Crysis 1.2	Source: Electronic Arts

Crysis is a science fiction first-person shooter developed by Crytek. Crysis uses Microsoft's new API, DirectX 10 for graphics rendering, and includes the new engine—the CryEngine 2—that is the successor to Far Cry's CryEngine. CryEngine 2 is among the first engines to use the DirectX 10 framework of Windows Vista, but can also run using DirectX 9, both on Vista and Windows XP.

Higher results are better.

Crysis v1.2.1 No AA (single-threaded) 800x600 LQ Physics Very High (FPS) Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 107.32 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 117.47 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 104.21 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 107.2 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 98.59 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 104.09 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 93.4 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 92.04 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 70.81 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 69.36 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 74.89 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 75.73 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 76.85 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 78.4 1024x768 LQ Physics Very High (FPS) Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 109.32 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 117.01 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 106.22 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 106.87 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 97.25 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 103.75 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 93.37 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 91.91 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 70.51 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 69.17 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 74.28 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 75.41 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 76.86 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 78.31 800x600 LQ (FPS) Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 106.71 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 115.95 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 105.41 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 107.12 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 99.38 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 104.09 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 93.5 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 92.21 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 70.77 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 69.54 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 74.79 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 75.21 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 77.26 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 78.19 1024x768 LQ (FPS) Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 106.9 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 117.06 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 104.73 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 106.91 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 98.16 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 104.59 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 93.2 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 91.76 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 70.88 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 69.35 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 74.33 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 75.44 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 77.18 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 78.27

Crysis performance under Windows 7 tends to be a little bit slower than Windows Vista for Intel CPUs. For the AMD processors in the group, Windows 7 is a more hospitable environment, but only by the thinnest of margins. Crysis, like most games, is largely single-threaded.

Sierra FEAR 1.08	Source: Sierra

FEAR is Sierra's latest first person shooter which relies heavily on DirectX 9 features. With its "Soft Shadows" feature enabled, even the fastest videocards run at a crawl, FEAR is definitely the new benchmark for future FPS games to follow.

Higher results are better.

Sierra FEAR 1.08 No AA (single-threaded) 640x480 LQ Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 648 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 701 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 606 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 639 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 658 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 713 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 733 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 597 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 400 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 368 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 424 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 426 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 417 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 419 800x600 LQ Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 643 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 692 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 597 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 636 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 650 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 689 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 723 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 591 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 391 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 365 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 415 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 421 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 411 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 412 1024x768 LQ Points Ranking Intel Core i7 920 - Win 7 644 Intel Core i7 920 - Win Vista 673 Intel Core i5 750 - Win 7 593 Intel Core i5 750 - Win Vista 626 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win 7 645 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Win Vista 572 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win 7 695 AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (125W) - Win Vista 590 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win 7 391 AMD Athlon II X4 620 - Win Vista 362 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win 7 414 AMD Athlon II X3 435 - Win Vista 420 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win 7 410 AMD Athlon II X2 240e - Win Vista 411

FEAR shows much the same results as Crysis, with slightly higher results for most of the Intel processors in Windows Vista. The AMD quad-core processors do a bit better in Windows 7 than they do in Windows Vista. For the most part though videocards are still a much greater influence on gaming performance than processors.

Like the synthetic benchmarks, the effect of the CPU on gaming performance doesn't change dramatically between Windows 7 and Windows Vista. While Vista's averaged overall scores in these two tests are slightly higher than Windows 7's, for the most part these performance changes will be unnoticeable during typical gaming scenarios, where the overall resolution and detail settings will be turned up dramatically.

Now let's take the videocard and drivers out of the equation, and see how a single-threaded, raw number-crunching benchmark does: