Company of Heroes 2 - fascinating CPU benchmarks

[escrow4]

Techspot's review is out; salient points:

"Effectively what this means is that the Core i7-4770K can push the GTX Titan to its limit in CoH 2 at just 2.5GHz while the FX-8350 needs to be clocked 80% higher to achieve the same level of performance."

"Now let's see how a range of CPUs handle CoH with the GTX Titan and max quality settings. As we've already seen, the Core i7-4770K is capable of 41fps and the FX-8350 just 37fps, while the Core i7-3770K matched the i7-4770K and the i5-3570K was just 1fps slower. The Core i7-3960X was slower than the i5-3570K which is very surprising given how CPU demanding this game is and makes us regret using it as the primary test chip."

"The lower-end Athlon II X4 quad-cores are useless in this game, as are the dual-core parts including the Core i3-3220."

"With the more playable medium quality settings . . . . . Here the FX-8350 was 31% slower than the Core i7-4770K and 22% slower than its competitor, the Core i5-3470. The old i7-920 was able to match the FX-8350, while the Phenom II X6 and X4 processors showed their age here."

Source: http://www.techspot.com/review/689-company-of-heroes-2-performance/page4.html

I know that AMD's chips are in next gen consoles, so you might think they'd perform better out the box, but it really doesn't look like it. Also hexa-core results are odd given the CPU grunt this game needs.

 

[blackened23]

I think it's safe to say that multi core in this game is FUBAR. The 3960x is underperforming quads by a pretty large margin, I don't get it.

I know that AMD's chips are in next gen consoles, so you might think they'd perform better out the box, but it really doesn't look like it. Also hexa-core results are odd given the CPU grunt this game needs.

Granted, i'm not a fan of AMD desktop CPUs but i'm not sure how this is even applicable to next-generation consoles. It seems like you're creating a debate where there isn't one; this game is not a multi platform game (PC only), it was not coded as x86/x64 (32 bit only) and has nothing to do with current or next-generation consoles. I'm not quite sure how you're coming to the conclusion that this will have anything to do with next-gen. It won't. I think it's safe to say that next-gen games will use multiple cores since they're being coded as x86/x64 as a baseline, and any PC ports will carry that over. Currently that is not the case with multi platform games - any xbox 360 port or PS3 has to be done from scratch with the current scheme because the coding for the different platforms is so vastly different. That will not be the case with the next generation - everything will use x86-x64 as the base line as mentioned earlier. Everything will use multiple cores as the baseline.

How this translates into performance on the PC platform is certainly debatable, but 1) I don't see how you think COH2 has anything to do with next - gen, you're trying to create an argument where this isn't one (IMHO) and 2) We'll just have to wait and see how games perform when they are released.

 

[Sweepr]

Ouch.

 

[blackened23]

Someone explain what's wrong with this picture? Specifically the 3960X? It looks like the game, yet again, is using a single core. Gotta love it when developers are optimizing for Windows Vista and a single core. I'm optimistic that the next generation of multi platform games will address this - frankly, i'm getting sick of poorly coded games that are designed for 32 bit software/OS released 6-7 years ago. It's maddening.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Someone explain what's wrong with this picture? Specifically the 3960X? It looks like the game, yet again, is using a single core. Gotta love it when developers are optimizing for Windows Vista and a single core. I'm optimistic that the next generation of multi platform games will address this - frankly, i'm getting sick of poorly coded games that are designed for 32 bit software/OS released 6-7 years ago. It's maddening.

Why would there be anything wrong with it?

3960X is SB based and if the working set can fit the caches of the IB and HW chips and runs with 4 threads. Then the 3960X will lose out due to lower IPC that is not compensated enough by clock.

 

[sushiwarrior]

Sooooo, their engine can only use 4 threads max? I'd like to see how performance scales when disabling threads. The ceiling the 4770k hits seems very interesting as well.

 

[blackened23]

Why would there be anything wrong with it?

3960X is SB based and if the working set can fit the caches of the IB and HW chips and runs with 4 threads. Then the 3960X will lose out due to lower IPC that is not compensated enough by clock.

