A look at Core 2 performance in gaming would not be complete without a look at Crysis.

There has been a lot of talk over the last little while concerning the high requirements for this intense FPS. Many people thought that the sky-high requirements for the game were turning off a lot of gamers -- it was even such a concern that an article went up on the game's website earlier this month, showing how Crysis can be play on 'High' detail levels with a $900 computer.

The 'future-proofed' CryENGINE2 does take an awful amount of processsing power to get running nicely -- but hey, it sure looks fantastic. Even the most expensive of video cards has trouble coping with Crysis when the details are cranked in DX10.

We ran the game on Medium settings to see what kind of affect Core 2 speeds had on FPS.

While the minium requirements for Crysis are listed as a 2.8 or 3.2 single-core processer (XP / Vista), the recommended CPU is a Core 2 Duo at 2.2 GHz or faster. The 2.2 GHz figure seems right on: after 2.2 GHz, gains quickly taper off for increased CPU speeds.

If you have a 2.2 GHz (or faster) dual-core CPU and are unsastisfied with your framerates, its your GPU holding you back, not your CPU.