CPU Performance
The results were fairly unsurprising with the Core i5 and Core i7 models from various generations all pushing the R9 290X between 64fps and 67fps, just a 5% variance. The Core i3-3220 result was quite surprising as it was 16% slower than a comparable Core i5.
Unfortunately, AMD's FX-8350 was only able to push the R9 290X to 45fps. After further investigating and a bit of tweaking we were unable to improve this result, which left the FX-8350 about 27% slower than a Core i5 and 13% slower than a Core i3.
The FX-3850's CPU scaling results showed that it responds well to overclocking with a 13% overclock producing a 13% increase in frame rate. That said, even at 4.50GHz with 53fps the FX-8350 was still slower than a Core i3 processor clocked at 3.3GHz, which is highly disappointing.
The 2.5GHz Core i7-4770K was able to match the 4.5GHz FX-8350, which shows just how superior Intel's core efficiency is right now. Overclocking the i7-4770K for extra performance does help but it's not that effective as a 29% overclock provided just 8% more performance.