Quad-core CPUs and Graphics performance

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According to Intel, 25 to 40% of the CPU load in a game is linked to Direct3D and the graphics driver...
Over the course of various tests designed to observe this employment of quad-cores we came to the conclusion that there was one parameter that had a great deal more impact that expected: the graphics card, or rather, its driver.

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http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/6...0024646bf1.gif

Source

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AMD has confirmed that the current drivers were not fully optimized for using quad core. This optimization should arrive during the first quarter of 2009 with new Catalyst drivers.

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Source

this would mean that nvidia Gt200 series will be even more owned by the radeon 4850-70 series? :shrug:

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Originally Posted by duploxxx

this would mean that nvidia Gt200 series will be even more owned by the radeon 4850-70 series? :shrug:

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Quite the contrary - it rather means that Nvidia has optimized their drivers to get along with quads better.

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Originally Posted by LOE

cat 8.12 is rumored to be a major release

steam computing
i7 platform support
new games support
maybe they will include quad core support as well

I think we will see a major boost in performance of AMD GPUs, those 24% nvidia gets from quad core optimization sound incredible

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Ahh... I need more reading comprehension. Disregard my previous comment please ;)

It seems HD 4870 got hit by DX 10 harder too in that table, i wonder whether that's limited to those 2 games, or indeed their driver isn't as polished as nVidia's one, and there's still some room for growth in DX 10 for ATi's card.

aren't they both twimtbp titles too?

interesting results, with Quad Cores being out for so long, i had long since assumed optimizations had been made to utilize them... especially from AMD, since they make both quads and gfx :P

this article really is an eye opener.... you'd of thought they would of played this hand with their driver optimisations a long time ago...

lets see what happens...:up:

wonder how this affects 3d benchmarks

free performance is always welcome :up:

But its a shame that it took both vendors 2 years to utilize quad cores... :(

10% performance improvement from a 3x more expensive CPU (E8400 vs Q9650)?
Nice.
:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Hornet331

free performance is always welcome :up:

But its a shame that it took both vendors 2 years to utilize quad cores... :(

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And we still don't know how much more utilisation there is to be had.

wow so amd realized that there are quad cores around wow just wow they are really fast

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Originally Posted by largon

10% performance improvement from a 3x more expensive CPU (E8400 vs Q9650)?
Nice.
:rolleyes:

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People don't get quadcores strictly for gaming purposes.. The extra gaming performance is just icing on the cake.

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Originally Posted by duploxxx

this would mean that nvidia Gt200 series will be even more owned by the radeon 4850-70 series? :shrug:

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how did you make this u.... figure this out? :confused::confused::confused:

To me it looks like AMD still hasn't released any quadcore optimization, while nvidia has. That's all there is to it actually. Soon AMD will have their optimization too so that everyone can be happy.

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Originally Posted by Slay0r

how did you make this u.... figure this out? :confused::confused::confused:

To me it looks like AMD still hasn't released any quadcore optimization, while nvidia has. That's all there is to it actually. Soon AMD will have their optimization too so that everyone can be happy.

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I am happy either they do it or not.
:welcome:

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Originally Posted by Slay0r

how did you make this u.... figure this out? :confused::confused::confused:

To me it looks like AMD still hasn't released any quadcore optimization, while nvidia has. That's all there is to it actually. Soon AMD will have their optimization too so that everyone can be happy.

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thats what hes saying that when amd DO .. do the optimizations that they will "own" nividia's G200 series even more :up:

yay, increased performance for free :p:

i thought ati/amd already optimized their drivers for quadcores as well, as nvidia is doing this for quite some time now. makes me wonder what else in our systems isn't optimized after all.

In other, slightly almost somewhat related news, quads running MS' DX10 software rasterizer run Crysis better than Intel integrated graphics. :rofl:

yeah the tests were run at 800x600 which is exactly the resolution most gtx 280 owners use ;)

what a worthless article..

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Originally Posted by postumus

yeah the tests were run at 800x600 which is exactly the resolution most gtx 280 owners use ;)

what a worthless article..

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somehow, this made me think of larrabee.

