Crysis Benchmark Results

Crysisuses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX10) framework of Windows Vista, but can also run using DirectX9, both on Vista and Windows XP.

Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of CryENGINE 2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading.

Crysis offers an in-game benchmark tool, which is similar to World in Conflict. This short test does place some high amounts of stress on a graphics card, since there are so many landscape features rendered. For benchmarking purposes, Crysis can mean trouble as it places a high demand on both GPU and CPU resources. Benchmark Reviews uses the Crysis Benchmark Tool by Mad Boris to test frame rates in batches, which allows the results of many tests to be averaged.

Low-resolution testing allows the graphics processor to plateau its maximum output performance, which thereby shifts demand onto the other system components. At the lower resolutions Crysis will reflect the GPU's top-end speed in the composite score, indicating full-throttle performance with little load. This makes for a less GPU-dependant test environment, and is helpful in creating a baseline for measuring maximum output performance in the next few test results. At the 1280x1024 resolution used by some newer 17" and most 19" monitors, all of the video cards tested performed at very respectable levels.

At 1920x1200 resolution Crysis is rendered by the GTX 280 at around 46 FPS by both the Gigabyte GA-EX58-EXTREME and Intel DX58SO, while the GA-X48T-DQ6 comes in well behind with only about 34 FPS. The primary reason behind this is bandwidth bottlenecks, which are solved with the Core i7 QPI technology. This phenomenon should subside as demands are increased, and (top speed) bandwidth requirements are reduced. Let's see if adding 4x AA makes a difference...

A trend is beginning to surface here, and the message is clear: Core i7 offers something for everyone... gamers included. While the difference isn't so big that you're going to drop your X48 or older platform for the slight improvements of the X58, but these test show that performance does come into consideration for high-demand games. The much-improved memory path no longer has to travel out from the processor to the Northbridge and back, which make a noticeable difference in performance.

In our next section, Benchmark Reviews will test the X58 platforms against last generations X48 in the fast-paced Devil May Cry 4.

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