Gaming Performance
Dirt 3's results appear to be dominated by Intel as AMD occupies the bottom six slots. However, if you look closer there is a difference between 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 performance. Intel clearly controlled the 1680x1050 results (where you could say there was less of a GPU bottleneck) the AMD processors performed better at 1920x1200.
At 1920x1200, the FX-8150 matched the i7-2600K and narrowly defeated the i5-2500K. The FX-8120 was in line with the i7-975 EE, while the FX-6100 kept pace with the i7-920. Despite its 4.2GHz clock rate, the FX-4170 was the slowest processor tested.
Besides the Phenom II X4 980, AMD again filled the bottom of our graph when measuring 1680x1050 performance. However, at 1920x1200 the FX-4170 was actually the fastest processor tested, delivering 88fps. The rest of the FX lineup rendered between 82 and 84fps, allowing them to deliver similar results to the Core i5 and Core i7 products.
We saw mixed results in The Witcher 2 also. At 1680x1050 the FX processors performed poorly, with the exception of the FX-8150 which managed 77.6fps, placing it in the i7-920's territory.
The FX-8150 delivered roughly 1fps more than the FX-8120 and FX-6100 when testing at 1920x1200, and although that's in line with the i7-975 EE and 920, it was slower than the Phenom II X4 980 and X6 1100T.
Crysis 2's performance was also disappointing for the FX processors as it doesn't benefit from having more than four threads available. This allowed the FX-4170 to dominate at 1680x1050, while the FX-8150, FX-8120 and FX-6100 were all slower than the Phenom II X4 980.