AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer Processor Review

Game Benchmarks

DiRT 3


In DiRT 3 we saw some really great performance from the FX-8150 processor, but admittedly the modified HD 6950 we were running took the brunt of the load. With those two combined we were able to attain some solid frame rate results with but only a single card. This was mostly helped along by the fact that DiRT 3 was actually using all eight cores of the FX-8150 in a way that improved overall performance to a level where frame rates simply refused to drop low enough. We ran DiRT 3 at 1920x1080 at Ultra settings with 4x MSAA and had an average of 66FPS with a minimum FPS of 51 and a maximum of 75.
 


As you can see from the screen shots, we got around 50% overall CPU utilization and at times it got all the way up to 60%. Needless to say, we're really excited to see CPUs getting more loving especially considering how many cores tend to sit idle in a lot of applications where they could be used to improve performance and framerates.

We also ran DiRT 3 at ultra low settings at 640x480 to see if the CPU would be up to the task of running the game as the lower the resolution the more the load goes to the CPU rather than the GPU. In this scenario we saw DiRT 3 running at an average of 116 FPS with a minimum of 73 FPS and a maximum of 134 FPS.

Metro 2033
In Metro 2033, we decided to crank up the eye candy level even more and have some fun with the game. Unfortunately, since we were only running one HD 6950 we only ran the game at High preset levels instead of Ultra. Nevertheless, we still ran them at 1920x1080 and managed to attain an average frame rate of 50 FPS with a minimum of 23 FPS and a Maximum of 92.

We did this because if we had bumped the settings to Ultra, the game would admittedly be unplayable as it requires two graphics cards or a dual chip graphics card in order to run at Ultra settings. Running Metro 2033 at lowest settings 800x600 the maximum and average frame rates increased to an average of 139 average and 172 maximum frame rate, but the minimum still sat at a low 24 FPS.

F1 2011


For F1 2011 we decidedly ran the same tests as we did in Metro 2033 and DiRT 3, but we decided to test out the canned benchmark as well just to give you guys, our readers, at least one canned benchmark. We usually just play through a full level or race in a game and capture our frame rates through FRAPS. For the game's own benchmark the game got a minimum FPS of 44 and an average of 54 FPS. Not bad considering that we were running the game at absolutely maximum settings at 1920x1080.


This is the precalculated benchmark that comes with the game...

Since F1 is also a Codemasters and utilizes the variant of the EGO engine used in DiRT 3, it appears that they worked closely with AMD again to make sure that their games made the best of the Zambezi FX-8150 processor because we saw similar CPU utilization in F1 2011 that we did in DiRT 3. The likely answer is that they probably have very similar if not the same engines that make good use of all of these cores that are made available by the FX-8150 processor.