Anand: PII vs. Q9550 vs. i7 crossfire, Phenom II = smoother

[akaBruno]

I may have to fix myself a smoothie, kick back and read this whole thread, for giggles.

I like the idea about a blind test. And I love the fact that AMD once again has intel scared.

[roofsniper]

I may have to fix myself a smoothie, kick back and read this whole thread, for giggles.

I like the idea about a blind test. And I love the fact that AMD once again has intel scared.

a blind test is nice but it can't be used for much. if amd does a blind test and even if 90% say the amd system looks smoother they can't go ranting about ti and start a campaign. its just not enough info. intel fanboys will refuse to believe it and say that it was wrong and in some way like the hdd was bad or something. if we can compare two systems next to each other that have about the same average fps or if the intel has a higher fps yet the amd looks smoother then you can do some tests. i would be interested in seeing fps values at .25 seconds marks.

[Barrok]

Can someone clarify this for me. The word "smooth" and "smoother" keeps getting thrown around but I have read the whole thread and I must have missed where that was defined? I am running a OC'd i7 920 with two gtx 280's and I haven't seen anything that I would consider "non smooth." Is this something that only appears when there is a sudden huge drop in fps? Or is it something that has to do with minimum frame rates? And is it something that happens more when you are GPU limited or can it happen on any particular setup?

Thanks.

[highoctane]

I have all three rigs and to be honest moving from one to the next I really can't feel a difference smoother, rougher, bumpy, round or otherwise.

I'm thinking things are getting blown way out of perspective, they're all going to get the job done give or take.

[Rammsteiner]

This thread needs to be moderated. Whenever a thread includes a comparison between Intel and AMD its bound to be full of failure.

No, I think there's a certain responsibility from the users as well.

I adapted quite a bit from a few months earlier regarding flaming/trolling. However, Im not innocent, but if things cant stay normal and people crying the same crap post after post without any clue, it's bound to happen hits the fan for me and obviously other forum members as well. It's almost getting a sport to type A M D before you've some raving phag stabbing in your neck

Im not against a healthy discussion, but I ain't tolerating this has to come with stupid remarks as having green glasses, being blind or stuff like in my sig. If it happens once or twice Ill ignore it, but post after post, thread after thread, then people are seriously pushing other members not to respond.

I dont even get wtf threy've to do in AMD threads since it's quite obviously they've no interest in AMD. You wont find me in the Intel section for example, and you might find a very rare post from me in an Intel thread in the news section. Why do I not come there? Because Im not interested, plain and simple. If there's a question from me regarding Intel, I just ask without any stupid comments around that. It's a shame it seems a lot of other people lack this ability, especially since that ability takes no Einstein to work out

[oldpueblo]

Anyone who's experienced "the smoothness" or lack thereof knows exactly what this article is about. The truth is nobody has done any form of official blind tests, and I guarantee if several sites did you might be surprised with the results. I bet more often then not it comes out equal anyway because at the end of the day we don't play charts, we play games. This should have happened years ago, but damn we love our charts don't we?

[keithlm]

If it happens once or twice Ill ignore it, but post after post, thread after thread, then people are seriously pushing other members not to respond.

I dont even get wtf threy've to do in AMD threads since it's quite obviously they've no interest in AMD.

They are attempting to "win" by attrition. If they cause people to stop discussion or speculation about AMD then they have "won".

Personally when I'm in the mood to "slum" I go to a different forum that has lower (non-existing) standards and doesn't bother having a separate AMD/Intel section because those members LOVE to dump on anything AMD. But on this forum I wouldn't be stupid enough to go into the Intel section. (And I avoid the news section because they are rampant there also.)

[*GameOver*]

Seeing as i build nearly 150 Intel and 300 to 400 AMD Systems a year ive been using Smoothness as a Distinct difference between my gaming systems since i started using Phenom Quads... Ive been ripped quite a few times on boards for the use of the term... But Its there.. Fact of the matter is Higher Min Frame Rates with less frame drops when running a fully tweaked AMD system will make for a "Smoother" in game exp.

