CPU for Gamers : 30 CPUs compared

[DGLee]

I tested & measured gaming performances of "all" properly-existing CPUs in the market. Criterion for determining 'properly-existing' is that, a product shouldn't be being replaced by latter SKU at the same price level(ex: IVB is replaced by Haswell). Hope that could help those who are considering buying or upgrading one's gaming machine. Here we start.


Test system is composed as follow:
(+VGA : GF GTX780Ti)




Since the host provider (of my blog) consider sudden traffic increment as an abusing, I'm going to upload the summary part of all results only.

Here's the performance summary at 1680 x 1050 resolution. The former one emphasizes just a sum of framerates of all games while the latter one implies average relative performance of each CPU. Of course the latter one is more important.






Here's for 1920 x 1080 resolution.






Here's for 2560 x 1600 resolution.







Well, the article is over. Thanks for reading this.
Have a nice day!

[d1b1]

Good read, wish you could make one for GPUs too :-)
It's like all info you need compressed in nice easy overview.

Thanks !

[docwhom]

Brilliant layout and the graphs are easy to see why the best money is for a cheap Intel i5. It even just beats a FX9590 in every window setup of various games .

I don't know whether to cry or applaud the little i5 cpu.......

[Lightman]

Very good job!

Lots of data compressed into these bars, I like!

Thanks for sharing!

[NEOAethyr]

Is it possible to add mafia 2 and batman arkham origins?
With physx's maxed of course.

[haylui]

Brilliant layout and the graphs are easy to see why the best money is for a cheap Intel i5. It even just beats a FX9590 in every window setup of various games .

I don't know whether to cry or applaud the little i5 cpu.......

you need an i3 just to beat FX9590...but gaming isn't the solo gauge to CPU performance....

[vario]

you need an i3 just to beat FX9590...but gaming isn't the solo gauge to CPU performance....

Well it shows what we already knew, amds single thread performance makes it a worse gaming cpu.
It shows also however that at least in single GPU confs the difference is rather small, verging on not observable for more powerful amd chips.
Also two things, card used was nvidia one, so no mantle which almost nullifies much of the difference for a mantle enabled game.
And second, that is really SAD, FX4300 on a supposedly outdated AM3+ is faster than a newest kaveri chip...

[Miwo]

Thanks for this graph and all the work done putting this together. Probably the most unbiased rollup on CPUs and gaming I have seen to date. Mantle support would only influence BF4 and Thief is not in this rollup, but it might bring AMD processors up a ranking or two, not too much looking at the big picture.

And this is why I am so looking forward to the upcoming Pentium Anniversary edition Haswell on a single card gaming PC. My FX6300 will find a new home doing livestream/video encoding, a task better suited for AMD stuff. Overclocking on the cheap makes me think back on the fun days of messing around with budget mobile bartons!

[vario]

...

And this is why I am so looking forward to the upcoming Pentium Anniversary edition Haswell on a single card gaming PC. My FX6300 will find a new home doing livestream/video encoding, a task better suited for AMD stuff. Overclocking on the cheap makes me think back on the fun days of messing around with budget mobile bartons!

For the life of me i cant grasp what youre saying.This graphs clearly say FX6350 is a better gaming chip than pentium chips (only two 2C/2T) ,yet you're saying that BECAUSE of this graph it clearly is the way to go to exchange FX6350 to pentium for gaming.While i do understand that you will probably be able to overclock that pentium chip around a ghz so a fair amount, it also seems like it will only bridge the gap :-/ ,The G3450 featured in this test is a 3,4ghz chip, its not slow, what brings it down is the lack of HT (4T)

[NEOAethyr]

For the life of me i cant grasp what youre saying.This graphs clearly say FX6350 is a better gaming chip than pentium chips (only two 2C/2T) ,yet you're saying that BECAUSE of this graph it clearly is the way to go to exchange FX6350 to pentium for gaming.While i do understand that you will probably be able to overclock that pentium chip around a ghz so a fair amount, it also seems like it will only bridge the gap :-/ ,The G3450 featured in this test is a 3,4ghz chip, its not slow, what brings it down is the lack of HT (4T)

I agree.
@Miwo
While I did say that it's likely that a dual core intel would beable to beat out any amd at the moment, that still doesn't mean you should go buy an actual dual core.
Get yourself a true quad core, the z97 platform is launching, that would be the way to go for mainstream perf.

IF your were to buy from newegg and only newegg...
The 4570 is $189.99 right now (with promo code), the 4670k is $239.99.
Looking at microcenters site, you can pick up the 4770k for $249.99 (local only, you gotta buy it from a microcenter store).
The 4790k isn't out just yet, that would be the one I would buy.

Granted they're cpus out there for less then a $100, but those are for casual use.
They're not really for gaming, even though you could probably game with them.
You'll really want yourself a decent quad core, at least 4 threads or 8 threads (preferable).

A dual core with 4 threads would cut it maybe, but it will hold you back on the bigger things, like sli or crossfire, the latest and greatest battlefield or whatever (battlefield comes to mind being one of those games that may want or need more then a dual core).

And yeah I know amd is only offering dual cores these days essentially (2 fpu cpu's, 4 int cpu's), you could get one of them too but then you'de be in an even worse situation ^^.
And I don't mean to troll with that comment, it's just not a good idea to get one for actual use... (overclock play is another story)

[Miwo]

I dont understand why you guys are so confused or upset? Granted this is the AMD forum,.. all I am saying is that it will be cheap OCing fun. Isnt that why most people even have AMD systems to begin with? Z97 + Pentium gives me a cheap platform to screw around with, most likely be as fast than AMD systems in games, and provide an upgrade path to Broadwell down the road.

Is the notion of a cheap $100 dual-core unlocked, overclocked i3/pentium being faster in games than a 3/4 unlocked comparable AMD part (FX-6350 / FX-8320) really that stupid? I'm all about bang/buck , so I find overclocking on the cheap more fun. Pretty difficult to grasp I suppose, but to each his own...

[vario]

I dont understand why you guys are so confused or upset? Granted this is the AMD forum,.. all I am saying is that it will be cheap OCing fun. Isnt that why most people even have AMD systems to begin with? Z97 + Pentium gives me a cheap platform to screw around with, most likely be as fast than AMD systems in games, and provide an upgrade path to Broadwell down the road.

Is the notion of a cheap $100 dual-core unlocked, overclocked i3/pentium being faster in games than a 3/4 unlocked comparable AMD part (FX-6350 / FX-8320) really that stupid? I'm all about bang/buck , so I find overclocking on the cheap more fun. Pretty difficult to grasp I suppose, but to each his own...

No.
Nobody says overclocking on the cheap is not fun or not a great thing, ESPECIALLY on the amd forum.
However in the earlier post you said that a dual core pentium is better for gaming than FX line, which was WEIRD because you wrote that just below a test that proves OTHERWISE :P
And that IS hard to comprehend.
And you still persist, first look at the tests you respond to, than COMPREHEND the fact that pentium with its lack of HT and some cache is WEAKER at gaming than FX 6xxx or 8xxx, even 4xxx pulls ahead somewhat.Core i3 with HT is a different thing , those however wont be unlocked (although theyre competing well without OC).
So dont try to put words into my mouth that i didnt say.
So to compress.Unlocked pentium K chip and playing around with it is FINE! Its not specially good for modern gaming however, even slower than FX line.

Btw. In the post above you said BOTH that pentiums will be AS FAST (not really true ,but after oc it will improve) and FASTER (second paragraph).If that isnt "confused" than i dont know what is.