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Originally Posted by postumus

yeah the tests were run at 800x600 which is exactly the resolution most gtx 280 owners use ;)

what a worthless article..

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compared with Intel integrated graphics

Are you guys sure it was 600*800? The FPS numbers seem a bit low for that...

That's what it says yes. And hey, just because you guys don't doesn't mean the rest of the world doesn't. Ok maybe it does. Yeah, it does.

I couldn't personally care less about the little fights between the two companies and how immoral the things they do are. I'm a consumer and I want performance, not a free ticket to a boxing match between AMD and nVidia.

Not forgetting things are we, cache difference perhaps ?

Also If nvidia really does perform better with quads , why didnt review add an AMD system or two?
Dubious review esp after the hyped 180. seris from Nvidia.

Cache diference does not result in 20+% difference mate

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Originally Posted by Gener_AL (UK)

Not forgetting things are we, cache difference perhaps ?

Also If nvidia really does perform better with quads , why didnt review add an AMD system or two?
Dubious review esp after the hyped 180. seris from Nvidia.

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Let me get this straight.

Your saying that nvidia drivers are better optomize for cache then??
:rofl:

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Originally Posted by Cooper

Cache diference does not result in 20+% difference mate

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tell that to allendale :up:

Wow! Now AMD just needs to work on driver stability.

I haven't played around with ATI since I got this 8800GTS but do you really have to download specific drivers for certain games?

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Originally Posted by Glow9

I haven't played around with ATI since I got this 8800GTS but do you really have to download specific drivers for certain games?

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Not in that sense.

Though, they have been pushing out "Beta hotfixes" for newer games in-between their monthly driver cycle.

This news is kinda bittersweet. AMD hasn't been looking towards the future, while nvidia has.:down: However, if this is true, then there could be some significant performance increases. :up:

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Originally Posted by ColonelCain

Not in that sense.

Though, they have been pushing out "Beta hotfixes" for newer games in-between their monthly driver cycle.

This news is kinda bittersweet. AMD hasn't been looking towards the future, while nvidia has.:down: However, if this is true, then there could be some significant performance increases. :up:

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Okay so just so I get this. Say driver 9.02 came out Jan 1, Game: Shoot a Fanboy came on Jan 15th. So since ATI doesn't have this game in it's 9.02 they will release a hotfix.
But! say you didn't download the 9.02 driver but download drivers 9.03 that come out say Feb 1st, then buy Shoot a Fanboy after Feb 1st you wont need the hotfix. That hotfix will be included in the new 9.02 driver correct?

that would be a nice game to play :)
Yep, the hotfix is added to the next catalyst version.

lets not overlook the differences between the proccessors
thats all i was suggesting.

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Originally Posted by brandinb

Let me get this straight.

Your saying that nvidia drivers are better optomize for cache then??
:rofl:

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No.

May i point you here to read a little more http://www.nordichardware.com/Review...&skrivelse=514

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Originally Posted by Glow9

Okay so just so I get this. Say driver 9.02 came out Jan 1, Game: Shoot a Fanboy came on Jan 15th. So since ATI doesn't have this game in it's 9.02 they will release a hotfix.
But! say you didn't download the 9.02 driver but download drivers 9.03 that come out say Feb 1st, then buy Shoot a Fanboy after Feb 1st you wont need the hotfix. That hotfix will be included in the new 9.02 driver correct?

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Yep, pretty much.

Though, the problem with ATI's driver release schedule is that it incures some MAJOR shortfalls.
Namely the small amount of improvement, since by releasing it monthly, there is little time to actually try to work out issues, beef up performance.
Secondly, the issue that they often break fixes applied a few months prior.

Anyhow, back on topic :p::
@Gener_AL (UK), this wouldn't be a very sound stratagy, as then each time a new uarch became king, they would need to dig deep into the driver to change it to perform well on the new uarch.
ATI/nvidia are much better off trying to keep cache and specific uarch out of the equation.

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Originally Posted by ColonelCain

@Gener_AL (UK), this wouldn't be a very sound stratagy, as then each time a new uarch became king, they would need to dig deep into the driver to change it to perform well on the new uarch.
ATI/nvidia are much better off trying to keep cache and specific uarch out of the equation.

