X-bit labs

New Budget Dual-Core CPUs: Intel Pentium E2160 and Pentium E2140 (page 13)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 05/30/2007 | 05:40 PM ]

Gaming Applications

We have already mentioned earlier in this article that reduced to 1MB L2 cache is a significant slowdown for the Pentium E2000 series in gaming applications. Judging by the results of our comparative tests we see another proof to that point. Although Pentium E2000 processors outperform Pentium D 935 and Pentium D 925, they are still unable to reach the performance level of Athlon 64 X2 3800+ and 3600+. I have to draw your attention to the fact that this whole situation is pretty funny: games are actually almost the only application where the youngest CPUs with Core micro-architecture cannot even dream of competing with their immediate rivals.

Besides a few real games we have also included the results of a benchmark based on Valve Source engine that will be used for future games. It estimates the system performance during the calculation of environmental gaming physics.

The situation here is a little bit different. Pentium E2160 levels out with Athlon 64 X2 3800+, while Pentium E 2140 outperforms Athlon 64 X2 3600+.

We have also included the chess benchmark based on a well-known Fritz 9 engine into this gaming test session.

Once again the picture is totally different. New inexpensive Intel processors on Core micro-architecture get ahead of their competitors.