure what the cause of the problem was, but I'm confident these scores are now correct. I'll be going back to the older reviews and updating those scores, as well.