Intel D945GCLF2 Review - Harnessing the Dual Core Atom
Submitted By steven on Sep 22 2008 at 7:49 AM
Gaming - HL2, Portal, Crysis, WiC
The tests involving Half Life 2: Episode 2 show some rather expected results, given the nature of the Source Engine. The D945GCLF2 equipped with the dual core Atom 330 is the top performer at both resolutions, scoring an average of 20 frames per second at 800x600, and an average of 12 frames per second at 1024x768 with HT enabled. With HT disabled, the Atom 330 falls by an average of one frame per second at 800x600, but gains two frames per second at 1024x768. This may anomaly may be specific game to this game. But considering that the charted information in the average of several runthroughs, the err was consistant. At 800x600 the Atom 330 beats out the Atom 230 by a small margin of 2 to 3 frames per second with HT enabled, 3-4 frames per second with HT disabld. The Atom 330 also trumps the Celeron 215's D201GLY by an average of about 2 to 3 frames per second as well. The 1GHz VIA C7 performs admirably in this real world gaming test, scoring much closer to its compeditors than it did in our synthetic testing.
The results from our timedemo taken from Valve's Portal are a little bit different than what was seen with the Half Life 2: Episode 2 testing. At the lowest resolution of 800x600 (low detail), the D945GCLF2 continues to stay in the lead with an average of about 19 frames per second. Surprisingly, HyperThreading had little to no impact on performance. This is also true for the D945GCLF, which performs the same with HT enabled as it does with the option disabled. The D201GLY takes a back seat in this resolution, sitting alongside the VIA C7 equipped J7F2WE-1G. When the resolution is bumped up to 1024x768, the trend holds firm. The D945GCLF2 retains the top scores of 13 frames per second on average, regardless of the HT settings. The D945GCLF and its Atom 230 averages 11 frames per second with or without HT. The Celeron 215-equipped D201GLY manages to match the Atom 230 and stay about 1 frame per second ahead of the VIA C7.
Crytek's Crysis is still one of the most hardware-demanding games ever released, and it is no surprise to see such low returns from all of the test systems. Although the game does seem to prefer to feed off mutli-core CPUs, the lower end processors featured on our systems, as well as the low end GPU used, paint a rather grim picture. The charts do show minor differences in performance with the integrated CPU benchmark. The HT-enabled Atom 330 is again at the top with an average of 11 fps. The remaning system configurations score only 10 frames per second on average. The VIA C7 only manages 9 frames per second with this test. Clearly, that one frame per second difference is not a world apart from our other system configurations. The GPU benchmark shows similar results. Both of the Atom equipped systems (in both configurations, HT enabled/HT disabled) score an average of 11 frames per second. The charts are rounded off with the D201GLY scoring 10 frames per second and the VIA C7 reaching nine.
World in Conflict is one of our favorite tests to run, as it always seems to scale well with the variety of CPUs and GPUs that we have tested in the past. These charts show a clear indication that the game has the ability to take advantage of multi-threaded and multicore processors. At a resolution of 800x600, and detail set to "very low", the dual core Atom equipped D945GCLF2 is at the top of the charts. HyperThreading had little impact on the Atom 330 at this setting. The resulting scores are identical, 20 frames per second. This average of 20 fps is enough to edge out the D945GCLF and its Atom 230. The margin being two frames per second with HT enabled, and a full six frames per second once HT was disabled. The Celeron 215 used on the D201GLY scores well once again, but the VIA C7 tumbles off the charts.
When the detail is increased to "low", at the 800x600 resolution the Atom 330 with HT enabled managed an average of 10 frames per second, matching the Celeron 215. The Atom 330 with HT disabled trades blows with the HT-enabled Atom 230, resulting in an average of 8 frames per second for both configurations. With HT disabled, the Atom 230 falls further from the charts, averaging only five frames per second. This is just slightly ahead of the VIA C7, which scored only 2 frames per second.
Running the final test at 1024x768 and "low" detail settings,we see the original trend resurface. The HT-enabled Atom 330 manages to score 10 frames per second. The Atom 330, with HT disabled, falls to an average of seven frames per second, placing it just slightly behind the D201GLY. The HT enabled single core Atom 230 shows an average of six fps, which falls to four frames per second with HT disabled. The 1GHz VIA C7 falls to the bottom the charts with an average of two frames per second.
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Comments
Posted by Anonymous on Feb 1 2010 at 7:12 pm
fantastic review!
Posted by Anonymous on Feb 21 2010 at 11:02 am
Hi dude! I am finally able to get to your site to check it out, and it looks great!
Posted by Anonymous on Jul 25 2010 at 8:51 pm
great review, very helpful stuff for my new project :D
Posted by Anonymous on Dec 11 2009 at 11:04 am
Another very helpful review. Keep it up!