Could you distinguish an I7 from a Ph II in the kind of games you play?

[taltamir]

mmm, in dawn of war and crysis people did pick the intel to be the "faster" system more often than the AMD... i wonder if that is conincidence or a trend... if so it speaks volumes. People normally can't tell the difference between only a few FPS, for them to have been able to see a difference it must be been pretty large. Than the ones who picked the opposite though, no clue...

He could have easily compared i7 to C2Q or even C2D and STILL the majority of people will not be able to SEE the difference in the such a scenario. I Wouldn't even say GPU bound since he had them play on lower resolution, i expect they are all pretty close to maxed out at that level.
My Q6600 and a GTX260 max out most of my games

The way he chose to compare phenom 2 to i7 though makes it seem like an AMD marketing thing... it makes it seem like the p2 is analogous to the i7, that is bullshit. the p2 is analogous to the c2. it is just that the difference between i7 and c2 in most games today is not user noticeable. So making such an upgrade should no be done because of an imaginary need to get better gaming performance.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: taltamir
The way he chose to compare phenom 2 to i7 though makes it seem like an AMD marketing thing... it makes it seem like the p2 is analogous to the i7, that is bullshit. the p2 is analogous to the c2. it is just that the difference between i7 and c2 in most games today is not user noticeable. So making such an upgrade should no be done because of an imaginary need to get better gaming performance.

You're right that it looks like an AMD thing. AMD has a bunch of videos on youtube that do basically the same thing - they show a game then compare the price of the i7 system to the phenom system. It's not really lying, but it is a bit sketchy.

One could argue that the person was simply trying to show that your CPU is not as important as you think it is. The only problem with this argument is that the Phenom II is still a really good processor, so it doesn't show that at all. If the test were done with something like a $68 original Phenom X3 then maybe the test would have more kick to it. It's worth noting that the original Phenom or a C2D will still get the exact same frame rate as an i7 or Phenom II in most of these games. Anything above 60fps is still locked at 60 if you're bright enough to turn on v-sync.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Not likely in the games I play, but the video encoding? Hell yea

 

[supertle55]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
I have to imagine that when it comes to things that make the gaming user of the rig notice something is different that the pecking order is (1) GPU, (2) SSD vs hard-drive, and (3) PhII vs i7.

Would my ATI 4890 be the limiting factor to my I7 920 OC to 3.8ghz? I have the OCZ Platinum triple channel ram as well.

I have a regular SATA 7200rpm hitachi HD. I don't think Harddrive would be a limiting factor because data will be well buffered to the RAM. Initially it would be a limiting factor but thats only in loading up any application but not while running it.

 

[nyker96]

he must meant i7 920 not 720.

also on the issue of see a difference in games, I think people will only notice a difference if one of the system is running below 30fps, otherwise anything above that should be pretty much smooth gaming, only when it goes below 30 will you notice some jagginess.

this just means for a stronger system, you can turn on more eye candy and still hit above 30. but since they keep all setting the same, the stronger system won't get any benefits even know it might be running much faster fps than the slower system. In real life, the tangible benefit is in graphic quality not perceived fps differences. you get more eye candy on the faster system.

 

[exar333]

I bet there is little performance difference in EVERYTHING between the two if I dust off a 10-year old HDD and use that for my O/S drive too.



These arguments are worthless.

I really felt dissapointed when I got my i7 and my web-browsing wasn't any better than my C2D. What a waste of money...

:roll:

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: supertle55
I have a regular SATA 7200rpm hitachi HD. I don't think Harddrive would be a limiting factor because data will be well buffered to the RAM. Initially it would be a limiting factor but thats only in loading up any application but not while running it.

Hard drive can very quickly become a bottleneck if you have stuff running in the background. For example, running Fallout/Oblivion while eMule is running is just horrible. The graphics are jerky as hell. I tried running Fallout 3 from a small 2.5" USB hard drive that had nothing else on it and the difference was very noticeable.

In short, make sure games have their own hard drive. It doesn't need to be a good hard drive, but it does need to be separate from all of your other background programs.

