Mobile Core i7 920XM, Clarksfield: Nehalem on-the-go

Gaming Performance

For this initial look, we've trimmed our usual battery of game tests down to eight titles. We still have one "simulation" (GRID), four first-person shooters, two role-playing games, and one strategy game. All of these gaming tests were run at 1920x1080 using High/Very High detail settings. For the Clarksfield system, this required the use of an external LCD since otherwise we would be limited to 1600x900.

It's clear that we are GPU limited at these settings in some of the titles, but a few games are also clearly CPU limited. Falling into the CPU limited category, Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty: World at War both show similar performance with the i7 systems and show little if any benefit to SLI. The QX9300 in the Eurocom is 15~25% slower than the i7-920XM in these two titles.

Most of the games show a clear benefit for SLI, however, and likewise they show that the GTX 280M is a bottleneck for gaming performance. SLI improved performance by 15% in GRID, 20% in Mass Effect, and almost 30% in Far Cry 2. The big winners for SLI are Crysis (~60% boost from SLI), F.E.A.R 2 (90% boost), and Empire: Total War (99% faster with SLI).

If you're after optimal gaming performance, obviously just getting the fastest CPU or the fastest GPU alone won't cut it in every situation. You need a balanced platform with a CPU and GPU matched to offer the best performance in a large variety of situations. QX9300 with GTX 280M SLI often tips the scales too far towards the GPU side of the equation, while i7-975 is complete overkill for a single GTX 280M (about the level of a desktop 9800 GTX+/GTS 250).

We are definitely interested in seeing what the i7-920XM - as well as the i7-820QM and i7-720QM - can do with SLI graphics in the future. We're also looking forward to the day when we see mobile versions of stuff like the HD 5870, preferably with power gate transistors.