Intel Sandy Bridge Extreme Core i7 3960X Review

Testing:

Civilization V is a turn-based strategy game. The premise is to play as one of 18 civilizations and lead it from the "dawn of man" up to the space age. This latest iteration of the Civilization series uses a new game engine and brings massive changes to the AI behaviour in the game. Released for Windows in September of 2010, Civilization V was developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K games. Testing will be done using actual gameplay, with FPS measured by Fraps through a series of five turns, 199-205  turns into the game.

Settings

• In-game settings to High
• 4x AA
• 16x AF
• Fraps-measured game play

Higher = Better

Again the gaming performance sees performance differentials in a pretty narrow band. More cores is not necessarily the best choice in this game, as the game play is smooth with any of the tested CPUs.