[AT] Haswell Refresh comes with improved TIM, unlocked Pentium due mid-2014

[jpiniero]

Really strange the unlocked Pentium isn't the highest bin. And yes, don't expect it to beat the Haswell i3 in most games unless you can hit well above 4. No HT and no AVX(2) will cripple the performance.

 

[Vesku]

Well, two main uses for an unlocked Pentium with no HT and lots of the extras (AES, AVX) disabled: playing with or as a cheap box for maximizing single thread applications (limited license, emulators, many games etc.)

 

[TreVader]

Really strange the unlocked Pentium isn't the highest bin. And yes, don't expect it to beat the Haswell i3 in most games unless you can hit well above 4. No HT and no AVX(2) will cripple the performance.

LOL @ no HT crippling performance. HT is almost useless in games, and sometimes worse.

 

[jpiniero]

LOL @ no HT crippling performance. HT is almost useless in games, and sometimes worse.

There are plenty of games that use 4 threads now, and as a result the i3 benefits greatly from HT. The Quads don't benefit as much from HT since most don't use 8 threads.

 

[TreVader]

There are plenty of games that use 4 threads now, and as a result the i3 benefits greatly from HT. The Quads don't benefit as much from HT since most don't use 8 threads.

Not to an extent that a lack of HT could make them "crippled". I believe the benefits are at most %5-10. You ignore the fact that if you spend the same amount of money on a quad you lose ST performance

 

[cbn]

Well, two main uses for an unlocked Pentium with no HT and lots of the extras (AES, AVX) disabled: playing with or as a cheap box for maximizing single thread applications (limited license, emulators, many games etc.)

What apps are you referring to with limited license?

 

[Vesku]

What apps are you referring to with limited license?

Some expensive software you can only run one instance per license, usually specialized business applications that are often not well multi-threaded.

 

[NTMBK]

Not to an extent that a lack of HT could make them "crippled". I believe the benefits are at most %5-10. You ignore the fact that if you spend the same amount of money on a quad you lose ST performance

It can be much worse than that. The problem isn't average framerates, it's frametime variance- this can lead to severe stuttering. Just look at this data for Battlefield 3:

And this for Crysis 2:

Taken from here: http://techreport.com/review/23662/amd-a10-5800k-and-a8-5600k-trinity-apus-reviewed/10

Battlefield's Frostbite engine is the basis for almost all of EA's upcoming games- Need for Speed, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Battlefield, Star Wars: Battlefront, Mirror's Edge. And CryEngine is licensed by plenty of game studios. None of these games are going to be satisfactory to play on a 2 thread Pentium, because they are going to be a stuttering mess.

Multithreaded game engines are becoming more and more common. Sticking with a 2 thread CPU is just the wrong move. Just buy the i3- or if you really want some cheap overclocking fun, pick up an Athlon 760k.

 

[AtenRa]

Yea, new Game Engines need a Quad Core (4 Threads) minimum, dual cores are not suited for newer games anymore.

If this unlocked Pentium needs an expensive Z87/97 board to be OCed, then its loosing its appeal to me, unless you already have a Z-board and like to play with it.

 

[jj109]

But what happens when you give the 2C/2T Pentium 40% more frequency? It's hard to predict because the dropped frames are a symptom of stalls in the game engine. Give the game 40% more IPS and then knots might work itself out, or it might not.

http://pclab.pl/art55238-4.html

Sometimes the 2C/2T will pull ahead and other times it will barely match a 2C/4T running at stock, is my guess. Depends entirely on drivers and game threading behavior.

Here's 2C/4T @ 3.4 vs 2C/2T @ 4.5, in order. So the 58 FPS one is the 2C/2T.

In this engine, if the Pentium-K can be pushed to 5 GHz, it might be better than an i3-4130. This run was a bit biased toward the 2C/4T since it had 8 MB of L3 to work with instead of the 3 MB of the real i3-4130. Hyperthreading does love cache.

The only real use I see for the Pentium-K for gamers is to serve as a bridge for upgrading to an i5 or i7 later down the line (if the rumored price is right). Instead of Z97 + i3, it's possible to go with Z97 + P-K + Heatsink and then just drop a i5-K or i7-K right in.

 

[SAAA]

Wow those graphs scare me! Is it really a problem of thread# or perhaps lack of raw performance? The quad non ht cores seem to do very well, the dual+ht too. So new game engines don't like IPC and single thread anymore? Meh.
I really don't get why a dual core at almost twice the performance per core shouldn't be good too (if this Pentium can clock 4.5-5 GHz + haswell IPC vs say the i5-655k in the graphs).

 

[jj109]

Wow those graphs scare me! Is it really a problem of thread# or perhaps lack of raw performance? The quad non ht cores seem to do very well, the dual+ht too. So new game engines don't like IPC and single thread anymore? Meh.
I really don't get why a dual core at almost twice the performance per core shouldn't be good too (if this Pentium can clock 4.5-5 GHz + haswell IPC vs say the i5-655k in the graphs).

Two problems off the top of my head.

With only two execution threads, the OS has to handle the time sharing between all the tasks that demand CPU time. This is much less efficient than the OS just cramming four threads into two cores and letting the hardware sort it out. The % of CPU cycles that the kernel uses in scenario #2 is smaller.

Multithreaded game engines can't let their threads run free. They have to synchronize somehow, but that requires CPU time. So not only does the OS require more CPU time to juggle the threads, the new game engines will stall if certain threads don't get enough CPU time, leading to ugly spikes in frame times.

Both problems can be solved by giving the 2C/2T more cycles per second... the question is how much.

