CPU scaling with GTX 280, 4870X2

[cegras]

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=775&p=0

Looks like the 4870X2 craves much more processing power, and when it gets it, it beats the GTX280 handily.

[tenebre]

wow! at 1900x1200 the 4870X2 is more than +50% faster than a GTX 280 with a Quad at more than 3GHz

[turtletrax]

Hence the dual GPU....

[MrMojoZ]

According to that article the CPU almost doesn't matter for high resolutions on the 280. Is this what users are seeing as well?

[systemviper]

Still it's so great to have so much horsepower on both sides of the fence, I have both cards and they both are great, this is a good time for us xtreme gamerz.
Plus the Q9550 is out with E0 stepping and the Q9650 can be had for 450 at spot sales, such sweet chips that compliment the cardz, Plus massive motherboard selections.
ATI, NVIDIA and Intel rock on!

[gosh]

If 4870X2 craves a fast CPU then it would also crave a fast monitor and fast eyes.
It isn't the gpu that craves anything, it is the game. Fast Video cards is used for high resolutions and/or advanced settings.

[jam2k]

Not surprising, the 4870x2 pulls ahead at higher resolutions with AA applied:

@2560x1600 8xAA 16xAF is 220% faster than the GTX280.
CPU: QX9770 @4Ghz

Link

[Yakyb]

Even more interesting is the fact that when paired with the GeForce GTX 280, the Athlon64 X2 6400+ delivered the same performance at 1920x1200 as the Core 2 Quad Q6600. This is interesting because when testing with the Radeon HD 4870 X2, the Q6600 was 50% faster than the 6400+, which is incredible.

This was no anomaly, as similar results were seen in a number of games. For example, the Core 2 Duo Q6600 was just 2% faster than the Athlon64 X2 6400+ in Unreal Tournament 3 when testing with the GeForce GTX 280. However when testing with the Radeon HD 4870 X2, the Q6600 became 62% faster than the 6400+, which was again quite amazing.

this is the most interesting thing that came from the article AFAIC

[Hornet331]

well this shows, if you want to game at high res high clocked dualcore still beat quadcores, 4ghz on a 8400 is a pice of cacke compared to a Q9550 or Q9650 (less voltage needed for that).

[Lestat]

According to that article the CPU almost doesn't matter for high resolutions on the 280. Is this what users are seeing as well?

i would argue that to a degree, although the higher resolutions is where the cards truly shine, a strong and fast cpu is still pretty much a necessity.

Crysis is a game which really doesnt hit your cpu very hard and is really single core geared.

if you run crysis with task manager open so you can see the graph, and then atl-tab out to your desktop you can see that the game really doesnt hit your cpu very hard, on my quad it was 1 core, the other 3 cores barely had anything going on.
that was at 1920x1080 w/ a 280gtx.

someday they will make the graphics cards be 100% cpu independant. that way the cpu is not used but for very minor things during level loading, or something similar.
they are getting very close at high resolutions, i jsut dont understand, and never did, why lower resolutions are not gpu friendly, lower resolutions should just be flowing smoothly thru the gpu.

[@@@@]

to the author Mr. Steven Walton of Legion Hardware one of the most informative article I have read, I read it twice just in case I miss some info

pretty interesting on the Article "CPU Scaling with Radeon HD 4870x2" we could almost say that Intel should pay AMD for the marketing look at the result the higher the frequency and the number of cores increase is almost always equal to a performance increase.

CPU Scaling with Geforce Gtx280 is not really CPU dependent their so little performance increase in frequency and the number of cores

please let us not make this GPU A VS GPU B this is a very informative article lets discuss the article and gain some information in the process

side note: maybe next time 2x Geforce280GTX SLI and 2x Radeon HD 4870x2 CF there's no need to put them side by side to avoid any clash of opinions make it like the previous article it will suffice

thank you for a very informative article

[zerazax]

THe extra power probably comes to play with managing the flow of information from the two GPU's. But that's good to know that my QX9650 needs to get more of a bump too!

