F.E.A.R. is a heavy game and we used its internal benchmarking module. We upgraded it to version 1.08 and measured performance in two scenarios, both at 1600x1200 with “computer settings” at “maximum”. The first one, we called “low”, was with “graphics card” set at “low”, and the second one, we called “high”, was with “graphics card” set at “maximum”. Let’s take a look on the results, given in frames per second.

F.E.A.R. 1.08 - Low	FPS	Difference
Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz)	273	2.25%
Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66 GHz)	269	0.75%
Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz)	267
Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66 GHz)	266	0.38%
Pentium 4 550 (3.4 GHz)	195	36.92%

On F.E.A.R. with image quality set to “low” all Core 2 CPUs achieved the same performance level, indicating that the video card is the component limiting the maximum performance you can achieve.

F.E.A.R. 1.08 - High	FPS	Difference
Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66 GHz)	52	0.00%
Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66 GHz)	52	0.00%
Core 2 Duo E6750 (2.66 GHz)	52
Pentium 4 550 (3.4 GHz)	51	1.96%
Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93 GHz)	50	4.00%

When we changed the image quality settings to “maximum” all CPUs achieved the same performance level, indicating that the video card is the one limiting the maximum performance you can achieve.