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Thats not what i was saying
All i was merely pointing out that the dual has 1/2 the cache of the quad.
the link i posted above points out a 20% increase.

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Originally Posted by Glow9

I haven't played around with ATI since I got this 8800GTS but do you really have to download specific drivers for certain games?

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OK, before I post this I want to say that this has nothing to do with either nVidia or ATI except that they both use drivers.

Yes and No is the answer. I have found that certain drivers tend to perform better with certain games, and they don't always get better with later releases....sometimes they get worse. That goes for both ATI and nVidia. I don't know whether it's the fixes, or just the driver code is more efficient for certain titles. This is even more glaring with flight simulators. Flight simulators tend to be very finicky about things like that.

I have used ATI and nVidia both through the years, and tend to keep multiple drivers on storage for drivers switches when I change titles. I like to get max performance. It doesn't take that long and for PC stuff I do alot of setup before flying/gaming anyway. I tend to shut down all background stuff, clean up the HDD, bump up the Video clocks, and basically just put the machine into a "gaming mode" where it's setup to game.

I have not found one driver yet that will do it all.

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Originally Posted by ColonelCain

Yep, pretty much.

Though, the problem with ATI's driver release schedule is that it incures some MAJOR shortfalls.
Namely the small amount of improvement, since by releasing it monthly, there is little time to actually try to work out issues, beef up performance.
Secondly, the issue that they often break fixes applied a few months prior.

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Why is this? With bragging right with the fastest card on the planet ect ect wouldn't performance sort of be a priority?

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Originally Posted by Glow9

Why is this? With bragging right with the fastest card on the planet ect ect wouldn't performance sort of be a priority?

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I'm pretty sure that ATI does this for WHQL cert. purposes.

Yeah, you would think that performance would be a top priority. That, and overall compatibility.

IMO, ATI really needs to change up their release schedule. WHQL certification really isn't worth the sacrifices made on a montly release schedule.

what's wrong with monthly updates ?

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Originally Posted by Cooper

what's wrong with monthly updates ?

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There isn't enough time to make substantial positive progress in improving the driver.

EDIT:
This basically sums up my stance on monthly releases: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3463&p=6

I know this is a bit off topic, but what this so called review completely neglects to mention or pay attention to is minimum frames per second.
With aa, and everything maxed on crysis with a 9800gx2 on an e7300 at 4ghz, my min fps was hitting 4-5.
With a q9450 my min fps didnt dip below 20 fps, and this was an apples to apples test.

What I'm dying to see is a benchmark that compares the overclocked E8500 vs the Q9650. I bet you the 8500 easily wins due to the speed difference.

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Originally Posted by askimo

What I'm dying to see is a benchmark that compares the overclocked E8500 vs the Q9650. I bet you the 8500 easily wins due to the speed difference.

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too bad they didnt just opt to do true quads for 775 :( then I bet the Q9650 would do some damage

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Originally Posted by fragmasterMax

I know this is a bit off topic, but what this so called review completely neglects to mention or pay attention to is minimum frames per second.
With aa, and everything maxed on crysis with a 9800gx2 on an e7300 at 4ghz, my min fps was hitting 4-5.
With a q9450 my min fps didnt dip below 20 fps, and this was an apples to apples test.

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:ROTF: Whoa! 4-5 slideshow FPS. I bet that was fun. heh

20, now that's getting better definitely. :up:

What did they average? Do you remember?

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Originally Posted by ColonelCain

There isn't enough time to make substantial positive progress in improving the driver.

EDIT:
This basically sums up my stance on monthly releases: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3463&p=6

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Although I agree that one month may not be enough to make proper driver for brand new title, but what AMD lacks in this department is co-operation with game vendors so by the time the title is release AMD would already have proper driver for it. TWIMTBP really payes off...

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Originally Posted by Cooper

Although I agree that one month may not be enough to make proper driver for brand new title, but what AMD lacks in this department is co-operation with game vendors so by the time the title is release AMD would already have proper driver for it. TWIMTBP really payes off...

