X-bit labs

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 and Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processors: Quad-Core CPUs Gone Real! (page 5)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 11/01/2006 | 10:31 PM ]

3D Games

Of course, relatively old games like Far Cry and Half Life 2, that do not have even a hint of multi-threading support, cannot benefit from four processor cores in any way. Quake 4 is known to support dual-core CPUs, however it didn’t impress us on a Kentsfield based system. Looks like the so-much-appraised multi-threading support in Quake 4 was designed specifically for dual-core solutions, so the game can work only with two computational threads at a time. However, the implementation of multi-threading support in F.E.A.R. allows Core 2 Extreme QX6700 to get slightly ahead of Core 2 Extreme X6800. Although these results are still far from being a tremendous success. Only the next-generation gaming engines are expected to fully implement the potential of quad-core solutions for environmental physics and AI calculations, and the first games featuring these engines should come out next year.