Quote Originally Posted by Jakko View Post
Oh and thanks Jack for wanting to do that test in the future.
I do have a 790X board with a brisbane 5000+ BE, and similar ram to what you used, but sadly I only have a 3850 at the moment, probably not enough to make the snow level gpu limited in the way the gpu was the limiting factor in your benchmarks.

What I find strangest is that

1. at very low resolutions (completely cpu limited) intel wins
2. at a middle ground (high resolution, standard details, gpu limited) amd wins
3. at the very highest details and resolutions, it's a tie.

I could understand how, when the gpu has to work very hard(#3), bandwidth requirements between the gpu and cpu are lower than a scenario in which the gpu can pump out much more FPS at a fairly high resolution, due to limited detail level.(#2)

But it stops making sense when intel wins at those low resolutions. Isn't that the situation in which the bandwidth/architecture advantage seen at #2 should show as well?
Well, it is hard to draw generalized conclusions ... this is one game, with two different scripted scenes ... one thing to take away from this data set is that a gaming experience is really dictated by a complex set of factors (I am diverging here from a CPU/architectural discussion true).

In any given benchmark, at any given set of settings the GPU may be important, the CPU may be important ... overall, it is the GPU that determines the experience for the most part -- choosing the CPU should be done carefully though, either CPU in today's gaming environment will handle any game (only possible exception is Crysis). It is hard to declare any CPU a 'winner' with such a very narrow subset of conditions/scenes/rendering conditions.... the best way (impractical way) would be to determine through the entire story line of a game, how often either CPU limits the gaming out put to below the playable FPS.... this is simply not possible, i.e. you can never guard against the 'worst case condition' as none of the review sites nor any of the built in benchmarks can possibly account for worst case in actual game play.

Back on topic -- I think you are right, ultimately the BW argument will ultimately be the appropraite explanation, be it at the HT (analogous FSB) point, or a the PCIe point of connection.... if we were to generalize a statement, it would fall out very similar to what has been said time and again -- CPU limited work loads, Intel has a stronger core -- throughput limited workloads AMD's interconnect shows it's advantage.

jack