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To over-simplify by stating this as purely a factor of a TWIMTBP co-marketing deal is not accurate.

Lots of people at NVIDIA work hard to help developers out via technical and driver support, even if their title is not TWIMTBP. It's also a matter of staffing for this task..

There's no reason AMD couldn't/doesn't do the same (in fact they do, they just don't do it to nearly the same scale).

Who cares about 10-20% gain from quads at just 800X600? LOL

As of late, nvidia has been beating ati in all areas, if 8.12 does not provide better performance and improve im going to sell of my 4870x2 and get the 55nm gtx 280 SLI

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Originally Posted by GAR

As of late, nvidia has been beating ati in all areas, if 8.12 does not provide better performance and improve im going to sell of my 4870x2 and get the 55nm gtx 280 SLI

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Nice, smooth and bug-free... http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=209402 :up:

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Originally Posted by Sr7

To over-simplify by stating this as purely a factor of a TWIMTBP co-marketing deal is not accurate.

Lots of people at NVIDIA work hard to help developers out via technical and driver support, even if their title is not TWIMTBP. It's also a matter of staffing for this task..

There's no reason AMD couldn't/doesn't do the same (in fact they do, they just don't do it to nearly the same scale).

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That was exactly my point. Im not sure how all this testing/developing co-operation thing work, but Im sure that ATI started optimizing drivers for several tier 1 titles only when they got a retail copy of the game

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Originally Posted by GAR

As of late, nvidia has been beating ati in all areas, if 8.12 does not provide better performance and improve im going to sell of my 4870x2 and get the 55nm gtx 280 SLI

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Id say this comment is far from being entirely true and will cause flaming here. ATI gained huge jump in market presence for the last 4-5 months and it's not cause "nvidia has been beating ati in all areas"

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Originally Posted by Cooper

Id say this comment is far from being entirely true and will cause flaming here. ATI gained huge jump in market presence for the last 45 months and it's not cause "nvidia has been beating ati in all areas"

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I agree, ATI has made significant advances in many areas and it has resulted in a large increase in market share. But, you can not ignore the comparison in the OP, however rudimentary it may be. Simply put, nvidia is ahead of ATI in the quad core conjunction w/gfx power driver sector. To some informed individuals, this could distinguish a purchase. For example, after seeing this, I am sorta dissapointed in my 4870, even though it does everything I need it to. Right now, I rather have a GTX 216.

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Originally Posted by Nicksterr

I agree, ATI has made significant advances in many areas and it has resulted in a large increase in market share. But, you can not ignore the comparison in the OP, however rudimentary it may be. Simply put, nvidia is ahead of ATI in the quad core conjunction w/gfx power driver sector. To some informed individuals, this could distinguish a purchase. For example, after seeing this, I am sorta dissapointed in my 4870, even though it does everything I need it to. Right now, I rather have a GTX 216.

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this logic completely blows my mind
I too have a 4870, and this information doesnt impact my gaming performance in the slightest... if ever im bolstered by the fact that my great performance hasnt even been fully optimized yet.

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Originally Posted by Nicksterr

I agree, ATI has made significant advances in many areas and it has resulted in a large increase in market share. But, you can not ignore the comparison in the OP, however rudimentary it may be. Simply put, nvidia is ahead of ATI in the quad core conjunction w/gfx power driver sector. To some informed individuals, this could distinguish a purchase. For example, after seeing this, I am sorta dissapointed in my 4870, even though it does everything I need it to. Right now, I rather have a GTX 216.

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I don't get how this logic works. You do realize that pretty much ALL reviews on the internet comparing the 4870 to GTX260/GTX280 are done on quad cores, right? Your GPU can only get faster.