Right, i'm just pointing out my own frustration that games are still being coded for 32 bit Windows Vista. As well, i'm also pointing out that the original post tried to correlate this to the next generation consoles when that is a questionable comparison at best. CoH2 is not a multiplatform title, it is only for PC's. It is also not multi core, nor does it have anything to do with the next-gen. So i'm not really even sure why he brought it up, that's all.

 

[escrow4]

Right, i'm just pointing out my own frustration that games are still being coded for 32 bit Windows Vista. As well, i'm also pointing out that the original post tried to correlate this to the next generation consoles when that is a questionable comparison at best. CoH2 is not a multiplatform title, it is only for PC's. It is also not multi core, nor does it have anything to do with the next-gen. So i'm not really even sure why he brought it up, that's all.

It was more to do with AMD's poor core efficiency vs Intel. Should have worded it better.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Right, i'm just pointing out my own frustration that games are still being coded for 32 bit Windows Vista. As well, i'm also pointing out that the original post tried to correlate this to the next generation consoles when that is a questionable comparison at best. CoH2 is not a multiplatform title, it is only for PC's. It is also not multi core, nor does it have anything to do with the next-gen. So i'm not really even sure why he brought it up, that's all.

32bit Vista? Did I miss something?

 

[BenchPress]

I think it's safe to say that multi core in this game is FUBAR. The 3960x is underperforming quads by a pretty large margin, I don't get it.

With more threads, you get more interactions between threads that need synchronization. More synchronization means more overhead.

This is exactly why Intel introduced TSX. It optimizes synchronization by assuming that most interactions won't be interrupted by a conflict.

 

[Makaveli]

With more threads, you get more interactions between threads that need synchronization. More synchronization means more overhead.

This is exactly why Intel introduced TSX. It optimizes synchronization by assuming that most interactions won't be interrupted by a conflict.

Very true but as it is we know TSX should be a huge improvement in a server with 10x cores etc.

We have yet to see how this will impact the desktop landscape which is at 6 core max and only to move to 8 cores at a later date.

And this game is just poorly coded those graphs are enough evidence of that.

 

[SPBHM]

8350 is as fast as the 920 at 2.66GHz... that's from 2008...
again the i5s showing good level of performance and consistency, this is just a single game but, I don't understand people going with the 8350 for gaming PCs, when you can have the i5 for the same money basically...

 

[VulgarDisplay]

8350 is as fast as the 920 at 2.66GHz... that's from 2008...
again the i5s showing good level of performance and consistency, this is just a single game but, I don't understand people going with the 8350 for gaming PCs, when you can have the i5 for the same money basically...

Some people do other things besides gaming where the extra cores are beneficial.

It's also pretty obvious that this game is very poorly threaded.

 

[Makaveli]

8350 is as fast as the 920 at 2.66GHz... that's from 2008...
again the i5s showing good level of performance and consistency, this is just a single game but, I don't understand people going with the 8350 for gaming PCs, when you can have the i5 for the same money basically...

I came from a 920 so I always look for it in the techspot graphs it always give me a good laugh

Some people do other things besides gaming where the extra cores are beneficial.

It's also pretty obvious that this game is very poorly threaded.

Agreed but most people on this forum just assumes everyone just plays games you get use to it.

 

[SPBHM]

Some people do other things besides gaming where the extra cores are beneficial.

It's also pretty obvious that this game is very poorly threaded.

well, I'm talking about people who use the PC mainly for gaming (when it comes to heavy CPU load), which is not a rarity, and I've seen "gamers" going for the FX instead of the i5.

real world software can be like that...

 

[VulgarDisplay]

well, I'm talking about people who use the PC mainly for gaming (when it comes to heavy CPU load), which is not a rarity, and I've seen "gamers" going for the FX instead of the i5.

real world software can be like that...

You really need to ask yourself if 3fps in a horribly optimized game for multi threading is worth not having 4 extra cores available for basically the same price.

 

[SPBHM]

You really need to ask yourself if 3fps in a horribly optimized game for multi threading is worth not having 4 extra cores available for basically the same price.

is it really 3FPS during the worst cases?

also, 4 FX cores (2M) are MUCH slower than 4 Intel cores.
I can't see any good argument for the FX when it comes to a gaming PC...

it's not just this single game, the i5s are consistently faster, well, if you play other games and not just Crysis 3 "Welcome to the Jungle"

 

[frozentundra123456]

I think it's safe to say that multi core in this game is FUBAR. The 3960x is underperforming quads by a pretty large margin, I don't get it.