Intel guys come here and combat the AMD guys asking what is "Smooth or Smoothness" I consider smoothness to mean, While im playing "insert game" i see very little jerky moments where i can tell the frames are dropping below 30fps.. If your frames go from 60 to 9.... You notice... You also notice large fluxes from say 30 to 80.. To be honest the fact that Intel system CAN pull higher FPS sometimes hurts it... Going from 30 to 160 LOOKS different then going from say 30 to 60.. You're eye might not notice the difference in those number in real life situations but Monitors react differently. When your frames go from 60 to say 20.. Its Smoother. Now mind you this is not ALWAYS the case. Sometimes AMD drops just as many frames as the Intel Chips do. But i tend to notice far greater FPS Pits on my Intel systems... In my store we have our "Head to Head" center. We have a Q9550 Running along side a Phenom 9950. 8 times out of 10 people will pick my AMD system running the Same game.. On the SAME monitor. with the Same ram Ect. And the same thing i hear time and time again is "Monitor 2 just looks smoother!" Take it for what you will. But if the shoe fits.. This is coming from your Average user coming in and just Playing a game on 2 similar machines... Most of these users are not even aware that there are 2 different chip makers... All they care about is How many GB's the computer has :P When you take the Pepsi Challenge you cant get pissed when people pick Coke. Its also not about what chip is better on paper... a Corvette will get you to work... But when you hit the Pot holes wouldnt you rather have the Buick? :P

[Throwed]

As long as AMD continue to exist and keeping Intel and Nvidia HONEST about the price of their product, I'd be more than happy.
Not everytime AMD can come out with product like Athlon64 and HD4xxx series that beat could Intel and Nvidia.

You sir have won the best post of the thread award!

This is the main reason why I always buy AMD/ATI. They keep the yin/yang balance. Not to mention their products usually are cheaper and perform just as good or better than the competition. At the end of the day I will frag all of you anyways!!!!!!!!

[roofsniper]

Seeing as i build nearly 150 Intel and 300 to 400 AMD Systems a year ive been using Smoothness as a Distinct difference between my gaming systems since i started using Phenom Quads... Ive been ripped quite a few times on boards for the use of the term... But Its there.. Fact of the matter is Higher Min Frame Rates with less frame drops when running a fully tweaked AMD system will make for a "Smoother" in game exp.

Intel guys come here and combat the AMD guys asking what is "Smooth or Smoothness" I consider smoothness to mean, While im playing "insert game" i see very little jerky moments where i can tell the frames are dropping below 30fps.. If your frames go from 60 to 9.... You notice... You also notice large fluxes from say 30 to 80.. To be honest the fact that Intel system CAN pull higher FPS sometimes hurts it... Going from 30 to 160 LOOKS different then going from say 30 to 60.. You're eye might not notice the difference in those number in real life situations but Monitors react differently. When your frames go from 60 to say 20.. Its Smoother. Now mind you this is not ALWAYS the case. Sometimes AMD drops just as many frames as the Intel Chips do. But i tend to notice far greater FPS Pits on my Intel systems... In my store we have our "Head to Head" center. We have a Q9550 Running along side a Phenom 9950. 8 times out of 10 people will pick my AMD system running the Same game.. On the SAME monitor. with the Same ram Ect. And the same thing i hear time and time again is "Monitor 2 just looks smoother!" Take it for what you will. But if the shoe fits.. This is coming from your Average user coming in and just Playing a game on 2 similar machines... Most of these users are not even aware that there are 2 different chip makers... All they care about is How many GB's the computer has :P When you take the Pepsi Challenge you cant get pissed when people pick Coke. Its also not about what chip is better on paper... a Corvette will get you to work... But when you hit the Pot holes wouldnt you rather have the Buick? :P

wow very insightful post. sums up pretty much everything said in this thread and the head to head thing is interesting too. do you think it is possible to screen record what each one is showing and then replay it just the way it was? because i got to thinking like you said 8/10 times people pick the amd system. what if we recorded 2 different videos posted them in a thread here and users could submit which one they thought was smoother to the op. i wouldn't want a poll as you could see other's votes. but it might be interesting.

[Mara]

Are there any apps (FRAPS?) that can record a session of gameplay every and each frame and "timestamp" them? (Should be at least a ms resolution...) If this can be done, and every frame is counted and assigned a timestamp, it should be easy to analyze the data by looking time between frames. If there was a stop in flow of frames... it would be shown by a long time between frames. If this "time between frames" data is put into some histogram it should represent the "smoothness" by having the distribution tight and no outliners. Just my thought in this subject...

[iandh]

Seeing as i build nearly 150 Intel and 300 to 400 AMD Systems a year ive been using Smoothness as a Distinct difference between my gaming systems since i started using Phenom Quads... Ive been ripped quite a few times on boards for the use of the term... But Its there.. Fact of the matter is Higher Min Frame Rates with less frame drops when running a fully tweaked AMD system will make for a "Smoother" in game exp.

