CPU Scaling and Performance
The Witcher 2 is one of those games that might actually benefit from 4GHz+ overclocks, as we found an 8% performance increase when bumping our Core i7-920 from 3.2GHz to 3.8GHz. Increasing the operating frequency by 90% from 2.0GHz to 3.8GHz resulted in a 58% performance gain.
The processor's significant role in The Witcher 2 is further evidenced when comparing the results of various Intel and AMD chips. The game plays considerably better when running on a Core i5 or i7 processor, as the i5-2600K achieved 78fps versus the Phenom II X4 980's 54fps. We were also surprised by the speed difference between the LGA1155 and LGA1156 platforms, as well as the Athlon II and Phenom II parts.
During testing, we noticed that the game isn't particularly dual-core-friendly. We saw roughly a 25% decrease in performance when going from four to two cores.