CPU Performance
Those with a new Ivy Bridge Core i7-3770K processor need not bother with overclocking as we saw the same performance at just 2.50GHz as we did at 4.50GHz when using the GeForce GTX 680.
A similar situation was seen with the AMD FX-8150 which provided the same performance at its default operating frequency as it did at 4.50GHz. Scaling the frequency back to just 2.50GHz reduced the average frame rate by just 2fps.
Before we compare a range of CPUs let's just take a moment to examine a few utilization screenshots. Using the four core AMD Athlon II X4 645 we see that Max Payne 3 is able to fully utilize all four cores and the CPU utilization is very high hovering around the 75% mark.
The dual-core Phenom II X2 560 is overwhelmed seeing 100% utilization across both cores.
The Intel Core i7-3960X which we tested with supports 12 threads using 6 cores and as you can see the game only really placed a significant amount of load on two threads while another four were lightly used for a total CPU utilization of just 16%.
Here we see that anything with four cores can pretty much get the most out of this game with the GeForce GTX 680. The only CPUs to fall behind were the dual and triple core AMD processors which were found to be significantly slower.