[Tonucci]

Nice article.

The core 216 gtx260 kinda backfired against the gtx280 imo. Too close in performance for $100+ less... An shrink with an speed bump, along with an price cut, could fix this situation.

I just wish he had an unlocked multi quad, so CPU frequency could be isolated and FSB/mem speed would not factor in. I would like to see FSB/mem speed tested separately from cpu scaling. Min, avg and max numbers would be nice too, along with an FPS graph.

Too much work the way it is anyways... Thanks !

[[XC] gomeler]

someday they will make the graphics cards be 100% cpu independant. that way the cpu is not used but for very minor things during level loading, or something similar.
they are getting very close at high resolutions, i jsut dont understand, and never did, why lower resolutions are not gpu friendly, lower resolutions should just be flowing smoothly thru the gpu.

Each frame requires a moderate amount of calculation. At high resolutions you aren't rendering a lot of frames, lets say 30 frames per second. Drop down to 1280x1024 or 1024x768 and you are now capable of rendering 120 or 150 frames per second. The amount of calculations per frame doesn't change but now you are calculating four or five times as much data for the video stream. This is why low resolution gaming is primarily CPU bottlenecked and why high resolution gaming is GPU bottlenecked.

[Carfax]

Interesting. Makes me want to go X2 or SLI....except that I keep on hearing reports of micro stuttering..

[paulhamm]

According to that article the CPU almost doesn't matter for high resolutions on the 280. Is this what users are seeing as well?

This article is another example of GPU vs. CPU bottlenecking. When one part is quicker ramping the performance of the other will allow significant performance gains. Nothing really new here. All that it is telling you is that the GTX280 is the bottleneck. So faster CPU has no effect.

i would argue that to a degree, although the higher resolutions is where the cards truly shine, a strong and fast cpu is still pretty much a necessity.

Crysis is a game which really doesnt hit your cpu very hard and is really single core geared.

if you run crysis with task manager open so you can see the graph, and then atl-tab out to your desktop you can see that the game really doesnt hit your cpu very hard, on my quad it was 1 core, the other 3 cores barely had anything going on.
that was at 1920x1080 w/ a 280gtx.

someday they will make the graphics cards be 100% cpu independant. that way the cpu is not used but for very minor things during level loading, or something similar.
they are getting very close at high resolutions, i jsut dont understand, and never did, why lower resolutions are not gpu friendly, lower resolutions should just be flowing smoothly thru the gpu.

Mutli-threaded gaming is just over the hump. Most of the new games out are making very good use of multi-core systems. Even more interesting is that multi-core/processor GPU optimization is becoming the rule instead of the exception.

The only way to have a GPU independent of the CPU is if you have all connections and actions being pushed through the GPU. What you would have is a fusion processor. You are forgetting that games do not just push pixels.

[XS2K]

2 of the games are RTS and those really shine when CPU freq is increased,in the FPS genre things aren't the same and the diffrence in performance is not that big also after a certain point (like 100FPS) it's redundant.
Yes you need a good CPU but don't go spending your money on a 500$ + CPU cuz it doesen't worth it and those money are better invested in a GPU + you can OC the hell out of a lower end CPU and reach the performance of the top one but in the GPU world this isn't possible.

[Eastcoasthandle]

According to that article the CPU almost doesn't matter for high resolutions on the 280. Is this what users are seeing as well?

You do remember the big push during the early part of the summer that you don't need a high end CPU with your high end GPU don't you? It's now clear this was intended for nvidia video cards more so then all video cards as some claimed.

[JargonGR]

Now I just need to decide whether to put my E8500 or my Q9550 on my gaming rig which is 4870X2 CF-X. Damn I wish there was a CPU switch (like an HDMI switCH) that would allow you to have two CPUs installed and choose the one you need according to applications.