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Originally Posted by Cooper

Cache diference does not result in 20+% difference mate

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http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_6.html#sect0

:confused: sooo.. that ^ page is.. wrong? :shrug:

last i checked crysis only makes full use of one core and assigned physics or something to the second core
so how are drivers helping quad core performance in a game that doesnt support it? are they just passing some of the gpus load of to the cpu?

since gtx280 is a more powerful card than the 4870 is the gtx280 performance improving on quad cores or just getting worse on dual cores due to it trying to lighten the load on the gpu

or do i just need to take a step back and re read this :)

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Originally Posted by Cooper

That was exactly my point. Im not sure how all this testing/developing co-operation thing work, but Im sure that ATI started optimizing drivers for several tier 1 titles only when they got a retail copy of the game



Id say this comment is far from being entirely true and will cause flaming here. ATI gained huge jump in market presence for the last 45 months and it's not cause "nvidia has been beating ati in all areas"

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Cooper do these higher ecscelon companies provide developer kits to other companies who need to write software that works like these drivers and other add-ons like controller drivers, maybe even mouse drivers, TrackIR and other perferals?

I know on many of the flight sims I fly, that this is the case. They want companies to work with them, because it serves to help their sales by offering a software product that works well with a user's system accorss many platforms, and mnay periferals.

I always assumed they did, but it sounds like this may not be the case. Maybe it's a "proprietary info" deal where companies may want to keep things confidential? Of course there are NDA's to protect sensitive info, or pre-release info.

This was one of my majory gripes with Vista in the beginning. Driver support was horrible. It's like it was an afterthought. Users were plagued by driver issues rendering their gaming and multimedia rigs useless with Vista until it was straightened out.

I would hope it would be like the dev work done in the flight sim community where everybody is on board before release and get things nailed down and bug fixed before these bigtime titles are released. I guess I'm kinda confused now after reading this. I know it was a problem with the Vista release, but I'm not sure if this is a problem with grpahics card makers.

With an OS that is just inexcuseable. AFter all, it Microsoft, and they should get those supporting cvompanies on baord from the beginning, and have the funds to do that, but it's a bit different with other companies that don't have the mamouth resources MS does.

I'm curious how the "compatibility trials" work or even if they are doing that. I always assumed they were until this thread.

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Originally Posted by Cooper

That was exactly my point. Im not sure how all this testing/developing co-operation thing work, but Im sure that ATI started optimizing drivers for several tier 1 titles only when they got a retail copy of the game



Id say this comment is far from being entirely true and will cause flaming here. ATI gained huge jump in market presence for the last 45 months and it's not cause "nvidia has been beating ati in all areas"

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Actually, if you look at alot of the testing done, GTX 216 wins by a large margin over the 4870, and dual GPU's are still buggy as hell, i have a 4870x2 in my system right now, i speak from experience. Testing done after 180 series nvidia drivers have given nvidia the edge for now, me being an ATi owner am hoping for a good 8.12 driver.

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Originally Posted by Sr7

To over-simplify by stating this as purely a factor of a TWIMTBP co-marketing deal is not accurate.

Lots of people at NVIDIA work hard to help developers out via technical and driver support, even if their title is not TWIMTBP. It's also a matter of staffing for this task..

There's no reason AMD couldn't/doesn't do the same (in fact they do, they just don't do it to nearly the same scale).

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Are you serious with this? Don't you know that NVIDIA's revenue every year (before 2008 at least) is greater than ATI's entire engineering budget? NVIDIA is much much much larger than ATI.

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Originally Posted by GAR

Actually, if you look at alot of the testing done, GTX 216 wins by a large margin over the 4870, and dual GPU's are still buggy as hell, i have a 4870x2 in my system right now, i speak from experience. Testing done after 180 series nvidia drivers have given nvidia the edge for now, me being an ATi owner am hoping for a good 8.12 driver.

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First of all, let me say I do not want to turn this thread into some sort of flamefest or ati vs amd thing. If you do not agree with what i say then fine.
In my experience GTX 216 does not win by a large margin at all.

In all those recent reviews it's a small margin, and besides this, most of those new reviews use old catalyst drivers, and settings and resolutions that work best for nvidia cards. (settings and resolutions that nvidia recommends)

Yes, nvidia did a great job with these last drivers. These improvements combined with the excessive pricecuts that have been going on at nvidia make their cards competitive again. Remember that ATI forced nvidia to cut down on profits by this much because ATI simply had a better product. (cost to make/performance)

These drivers and pricecuts did not completely turn the tables like you seem to suggest, and it is real easy to say "Oh my GTX 216 works bugless!" on the internet, but I think if you do make the switch to nvidia you will find they also have lots of things to improve in their drivers.

