Good CPU for gaming article on AT

[Rollo]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6985/c...ng-in-haswell-

Apparently no reason to update my 2500K or 990X again. Either will push my Titan or 7970 from the looks of things.

[boxleitnerb]

Bad article, very limited number of games. There are many CPU bound games out there, depending on the scene and the fps you need.

[Chickenfeed]

1080p single gpu would have been more interesting for most people as > 1080p is still a tiny niche... The non gaming CPU benchmarks were nice to see though, with data points across multiple generations.

[El Mano]

Game selection is ridiculous at best.

[Rollo]

Bad article, very limited number of games. There are many CPU bound games out there, depending on the scene and the fps you need.

Disagree, for these reasons:

A. I like that it uses the GTX580 and 7970, last two "$500 card" generations.

B. I like it that it shows single, double, triple, and quadruple GPU settings so you can see where you'd become cpu limited with multi GPU configurations.

C. There are a LOT of CPUs tested. That took a lot of hours.

D. The games they did select span genres.

E. Like the 25X14 res, all I use is 25X16, so I don't care if I never see a 1080P bench again in my life.

It's a worthwhile article on a lot of levels. I was just thinking the other day "Ye olde 990X is getting long in the tooth" and wondering if I should buy a Haswell.

That article answered my question and saved me time and money.

[BenchZowner]

Bad article, very limited number of games. There are many CPU bound games out there, depending on the scene and the fps you need.

Since this is your copyright ? post everytime, why don't you take the time to do your tests with those many CPU bound games out there and write your article ?
I don't mean to sound rude, but you're doing this every time somebody posts a gaming performance-related article/review, yet you never mention any of those very CPU bound games at 1080p/2560 high details with AA neither come with your own results ( just 1-2 games maybe, and two-three sets of frequencies ).

[boxleitnerb]

Since this is your copyright ? post everytime, why don't you take the time to do your tests with those many CPU bound games out there and write your article ?
I don't mean to sound rude, but you're doing this every time somebody posts a gaming performance-related article/review, yet you never mention any of those very CPU bound games at 1080p/2560 high details with AA neither come with your own results ( just 1-2 games maybe, and two-three sets of frequencies ).

I can tell you a number of games, no problem. Remember, it depends on the scene and the fps you need.

• Borderlands 2 can drop to as low as 40-45 on a 3930K@4.2 GHz in wide open spaces with many objects. View distance is very heavy on the CPU there.
• Shogun 2 is very CPU intensive. Animations skip even on the fastest CPUs when too many armies are on the field (fps can stay high, though - the rendering engine is decoupled from the animation engine) and if you look at lots of men fighting, fps go down as well. I've seen 15-25 fps often when larger bulks of units are involved. Loading times are also an issue because you have to endure them before and after each battle. They scale nearly linearly with CPU clock, as do turn times.
• Civilization V turn times, especially in the late game. fps are irrelevant for this genre, especially if they are so ridiculously high.
• Arma 2+3 with high view distance
• Sins of a Solar Empire. Large fleets -> very low fps
• Anno 2070 at maximum zoom
• Need for Speed 2012
• Tomb Raider has quite a couple of spots where fps drop well below 60 due to the CPU. There is a fix out there, but I don't know if Square Enix made it official yet because they said it could make the game unstable.
• Serious Sam 3, my old 2600K@4.3 GHz couldn't maintain 60 fps
• Battlefield 3 SP and MP if you need high stable fps like 60-80+ minimum (MP being more demanding)
• Crysis 3 in certain levels, 60 fps also difficult if not impossible
• Crysis 2 in certain levels (30-50 fps)
• SC2 and SC2 HoTs
• Skyrim; below 60 fps in some areas, more so with mods/tweaks (ugrids 7 or 9)

etc. The above list is especially relevant if the CPUs in the review differ a lot in gaming performance like the AMD FX vs Intel i5/i7.
It is true that many games are mainly GPU bound or get you 100+ fps if you happen to be CPU bottlenecked. In those cases, a faster CPU is quite irrelevant. But it doesn't help a prospective buyer to see those cases and (much more) demanding games/scenes get neglected. GPUs get tested in GPU bottlenecked and very demanding scenarios - why not do the same for CPUs? In light of this, the AT test makes no sense, sorry.

[Kallenator]

So far I am having excellent results with my Haswell 4670k(4Ghz) compared to the i5-750(4Ghz) in my last build, Planetside2 where it struggled to maintain more than 40 fps in medium to large battles is now 50-60 instead where the limiting factor is my 7950.
Going to go a bit further on the OC later when I am certain it's stable, but it hasn't flinched yet, even during a prolonged LinX test.

[STEvil]

I can tell you a number of games, no problem. Remember, it depends on the scene and the fps you need.