I bet there is little performance difference in EVERYTHING between the two if I dust off a 10-year old HDD and use that for my O/S drive too.

This is also not true. I tried to use a 120gb hard drive for Vista but I quickly found that it sucked hard. I used that Maxtor drive image software to move everything to a 320gb SATA and now everything is a lot smoother. The computer doesn't freeze when trying to load something.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: ExarKun333
I bet there is little performance difference in EVERYTHING between the two if I dust off a 10-year old HDD and use that for my O/S drive too.



These arguments are worthless.

I really felt dissapointed when I got my i7 and my web-browsing wasn't any better than my C2D. What a waste of money...

:roll:

very true it is indeed a waste of money, but its entirely your fault for buying an i7 for web browsing.

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx

Originally posted by: SMPEngineer

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: SMPEngineer
What I am stating is that what his testing concluded is that when using a GPU which is the limiting factor in performance.. this causes there to be no difference between a Core i7 and Phenom II. Is it just me or isn't that self evident?!

No it's not self evident. Most people don't even know what a video card is. Ask as many people as you know "what kind of video card does your computer have?" and see what the responses are.

Among the people who do know what a video card is, most of them probably don't understand how important the video card is in gaming performance. If people understood what a video card did, Nvidia and ATI would not sell mid-range video cards because nobody would buy them. The people who don't play games would stick to integrated or low end graphics and the people who play games would always get a fast video card. Cards like the GeForce 8600 are aimed at people who have no idea what they are doing; the people who think i7 with a mid-range card is better than a 2 year old C2D with a high end video card.

As for the percentage of users who encode video. Well how many folks out there with mobile devices which require you to re-encode video? Such as the iPods, Zune's etc?

Zero? Almost everyone I know has some kind of mp3 player, but I have never seen anyone watch a video on an mp3 player. It's one of those features people like to have but never use. Things like video encoding are done by a very small minority of people.

How many folks out there who purchase music and strip it to their PC's?

Almost zero? People who buy CDs listen to CDs. People who listen to MP3 either pirate it or buy it online.

edit.
It's worth noting that ripping music from CD is not restricted to how fast your CPU is. Right now I'm ripping a CD as lossless wma (in windows media player) and my E6600 is only running at 13% CPU. If I had an i7 or Phenom 2, it would be just as slow but that % would be lower.

Yes it is Self Evident. The Conclusion that I derive using the scientific method from the information provided by the author is self evident.

That is quite a simple logical conclusion. You're only as good as your weakest link. That is self evident.

As for Video players.. clearly you have no heard of these devices which are all the rage right now such as the iPod touch etc. Either that or you're simply clinging to straws and ignoring the world around you.

Yeah tons of people own ipod touches and iphones, but the majority (i'm talking <95%) buy encoded video right off the bat from itunes. They don't need to encode their videos as it is already done for them. VERY few people do the third party software route to convert video. My friend has tens of movies and hundreds of video clips and he never had to encode a single one.

95% of people buy legit videos? wow and here i thought torrents make up some 35% of all internet traffic.

 

[bobross419]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
For Port Royale 2? No, I doubt I could tell the difference.

<3 this game TOo bad my install disk is busted

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: poohbear
95% of people buy legit videos? wow and here i thought torrents make up some 35% of all internet traffic.

Yeah well if we all had i7 processors we could bump that up to 40%

 

[TuxDave]

Someone get a PH2 and test it on EQ2, the most horribly cpu-limited game ever written.

 

[aigomorla]

ummm i push my computers hard.

And yes all the MHZ counts to me.

 

[Munky]

Is it really that hard to believe that maybe, just maybe, a Ph2 is indistinguishable in gaming performance from an i7? If the benchmarks show maybe a 5-10% difference, it won't be easy to notice the difference in real life, and that difference doesn't justify a $100 price premium to me anyways. I don't care what the benches say about low res performance, because I don't play at 1024x768. Neither do I care about tri-SLI performance, because more often than not it doesn't scale well regardless of the cpu, and a single gpu plays modern games pretty well at 1920x1200.