Things are never that black and white, and in this case both companies have excellent products for excellent prices. What I personally like about AMD is that when DX 10.1 implementation becomes more widely used, I will not have to upgrade again to benefit from a potential speedboost. How well SLI and crossfire work changes every month. So what does not work now, may work in 2 weeks.

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Originally Posted by tiro_uspsss

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...0_6.html#sect0

:confused: sooo.. that ^ page is.. wrong? :shrug:

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I was implying to 3MB Vs 6MB comaprison. Celeron with it's 512KB has huge performance loss compared even to 2MB Allendale parts.

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Originally Posted by GAR

Actually, if you look at alot of the testing done, GTX 216 wins by a large margin over the 4870, and dual GPU's are still buggy as hell, i have a 4870x2 in my system right now, i speak from experience. Testing done after 180 series nvidia drivers have given nvidia the edge for now, me being an ATi owner am hoping for a good 8.12 driver.

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if you consider up to 10% a large margin than yes.

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Originally Posted by T_Flight

Cooper do these higher ecscelon companies provide developer kits to other companies who need to write software that works like these drivers and other add-ons like controller drivers, maybe even mouse drivers, TrackIR and other perferals?

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I have no clue how it works. Just know few example when it doesn't work as logicaly intendent

It's seems that for some 10% is effectively a large margin...:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by AbelJemka

It's seems that for some 10% is effectively a large margin...:rolleyes:

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if it is a margin, it cannot be large :ROTF:

'Margin' is use for profit so it can be large.

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Originally Posted by mars

this logic completely blows my mind
I too have a 4870, and this information doesnt impact my gaming performance in the slightest... if ever im bolstered by the fact that my great performance hasnt even been fully optimized yet.

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It doesn't affect your gaming performance. It's just a reminder nvidia still has the driver upperhand. I'm not trying to make any kind of obscure point here, should be fairly easy to understand.

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Originally Posted by Shadowmage

I don't get how this logic works. You do realize that pretty much ALL reviews on the internet comparing the 4870 to GTX260/GTX280 are done on quad cores, right? Your GPU can only get faster.

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Sure, and this is another comparison to add to the list.

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Originally Posted by Cooper

I was implying to 3MB Vs 6MB comaprison. Celeron with it's 512KB has huge performance loss compared even to 2MB Allendale parts.



if you consider up to 10% a large margin than yes.



I have no clue how it works. Just know few example when it doesn't work as logicaly intendent

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Thanks for the reply. I always kinda curious about thigns like that. It's kinda interesting the way different companies do things. It seems to work pretty well considering all these possible combinations of stuff, but sometimes there are snags along the way.

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Originally Posted by Miss Banana

First of all, let me say I do not want to turn this thread into some sort of flamefest or ati vs amd thing. If you do not agree with what i say then fine.
In my experience GTX 216 does not win by a large margin at all.

In all those recent reviews it's a small margin, and besides this, most of those new reviews use old catalyst drivers, and settings and resolutions that work best for nvidia cards. (settings and resolutions that nvidia recommends)

Yes, nvidia did a great job with these last drivers. These improvements combined with the excessive pricecuts that have been going on at nvidia make their cards competitive again. Remember that ATI forced nvidia to cut down on profits by this much because ATI simply had a better product. (cost to make/performance)

These drivers and pricecuts did not completely turn the tables like you seem to suggest, and it is real easy to say "Oh my GTX 216 works bugless!" on the internet, but I think if you do make the switch to nvidia you will find they also have lots of things to improve in their drivers.

Things are never that black and white, and in this case both companies have excellent products for excellent prices. What I personally like about AMD is that when DX 10.1 implementation becomes more widely used, I will not have to upgrade again to benefit from a potential speedboost. How well SLI and crossfire work changes every month. So what does not work now, may work in 2 weeks.

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Good post, agreed. :up: