Quake 4 Performance

Quake 4 is an old school 3D first-person shooter from id Software and Raven, and while the actual storyline is standard fare and the game itself is based on the DOOM 3 engine, the graphics are exceptional and it is an improvement over previous games. The lighting and shadow effects are excellent, and the overall level design and architecture are a real treat. The overall load on the graphics card can be extreme, which is both a blessing and a curse, depending on the actual hardware you are testing. For this test, we use the 1.4 revision, and enable the game's built-in, multi-threaded functionality.

Quake 4 is based on the same engine as DOOM 3, and due to a combination of enhanced graphics drivers and in-game multi-core support, it also rewards the extra multithreading of our dual and quad core processors. The benchmark demo we use is extremely detailed, and the overall framerates are kept lower than usual. The multithreading advantage is obvious in the scores, as this is the first real game test to show the Phenom X4 9350e with a higher score than the Athlon 64 X2 6000+. The Phenom X4 9950 BE also does very well, finishing behind only the powerful 3.16 GHz Core 2 Duo E8500.

Prey Performance

Prey is a serious first-person shooter from Human Head Studios and 3D Realms that uses a heavily modified version of the DOOM 3 engine. You take the role of Earth's savior in an all-out war against some very nasty alien invaders, all within a Matrix-like experience, and with some of the best computer game graphics you'll ever see. Our Prey benchmark is also a very serious game test that can push any system to its limits.

The Prey benchmark results show little change between the various processors, and while the Phenom X4 9950 BE outpaces the other quads, it is outperformed the higher clocked Core 2 Duo models. We also see the Phenom X4 9350e back in its usual position at the bottom of the chart.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is another in a long line of third-person games that rely on stealth and planning, rather than just hammering the fire button repeatedly. This innovative game design also gives our processors a different kind of test, which is very evident in the standard Ubisoft Lighthouse demo. The latest patches also enable SM3.0, which adds on yet another layer of attrition on the graphics card.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory is an extremely demanding game benchmark, and one fails to show much in the way of differences between processors, dual and quad core alike. The Phenom X4 9950 BE and Phenom X4 9350e both perform as expected.