For all those whining about media encoding - no not everyone cares about it. I'm not the average Joe user, and I still don't do movie encoding or waste time with video transcoding for a portable device. In fact, the most demanding thing I use my PC for IS gaming.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: dennilfloss
Could you distinguish an I7 from a Ph II in the kind of games you play?

Definitely. One of the "games" I "play" is M$'s FSX. It's at least 10X as CPU-bound as Supreme Commander.:shocked:

 

[Kraeoss]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: dennilfloss
Could you distinguish an I7 from a Ph II in the kind of games you play?

Definitely. One of the "games" I "play" is M$'s FSX. It's at least 10X as CPU-bound as Supreme Commander.:shocked:

wow so that can be used to bench a cpu then...?

 

[MegaWorks]

The phenom II is a better purchase for the average Joe who wants to play games, serf the net and watch movies for him an i7 is a wast of money.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: MegaWorks
The phenom II is a better purchase for the average Joe who wants to play games, serf the net and watch movies for him an i7 is a wast of money.

The "average Joe" who wants to play games, etc, would do just fine with a zippy Core2 based dual-core cpu combined with a decent GPU card.

There's nothing about quad-cores that make them "a better purchase" for anyone carrying around the adjective "average" in front of their name.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
ummm i push my computers hard.

And yes all the MHZ counts to me.

Careful! Pushing too hard may be harmful.

 

[kerr]

PH II $189.00 i7 920 $220..
PH II MB $149.00 i7 920 $189.00
PH II memory same as 920 $ per gig..
Seems like the price is close, performance.. thats another story.

 

[Jetster]

Originally posted by: kerr
PH II $189.00 i7 920 $220..
PH II MB $149.00 i7 920 $189.00
PH II memory same as 920 $ per gig..
Seems like the price is close, performance.. thats another story.

i got my pii 920 for 135 when it's on sale from newegg, and most decent 790g/x mobo only cost around 120, only 790fx cost around 150, even now u can get pii/mobo combo deal from newegg for about 250. if you're not a speed junkie, Pii is very good bang for the buck right now

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: kerr
PH II $189.00 i7 920 $220..
PH II MB $149.00 i7 920 $189.00
PH II memory same as 920 $ per gig..
Seems like the price is close, performance.. thats another story.

Then explain how most sites like Newegg have the i7 listed at around $280.

Don't give me the Fry's and Microcenter crap since many of those specials are in store only and most of us don't have access to their retail stores in our area.

Edit:

Another thing, there are a ton of great mother boards for the Phenom II at or below $100 so you fail in that area too.

 

[kerr]

I was going with the PH II 940, sorry should have specified.
yes the i7 920 is 279 at new egg.
yes there are cheaper mobo than 149 for the ph II, but also there are cheaper than $189 for i7's.
so $130.00 seems very small compared to the performance gained.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: kerr
I was going with the PH II 940, sorry should have specified.
yes the i7 920 is 279 at new egg.
yes there are cheaper mobo than 149 for the ph II, but also there are cheaper than $189 for i7's.
so $130.00 seems very small compared to the performance gained.

Not so if you don't do heavy encoding and editing of videos and other task like this. Gamers and most end users would hardly notice the performance difference between a i7 and a PH II in their daily task. In today's economy, $130 is hardly nothing to sneeze at and could mean the difference for many if they can pay the rent or buy food. In fact most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a X3 and a i7 in their daily task.

No one is arguing that the i7 is superior, we are just saying for most people it is not a good value right now. In six months that may be a completely different story.

 

[kerr]

I agree, if you can't pay rent, don't be upgrading a computer. lol. I make my living off of a computer, so every second faster I can get a job done, the more $$ in my pocket..

 

[Link]

I went from Q to PhII to i7.
Between Q to PhII, I didn't see or feel any difference. From PhII to i7, WoW!
I've used and install exact same hardware and software set, (well, i7 had one more stick of memory and PhII and i7 don't use the same chipset drivers). i7 system takes less than 1/3 of the time required by PhII to boot into Vista 64.
Also, I need more than 4Gb of system memory, but PhII couldn't handle the overclocking under Vista 64 with more than 2 memory slots occupied. The same issue was observed by Anandtech, and AMD is also aware of the issue.