[MrMojoZ]

It's now clear this was intended for nvidia video cards more so then all video cards as some claimed.

"Don't need" certainly turned out to be "can't benefit from" in nvidia's case it seems. Would like to see some 280 SLI numbers in this same scenario.

[gosh]

You do remember the big push during the early part of the summer that you don't need a high end CPU with your high end GPU don't you? It's now clear this was intended for nvidia video cards more so then all video cards as some claimed.

But you don't need a fast CPU for HD 4870X2. It is not that smart to buy this card for games that don't need it. Games that is heavy on the graphics and needs a fast video card will be fast even if you have a slow processor.

I have a Phenom 9500 (2,2 GHz) on the game computer. Here you can se how hard the cpu works in crysis warhead (GPU = 4870X2).


I didn't buy this card to get 300+ FPS, I bought it to get playable framerates in games that is very heavy on the graphics.
The only thing that the computer will do with a faster processor for easy (graphics) driven games is to use a lot more power.

[Eastcoasthandle]

But you don't need a fast CPU for HD 4870X2. It is not that smart to buy this card for games that don't need it. Games that is heavy on the graphics and needs a fast video card will be fast even if you have a slow processor.

I have a Phenom 9500 (2,2 GHz) on the game computer. Here you can se how hard the cpu works in crysis warhead (GPU = 4870X2).


I didn't buy this card to get 300+ FPS, I bought it to get playable framerates in games that is very heavy on the graphics.
The only thing that the computer will do with a faster processor for easy (graphics) driven games is to use a lot more power.

I see what you did there and it doesn't work here. What's obvious is the scalability not playability. If you upped your CPU clock rate you will get a performance boost which is what the article addressed. This is why a faster CPU is needed. It's not about playable based on your needs. But nice try though, maybe now you understand the scope of my post and why the person I addressed it to understood while you did not.

"Don't need" certainly turned out to be "can't benefit from" in nvidia's case it seems. Would like to see some 280 SLI numbers in this same scenario.

[gosh]

I see what you did there and it doesn't work here. What's obvious is the scalability not playability. If you upped your CPU clock rate you will get a performance boost which is what the article addressed. This is why a faster CPU is needed. It's not about playable based on your needs. But nice try though, maybe now you understand the scope of my post and why the person I addressed it to understood while you did not.

If you just want as much frames as possible (even if the monitor isn't able to show half of those frames or even less) then you are of course right, but I think that this is important to inform about that. I have seen references to the legion test on other forums where people thinks that they need to buy a faster CPU for these fast video cards and that is very wrong.

If you just want something to run as fast as possible there will always be some part in the system that holds back the max performance.

[Epsilon84]

But you don't need a fast CPU for HD 4870X2. It is not that smart to buy this card for games that don't need it. Games that is heavy on the graphics and needs a fast video card will be fast even if you have a slow processor.

I have a Phenom 9500 (2,2 GHz) on the game computer. Here you can se how hard the cpu works in crysis warhead (GPU = 4870X2).


I didn't buy this card to get 300+ FPS, I bought it to get playable framerates in games that is very heavy on the graphics.
The only thing that the computer will do with a faster processor for easy (graphics) driven games is to use a lot more power.

Right...



Somehow it doesn't look like a Phenom 9500 is enough to drive a 4870x2... you get linear scaling as clockspeeds increase, clearly the CPU is the limiting factor.

[Tonucci]

If you just want as much frames as possible (even if the monitor isn't able to show half of those frames or even less) then you are of course right, but I think that this is important to inform about that. I have seen references to the legion test on other forums where people thinks that they need to buy a faster CPU for these fast video cards and that is very wrong.

If you just want something to run as fast as possible there will always be some part in the system that holds back the max performance.

Crysis is borderline playable with the best cards on the market. Any FPS increase from an faster CPU is welcome, and can be the difference between smooth and choppy.

What is this about monitor speed ? We are far from reaching 60FPS in crysis.