• Borderlands 2 can drop to as low as 40-45 on a 3930K@4.2 GHz in wide open spaces with many objects. View distance is very heavy on the CPU there.
• Shogun 2 is very CPU intensive. Animations skip even on the fastest CPUs when too many armies are on the field (fps can stay high, though - the rendering engine is decoupled from the animation engine) and if you look at lots of men fighting, fps go down as well. I've seen 15-25 fps often when larger bulks of units are involved. Loading times are also an issue because you have to endure them before and after each battle. They scale nearly linearly with CPU clock, as do turn times.
• Civilization V turn times, especially in the late game. fps are irrelevant for this genre, especially if they are so ridiculously high.
• Arma 2+3 with high view distance
• Sins of a Solar Empire. Large fleets -> very low fps
• Anno 2070 at maximum zoom
• Need for Speed 2012
• Tomb Raider has quite a couple of spots where fps drop well below 60 due to the CPU. There is a fix out there, but I don't know if Square Enix made it official yet because they said it could make the game unstable.
• Serious Sam 3, my old 2600K@4.3 GHz couldn't maintain 60 fps
• Battlefield 3 SP and MP (MP being more demanding)
• Crysis 3 in certain levels, 60 fps also difficult if not impossible
• Crysis 2 in certain levels (30-50 fps)
• SC2 and SC2 HoTs
• Skyrim; below 60 fps in some areas, more so with mods/tweaks (ugrids 7 or 9)

etc. The above list is especially relevant if the CPUs in the review differ a lot in gaming performance like the AMD FX vs Intel i5/i7.
It is true that many games are mainly GPU bound or get you 100+ fps if you happen to be CPU bottlenecked. In those cases, a faster CPU is quite irrelevant. But it doesn't help a prospective buyer to see those cases and (much more) demanding games/scenes get neglected. GPUs get tested in GPU bottlenecked and very demanding scenarios - why not do the same for CPUs? In light of this, the AT test makes no sense, sorry.

Disable HT on your 2600k, helps quite a bit in SS3 for example.

[zanzabar]

I can tell you a number of games, no problem. Remember, it depends on the scene and the fps you need.

• Borderlands 2 can drop to as low as 40-45 on a 3930K@4.2 GHz in wide open spaces with many objects. View distance is very heavy on the CPU there.
• Shogun 2 is very CPU intensive. Animations skip even on the fastest CPUs when too many armies are on the field (fps can stay high, though - the rendering engine is decoupled from the animation engine) and if you look at lots of men fighting, fps go down as well. I've seen 15-25 fps often when larger bulks of units are involved. Loading times are also an issue because you have to endure them before and after each battle. They scale nearly linearly with CPU clock, as do turn times.
• Civilization V turn times, especially in the late game. fps are irrelevant for this genre, especially if they are so ridiculously high.
• Arma 2+3 with high view distance
• Sins of a Solar Empire. Large fleets -> very low fps
• Anno 2070 at maximum zoom
• Need for Speed 2012
• Tomb Raider has quite a couple of spots where fps drop well below 60 due to the CPU. There is a fix out there, but I don't know if Square Enix made it official yet because they said it could make the game unstable.
• Serious Sam 3, my old 2600K@4.3 GHz couldn't maintain 60 fps
• Battlefield 3 SP and MP (MP being more demanding)
• Crysis 3 in certain levels, 60 fps also difficult if not impossible
• Crysis 2 in certain levels (30-50 fps)
• SC2 and SC2 HoTs
• Skyrim; below 60 fps in some areas, more so with mods/tweaks (ugrids 7 or 9)

etc. The above list is especially relevant if the CPUs in the review differ a lot in gaming performance like the AMD FX vs Intel i5/i7.
It is true that many games are mainly GPU bound or get you 100+ fps if you happen to be CPU bottlenecked. In those cases, a faster CPU is quite irrelevant. But it doesn't help a prospective buyer to see those cases and (much more) demanding games/scenes get neglected. GPUs get tested in GPU bottlenecked and very demanding scenarios - why not do the same for CPUs? In light of this, the AT test makes no sense, sorry.

look at the cpu benches, the only real changes are more sata6/usb3 on the chipset. you are looking at a couple percent better on x86, and maybe 10% from a 1366 per core at the same clock so there is no point for gaming. intel even said this gen was about lowering power consumption, i dont expect to see any gains until amd catches up and even then it could just be all in the stock clock speed.

[boxleitnerb]

Disable HT on your 2600k, helps quite a bit in SS3 for example.

I know, sometimes HT gives a boost, sometimes it incurs a fps penalty. Since I don't want to switch every time, I have disabled it on my current CPU (3930K).

@Zanzabar:
I agree that Haswell is not worth it for gaming if you already own SB or later. BenchZowner wanted to know some CPU bound gaming scenarios and those I provided

[paulbagz]

Ofc the Q9400 was missing (and they are planning on doing the QX9775 and Q6600 at some point) I can only assume it would of performed pretty well.

