AMD just demonstrated its Cloth and Destruction demos based on the Havoc engine, and AMD was able to balance the performance between CPU and GPU. Godfrey confirmed that AMD believes in open standards such as OpenCL, and therefore AMD was happy to demonstrate graphics accelerated physics with the Havok engine. The funny part is that Intel owns Havok and this cooperation between Intel and AMD works really well, at least on a technical level. OpenCL lets AMD choose if the physics should run on GPU or CPU and demos even had toggle scrolls between CPU and GPU acceleration.

After playing through several levels on each platform, even with the improved performance of the Q9550 after switching to the 9.3 driver set, we thought the Phenom II 940/720BE offered a better overall gaming experience in this title. Are we going to say those three words again? Our therapist advised us not to hold our feelings in as they would eventually manifest and be channeled into a bad review for someone. So without further adieu, Smoother Game Play, Smoother Game Play.

That feels better, but all joking aside, we simply experienced better player movement and weapon control during heavy action sequences with our Phenom II processors compared to the Q9550 platform. This was especially true if we were running background applications (IM, File Transfers, AntiVirus, etc.) and especially if CPU usage was over 90%, the Phenom II system never stuttered or gave us a slight pause between level transitions like the Q9550 (editor - Sounds like an SSD review).

It might not be noticeable to everyone and at first we thought it was a placebo effect, but doing a blind test with an A/B box always lead us to the Phenom II. The $64 question is if we had the same user experience with the i7 platform. The answer is yes. The i7 offered an improved game play experience over the Q9550 platform based on the same reasons we listed for the Phenom II. Simply put, integrated memory controller and CSI/HTT platform designs perform better than the previous front side bus platforms with these type of system loads.

Intel has yet to show us anything significant in this overclocking arena with Core i7, other than the fact that it can overclock by 26% and produce a higher 3DMark score than AMD's 49% overclocked machine while relying on an AMD/ATI graphics card - which admittedly does speak to Core i7's greater performance per clock (PPC). But even so, I must now ask you, oh Intel employee, where's the 2.93 GHz Model 940 overclocked by 118% (one percentage point higher than AMD's overclock) at 6.387 GHz? Or better yet, where's the overclock to 6.51 GHz (a 122% overclock) showing your true dominance and superiority in x86 space?

"Our partnership with AMD was canceled by AMD on December 31, 2008. We were informed in time and thus we had the chance to start looking for other opportunities. AMD canceled their arrangement with mTw due to the economical situations, which as we all know is in a decline. We won’t be the only ones who are affected by AMD’s decision to cutback in eSports. I really regret this step by AMD, as we actually expected a long-term partnership with the company. Nevertheless, thanks to support from our remaining partners and the good work of our management, mTw will be well-prepared for 2009. We will try to continue our success in the future."