Intel guys come here and combat the AMD guys asking what is "Smooth or Smoothness" I consider smoothness to mean, While im playing "insert game" i see very little jerky moments where i can tell the frames are dropping below 30fps.. If your frames go from 60 to 9.... You notice... You also notice large fluxes from say 30 to 80.. To be honest the fact that Intel system CAN pull higher FPS sometimes hurts it... Going from 30 to 160 LOOKS different then going from say 30 to 60.. You're eye might not notice the difference in those number in real life situations but Monitors react differently. When your frames go from 60 to say 20.. Its Smoother. Now mind you this is not ALWAYS the case. Sometimes AMD drops just as many frames as the Intel Chips do. But i tend to notice far greater FPS Pits on my Intel systems... In my store we have our "Head to Head" center. We have a Q9550 Running along side a Phenom 9950. 8 times out of 10 people will pick my AMD system running the Same game.. On the SAME monitor. with the Same ram Ect. And the same thing i hear time and time again is "Monitor 2 just looks smoother!" Take it for what you will. But if the shoe fits.. This is coming from your Average user coming in and just Playing a game on 2 similar machines... Most of these users are not even aware that there are 2 different chip makers... All they care about is How many GB's the computer has :P When you take the Pepsi Challenge you cant get pissed when people pick Coke. Its also not about what chip is better on paper... a Corvette will get you to work... But when you hit the Pot holes wouldnt you rather have the Buick? :P

Perfection.

I don't deal with nearly the amount of systems that you do, but I do build somewhere between 20-30 systems a year using both brands.

Thanks for the post.

[Sparky]

Are there any apps (FRAPS?) that can record a session of gameplay every and each frame and "timestamp" them? (Should be at least a ms resolution...) If this can be done, and every frame is counted and assigned a timestamp, it should be easy to analyze the data by looking time between frames. If there was a stop in flow of frames... it would be shown by a long time between frames. If this "time between frames" data is put into some histogram it should represent the "smoothness" by having the distribution tight and no outliners. Just my thought in this subject...

Would be interesting to see if this could somehow be documented. You know, put into a chart for those who just must have a chart to look at.

[*GameOver*]

wow very insightful post. sums up pretty much everything said in this thread and the head to head thing is interesting too. do you think it is possible to screen record what each one is showing and then replay it just the way it was? because i got to thinking like you said 8/10 times people pick the amd system. what if we recorded 2 different videos posted them in a thread here and users could submit which one they thought was smoother to the op. i wouldn't want a poll as you could see other's votes. but it might be interesting.

TBH Not sure if a screen cap would do it.. Making a video at a solid 29 or 30fps would not show too too much. What could be done is i might be able to run an event and record what people say. a CTG AMD Vrs Intel extravaganza The only true way i know to even show this at all is to run the systems side by side with unbias eyes (unbias being joe shmoe who knows he likes games but does not care what he runs them on so long as they run)... While 95% of the readers on this board are very smart. A LOT of them are very set in their ways. So a real life head to head is really the only way i can see doing it.. I see a lot people saying they have 3 or 4 systems 1 or 2 of them being either AMD or Intel but are you running the same Ram/Video Card/Monitor? It really make the difference to be as Cookie Cutter as you can when it comes to compairing these sorts of things. Ill see if i cant come up with something... Although a vote here would more then likely have the same result as trying to divide by 0... So maybe this might be a bad idea

[Lostfaith]

about the cause for smoothness.

read somewhere that obviously with the c2q that intercore transfers between the sets of 2 will be slower due to going over the fsb... makes sense logically but might that be the reason for frame dips?

also if that's the case why isn't the i7 any better?



also the fraps Idea seems like something for someone with both a PII and a C2Q to test like Chew.

(back to lurkingmode)

[roofsniper]

Are there any apps (FRAPS?) that can record a session of gameplay every and each frame and "timestamp" them? (Should be at least a ms resolution...) If this can be done, and every frame is counted and assigned a timestamp, it should be easy to analyze the data by looking time between frames. If there was a stop in flow of frames... it would be shown by a long time between frames. If this "time between frames" data is put into some histogram it should represent the "smoothness" by having the distribution tight and no outliners. Just my thought in this subject...

yea i said it earlier and i said it in the smoothness thread. fraps records the time at which the frames come out and you can look at that. first you will need a system that gets the same average fps as another but one looks smoother. also its a pita because since there are so many frames to deal with a one minute bench with an average of 45fps would have 2700 frames.