Long live C2Q

-PB

[Rollo]

Ofc the Q9400 was missing (and they are planning on doing the QX9775 and Q6600 at some point) I can only assume it would of performed pretty well.

Long live C2Q

-PB

I ran across this 990X vs SB 3930 review:

http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smart...mid=643&page=0

C2 compares well to SB for gaming, and SB compares well to Haswell. Intel isn't giving us tons of reason to "upgrade", at least for gaming.

EDIT:
The Metro results here are troubling though:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...k_9.html#sect0

[PatRaceTin]

interesting

[Rollo]

interesting

I used to buy every generation of CPU, but I don't see much reason to "upgrade" so far. My 990X is certainly as fast as 2500K (or close enough not to matter) and the review in the OP shows a 2500K still a good gaming CPU.

[paulbagz]

Goes to show that Sandy Bridge is one of those legendary type series of chips, especially the 2500k/2600k.

-PB

[Lightman]

Goes to show that Sandy Bridge is one of those legendary type series of chips, especially the 2500k/2600k.

-PB

True!
I'm on 2500k and initially bought motherboard with Ivy support planning to do mid life upgrade, but after IB came out I just didn't see a point in doing it. Now we have Haswell and I still don't see a point in changing my CPU. Maybe next year when we will start getting games based around new engines for next gen consoles number of threads will matter more and my 4 cores become bottleneck.

[Rollo]

True!
I'm on 2500k and initially bought motherboard with Ivy support planning to do mid life upgrade, but after IB came out I just didn't see a point in doing it. Now we have Haswell and I still don't see a point in changing my CPU. Maybe next year when we will start getting games based around new engines for next gen consoles number of threads will matter more and my 4 cores become bottleneck.

And then my Epeen will grow long as I unleash 6 cores of rampaging C2 fury!

[BababooeyHTJ]

Disable HT on your 2600k, helps quite a bit in SS3 for example.

This is another test that I would love to see. I haven't seen a good ht on vs off test since bloomfield launched. I would also like to see an i5 3570k vs i7 3770k at the same clock speed with ht off to see how much of a difference the cache actually makes. It seems like Skyrim scales quite well with the extra cache.

Also Oblivion and Fallout 3 are two of the main games that I've upgraded my cpus for. Skyrim with a good gpu especially with mods can be just as cpu limited.

Serious Sam HD is one of the games where I saw a massive difference when overclocking my i7 860 and that was with just a measly GTX280 at the time.

[lowfat]

Modded Skyrim is a huge CPU bottleneck due to the view distances. Plus if you are playing @ 120Hz you need the fastest CPU possible. Outside my GTX780 SLI drops to around 50% usage due to the CPU bottleneck w/ my 3930k @ 4.5GHz.

[El Mano]

Flight sims and RTS games should benefit from faster CPUs. Try Shogun 2 for example.

[BenchZowner]

This is another test that I would love to see. I haven't seen a good ht on vs off test since bloomfield launched. I would also like to see an i5 3570k vs i7 3770k at the same clock speed with ht off to see how much of a difference the cache actually makes. It seems like Skyrim scales quite well with the extra cache.

Also Oblivion and Fallout 3 are two of the main games that I've upgraded my cpus for. Skyrim with a good gpu especially with mods can be just as cpu limited.

Serious Sam HD is one of the games where I saw a massive difference when overclocking my i7 860 and that was with just a measly GTX280 at the time.

Given the fact that I don't know how to play RPG/Strategy/MMO and flight sim games, I believe the following is a pretty good effort

i7-980X & 2600K: HT On vs Off in various games

[Rollo]

Somebody needs to bench my favorite shooter with Haswell, FX8350, 2600K, and 3960 with hyper threading on and off.

Only then will we know if these new Haswells bring new levels of performance to computer gaming!

[BababooeyHTJ]

^ Actually source ports love a good cpu. Darkplaces with a few mods loves a good cpu.

Modded Skyrim is a huge CPU bottleneck due to the view distances. Plus if you are playing @ 120Hz you need the fastest CPU possible. Outside my GTX780 SLI drops to around 50% usage due to the CPU bottleneck w/ my 3930k @ 4.5GHz.

Can you play Skyrim at 120hz? I'm just wondering since in Fallout 3 and oblivion if you remove the 60fps cap it really messes with the game's physics engine and causes a ton of issues.

[lowfat]

Can you play Skyrim at 120hz? I'm just wondering since in Fallout 3 and oblivion if you remove the 60fps cap it really messes with the game's physics engine and causes a ton of issues.

Yes. Game looks brilliant @ 120Hz w/ Lightboost as long as you can keep the frames up.