Gaming Performance

To our regret, Phenom II X4 965 runs worse in gaming applications than in general-purpose tasks. Core 2 Quad Q9550 with a significant amount of L2 cache memory is about 5-6% faster than the new AMD solution. And that is despite the fact that the CPU on Core microarchitecture has 20% lower core frequency! In other words, gaming tests show very clearly that Stars (K10) microarchitecture used by AMD is getting dangerously close to becoming completely obsolete. Moreover the Core i7-920 working at a lower clock frequency is even farther ahead of the new Phenom II X4 965 in contemporary games than Core 2 Quad Q9550. So, it will be extremely hard for AMD to eventually compete against the upcoming Lynnfield processors.