TBH Not sure if a screen cap would do it.. Making a video at a solid 29 or 30fps would not show too too much. What could be done is i might be able to run an event and record what people say. a CTG AMD Vrs Intel extravaganza The only true way i know to even show this at all is to run the systems side by side with unbias eyes (unbias being joe shmoe who knows he likes games but does not care what he runs them on so long as they run)... While 95% of the readers on this board are very smart. A LOT of them are very set in their ways. So a real life head to head is really the only way i can see doing it.. I see a lot people saying they have 3 or 4 systems 1 or 2 of them being either AMD or Intel but are you running the same Ram/Video Card/Monitor? It really make the difference to be as Cookie Cutter as you can when it comes to compairing these sorts of things. Ill see if i cant come up with something... Although a vote here would more then likely have the same result as trying to divide by 0... So maybe this might be a bad idea

well if you actually want to set something up then go for it it would be interesting to see. as we all know tho pretty much every other forum has users that read or are registered here. so if there can be some kind of breakthrough on this smoothness thing then it will spread. having a bunch of people blind test it would be interesting for me but it won't close this topic and it will still be a mystery. and the reason why i thought it might be interesting to have 2 videos here and compare them would be because people here who have an opinion would have to choose. you could have people say that comp A(amd system) looks better but these same people are also arguing that smoothness doesn't exist.

about the cause for smoothness.

read somewhere that obviously with the c2q that intercore transfers between the sets of 2 will be slower due to going over the fsb... makes sense logically but might that be the reason for frame dips?

also if that's the case why isn't the i7 any better?



also the fraps Idea seems like something for someone with both a PII and a C2Q to test like Chew.

(back to lurkingmode)

i7 has an imc and has qpi. core 2 does not.

[Lostfaith]

i7 has an imc and has qpi. core 2 does not.

read my Q carefully, it deducts that and asks why while having the integrated mem contr. & quickpath still sees apparent frame dips.

what I'm basically asking is: if the separate sets of dies connected over the fsb for the C2Q would be an 'architectural' cause for any dips in gameplay *1 and _if_that's_the_case_ why the i7 with the new architecture (imc & qp but not as monolithic'ly' designed as k10 but still) also has this prob....


*1 example for the C2Q being threads / data switching between the 2 sets of dies over the fsb which is slower then within one of the dies...

[flippin_waffles]

You know I was thinking, not only is AMD smooth, they are cool as ice.

[LedHed]

The Phenom II can't even manage to beat out the Q6600 in most cases:







http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...g_8.html#sect0

[roofsniper]

ok just wow. thanks for trolling. it has absolutely nothing to do with the topic and is a completely different site. plus this is just proof why i believe chew should do his comparison of the phenom II and the q6600.

[daellum67]

The Phenom II can't even manage to beat out the Q6600 in most cases:







http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...g_8.html#sect0

according to the charts you posted, the 920 beats the q6600 in one out of three cases, and ties with it the third.


so that doesn't really support your claim at all.

in the case in which the q6600 beats the 920, it beats BOTH the intel and the amd 920's.

[crazydiamond]

do people REALLY not understand that you could have a billion frames a second but they could all come in the first 1/2 of the second and the other half has 0fps... its a great average of a billion fps but its gonne have 1/2 second stutters! its not that hard to comprehend i dont think

[flippin_waffles]

The Phenom II can't even manage to beat out the Q6600 in most cases

You find three cases where this is the case, and you call that most? So the guy ran a grand total of 7 tests. I don't think I'll bother with that review, thanks!

[demonkevy666]

The Phenom II can't even manage to beat out the Q6600 in most cases:

limted NB speed to 2.4 ghz max

again. even anatech did it. they how ever wanted to get 4.0ghz on the chip but failed in vista sp 64 bit.

however someone made a note that registers in vista 64 bit may not be able to keep up with the cores at that speed.

I think it's just lack of info/knowledge about about how far NB/OC can be pushed and how much of a difference it will make on performance overall. hyper transport OC or HT reference isn't that great unless your using a lock chip, you'll hit a core wall before the NB wall. Why both the 940 then ?

[roofsniper]

do people REALLY not understand that you could have a billion frames a second but they could all come in the first 1/2 of the second and the other half has 0fps... its a great average of a billion fps but its gonne have 1/2 second stutters! its not that hard to comprehend i dont think

i have said the exact same thing before already. imo theres no more explaining or trying to explain it. if people want to prove this then they need to develop a test or something new. everything has been said and explained already but apparently thats not enough.