 

[SAAA]

With only two execution threads, the OS has to handle the time sharing between all the tasks that demand CPU time. This is much less efficient than the OS just cramming four threads into two cores and letting the hardware sort it out. The % of CPU cycles that the kernel uses in scenario #2 is smaller.

So it looks like a hardly adressable problem, well I blame Microsoft not Intel this time.

Multithreaded game engines can't let their threads run free. They have to synchronize somehow, but that requires CPU time. So not only does the OS require more CPU time to juggle the threads, the new game engines will stall if certain threads don't get enough CPU time, leading to ugly spikes in frame times.

Both problems can be solved by giving the 2C/2T more cycles per second... the question is how much.

Apparentely HT gives 30% more performance on average on most synthetics tests, sometimes much less (no stalls ecc.) sometimes as high as 50%, so if that's true and we ignore the OS scheduler then the Pentium would have to reach 4.5GHz (compared to a locked 3.5GHz i3). That's really a challenge for an Haswell based CPU...

 

[mrmt]

If DC Pentium hits around 4.5GHz, be ready for articles comparing it against the FX9590.

 

[Caveman]

I have a 4770k that I haven't been able to install yet due to time... I'm thinking now that I could refeesh an older machine with this chip and get one of these new chips for my latest build. Does it use the same MoBo and what would a good 4770k replacement in this series be? I'd want an i7 version that was at least 10% faster... Looks like that might the same price as a 4770k? What is the chip's designation?

 

[TreVader]

I think this is all more of a frostbite problem than an actual 2C2T problem

 

[NTMBK]

I think this is all more of a frostbite problem than an actual 2C2T problem

Except Crysis 2, which uses the completely different CryEngine, seems the exact same problems.

 

[USER8000]

If DC Pentium hits around 4.5GHz, be ready for articles comparing it against the FX9590.

Nobody cares about the FX9590,let alone the FX9370 or FX8350,when the FX8320 is quite cheap worldwide.

Plus it will be interesting to see how the Core i5 4670K and Core i7 4770K also do.

I suspect an overclocked Pentium dual core will negate the need for a Core i5 K series CPU for a number of poorly threaded games.

However,the main problem will be what motherboards will be need to overclock the Pentium with. Outside the US,the Z series motherboards are noticeable premium over the B85 and H81 motherboards. The worse thing is the B85 based motherboards could be used to overclock too until Intel "fixed" the loophole.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Kinda pissed off if this June 2 thing honestly is a paper launch. Giving so much thought to grinding a cheap dual+z97 for a few months till i can afford a 4Ghz i7 and that unlocked pentium would be perfect.

Will be keeping my eyes on this news.

 

[AtenRa]

Except Crysis 2, which uses the completely different CryEngine, seems the exact same problems.

Even Thief which uses the old and more Intel favor Unreal Engine 3 is unplayable with the Haswell Pentium in D3D. The frame rate fluctuates rapidly from Highest fps all the way down to lowest (15fps) continuously, the CPU is at 100% all the time and there is stuttering that makes you dizzy.

There are other(a lot) games that are perfectly playable though, but newer games seams to need at least 4 threads.

 

[moonbogg]

Rumors from guru3d these have been delayed until September. LOL if true.

 

[Techhog]

Rumors from guru3d these have been delayed until September. LOL if true.

I doubt that's true. I don't see why it would need to be if it's just new TIM.

EDIT: I forgot which tab/thread I was in.

 

[Ken g6]

I gather that an unlocked Pentium could also be very good for the high-frequency trading folks.

 

[crashtech]

An unlocked i3 would kick butt. An unlocked Pentium? Meh.

 

[blackened23]

Except Crysis 2, which uses the completely different CryEngine, seems the exact same problems.

I have a dual core H3220 for my HTPC while my main PC uses a 4770k. I can confirm that crysis 2 and crysis 3 really need a quad core minimum (logical or physical). However, this is an exception, not the rule. I've played tons of games on my HTPC, and crysis 2/3 are the only ones that cannot play well on dual cores. Literally every other game i've tried has been butter with a dGPU. Now I have seen i3's playing crysis 3 as well and they generally do just fine. Being that the i3 has HT, it will run crysis 3 fine. But crysis 3 at high/ultra settings on a pentium doesn't really cut it, you do have to lower settings. It's a cryengine thing.

Cryengine really needs a quad core feeding it, but having played tons of other modern games on my HTPC they really do all run great with a dGPU. I was just playing Batman: AC on it the other day and my framerates were near 100 most of the time, same for Witcher 2. Witcher 2 is always north of 60 fps with near everything dialed up except uber sampling. Saints Row 3/4, sleeping dogs, and tomb raider all played amazingly well on this HTPC as well, I should add.

So far crysis 3 is the sole exception to the rule that i've found. With a dGPU, the dual core pentiums really are great. Although these days, they're not amazingly cheaper than i3's, but I wanted the g3220 for my HTPC. I got a pretty sick deal on the g3220 with h81 mobo at the time (around 100$) so it was something I couldn't really refuse. It games VERY VERY well with a dGPU.

So what i'm getting at here is characterizing a dual core as unsuitable for gaming, that is not the case at all. Not even close to being the case. Basically, cry engine has to be lowered in settings to work on a dual core without HT. But I haven't found other games that are like that. If there are lemme know and I can probably give them a whirl and check, but so far, I've been more than impressed with the G3220. I threw a 780 in that rig for a day and couldn't believe the framerates that all of the games were getting. Quite impressive to say the least. It doesn't replace my main PC, of course, but the G3220 is pretty amazing nonetheless; i'm very interested in seeing how well the unlocked pentiums overclock. I wouldn't hesitate for a second in buying one as a replacement for a htpc/gaming rig after seeing what the Haswell pentiums can do.