Granted, i'm not a fan of AMD desktop CPUs but i'm not sure how this is even applicable to next-generation consoles. It seems like you're creating a debate where there isn't one; this game is not a multi platform game (PC only), it was not coded as x86/x64 (32 bit only) and has nothing to do with current or next-generation consoles. I'm not quite sure how you're coming to the conclusion that this will have anything to do with next-gen. It won't. I think it's safe to say that next-gen games will use multiple cores since they're being coded as x86/x64 as a baseline, and any PC ports will carry that over. Currently that is not the case with multi platform games - any xbox 360 port or PS3 has to be done from scratch with the current scheme because the coding for the different platforms is so vastly different. That will not be the case with the next generation - everything will use x86-x64 as the base line as mentioned earlier. Everything will use multiple cores as the baseline.

How this translates into performance on the PC platform is certainly debatable, but 1) I don't see how you think COH2 has anything to do with next - gen, you're trying to create an argument where this isn't one (IMHO) and 2) We'll just have to wait and see how games perform when they are released.

Well, I agree that this is not particularly relevant to multi-platform titles coming out based on the consoles. However, I do think it is relevant in that it does show that there will still be games coming out that are not console ports that still will perform better on fewer, faster cores.

I have been playing the game, and am pretty surprised at how equally it uses the four cores of my i5. Actually, the graphics dont seem that great considering the resources it uses. I guess the cpu grunt must be required for AI and Havok physics.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Right, i'm just pointing out my own frustration that games are still being coded for 32 bit Windows Vista. As well, i'm also pointing out that the original post tried to correlate this to the next generation consoles when that is a questionable comparison at best. CoH2 is not a multiplatform title, it is only for PC's. It is also not multi core, nor does it have anything to do with the next-gen. So i'm not really even sure why he brought it up, that's all.

It most definitely is multi core. Perhaps it cannot use more than 4 threads/cores, but I have been playing the game quite a bit and it loads all 4 cores of my i5 quite equally.

The 3960x results are confusing, but it is slightly lower clocked as well as being behind by around 10 to 15 percent in IPC. Besides that the results look pretty much cpu limited anyway for all the intel quads/hex cores.

Edit: meant GPU limited for the intel quads, obviously.

 

[Vesku]

Why would there be anything wrong with it?

3960X is SB based and if the working set can fit the caches of the IB and HW chips and runs with 4 threads. Then the 3960X will lose out due to lower IPC that is not compensated enough by clock.

Something is up with their game engine, 1090T@3.3GHz is within 1 fps of the 980T@3.7GHz. How is that happening if it's not gaining anything past 4 threads?

 

[FwFred]

4 extra "cores"

Quotation marks added for clarity

 

[NostaSeronx]

Something is up with their game engine, 1090T@3.3GHz is within 1 fps of the 980T@3.7GHz. How is that happening if it's not gaining anything past 4 threads?

The 1100T(Thuban) has a 3.7 GHz Tri-core Boost and the 980(Deneb) has four-cores at 3.7 GHz.


The game is single-threaded as you can tell by:
FX-8350
FX-6350
FX-4320
1100T
980

 

[sushiwarrior]

The 1100T(Thuban) has a 3.7 GHz Tri-core Boost and the 980(Deneb) has four-cores at 3.7 GHz.


The game is single-threaded as you can tell by:
FX-8350
FX-6350
FX-4320
1100T
980

Athlon results at the bottom of the chart beg to differ with you (x2, x3, x4 all scale roughly linearly with cores).

 

[NostaSeronx]

Athlon results at the bottom of the chart beg to differ with you (x2, x3, x4 all scale roughly linearly with cores).

I think you need your eyes checked or at least notice that the Phenom II x2/x3 Athlon II x4 has no scaling. Athlon II X2 265 has much slower caches than Athlon II X3 455, which leads to lower performance in the single core workload.

 

[Silverforce11]

Its a shame an RTS game isn't more multithreaded, when these games need the most CPU grunt they can get.