Section IV Performance – Gaming
Gaming as a test of motherboard performance is sort of a joke these days. The big player in the gaming arena is the GPU. Everyone but a few hardcore PR teams know this. However, it is important to run at least a few (one from each current DX version) to see if there are any issues with the combination of components on a motherboard. These are items like Audio lag, memory lag and of course problems with the PCIe lanes and signal traces. If there are issues in design, drivers or BIOS then you can have odd gaming performance. So without much more preamble let’s dive into the three games we currently use; Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for DX9 FarCry 2 for DX10 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 for DX11.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 DX9 -
This is an excellent but short game that put you right into the action from the beginning and does not let up the pressure until the very end. The graphics are a little better; most notably the night and thermal imaging have been improved. The AI is still the typical COD “bar fight” style AI, with maybe a tad more finesse. All in all it is not a bad game to play and a decent one to use for testing. Our testing run starts at the bridge and ends after you clear the school in the first level of the game. Settings are shown below as are the performance numbers.

IGP Settings	HD5870 Settings

Now this is impressive. This is the first time we have seen reasonably playable frame rates from any IGP even at a reduced resolution/effects setting. At 39FPS Modern Warfare is more than playable. It is not the best visual experience, but it is still impressive to see if playing this game.

FarCry2 DX10 -
Although not one of my favorite games this tedious game does have some good graphics. The large sandbox style of the game lends to mission based play. The only problem is that the AI is rather low grade. Still the more CPU power the more the bad guys try to do. Over all the game was a little bit of a disappointment to play, but still not a bad DX10 representation. Our testing run starts right after you get your first mission to clean out the safe-house and ends after the hostage rescue. Settings and performance numbers are shown below.

FarCry 2 Settings for IGP	FarCry 2 Settings for HD5870

Under FarCry 2 things are a little different. As we have told you before FarCry2 is an Intel optimized game. It is meant to take advantage of the CPU and its processing power. Unfortunately the A6-3650 does not have enough horse power to make a big difference in this game. You could still play it (especially when overclocked), but it would not be that great of an experience.


Battlefield Bad Company2 DX11 –
I have liked many of the Battlefield games. They usually tend to be fast paced and fun. With Battlefield Bad Company 2 you do get some of that, but there is something about the graphics and the movement that just does not sit right. The AI is a less sophisticated form of the bar fight AI, but it gets the job done. Still, the game is good for testing as it can put a strain on the components of the board. Out testing run is the entire first level, from beginning to end. Settings are shown below along with the raw numbers.

Bad Company 2 IGP Settings	Bad Company 2 HD5870 Settings

Here, is where the A6-3650/A75-UD4H shines. Look at the performance we are getting from just the APU in Bad Company 2. You would be able to play this DX11 game without the need to pick up an add-in GPU. Yes, it is not the full experience with all the eye candy, but it is still more than playable. You cannot get this from any of the Intel CPUs with an integrated GPU. When you do drop in the HD5870 your performance only gets better.

Gaming wrap-up -
The A75-UD4H and AMD A6-3650 was pretty impressive when it comes to IGP based gaming. When you consider that the games we used for testing are not low-end games the performance even looks better. This means that you can expect this APU to play games like World of Warcraft, Total War, Civilization and other turn based roleplaying games quite well. When you combine the audio and its 108db SNR the gaming experience gets even better.