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

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: 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.

Hmmm...

I have my PhII X3 overclocked by 800mhz, and the 4th core enabled, and all 4 mem slots used, and I use Vista x64. Using a 790GX chipset.

 

[taltamir]

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:

I had MASSIVE Speed improvements going from an E8400 to a Q6600 for web browsing... opening a saved session with hundreds of tabs on chrome nearly doubled in speed, and increased a huge amount in firefox3 as well...

I also got a great boost from going from 4GB to 8GB of ram... browsers EAT RAM UP. gigs of ram per browser are easy. (although, the ram holes contribute to it... restarting the browsers help reduce its ram footprint a lot)

 

[dmens]

i7 makes my moviez and pr0n encode faster. it's faptastic.

 

[taltamir]

heh, i was just running benchmarking with my porn an hour ago (no really, I was!)

 

[kerr]

I have overvclocked my i7 by 2000Mhz with 8 threads enabled. lol

 

[dmens]

pr0n aside, this is a *really* stupid topic and i am not surprised that a bunch of turds at a lanparty would find it surprising or meaningful.

in some months i would not be surprised to see some web genius post "larabee does not make gcc or SQL run faster compared to nvidia G888" and the psychotics at amdzone will enter a religious frenzy once again.

 

[taltamir]

you mean they ever come out of the frenzy?

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: 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.

This. no need to be defensive about your expensive i7 purchase. The thread is about non-multi GPU gaming, not encoding. i7 is undoubtedly faster for encoding, but not everyone encodes on a daily basis. Your guess is probably just as good as mine when it comes to what percentage of computer literate people actually do heavy encoding frequently. One thing certain though, is that another $130 spent on a video card would make a computer play most games a hellalot faster. if you want to discuss encoding, make another thread.

 

[taltamir]

the whole point is the use of strawman argument. if you don't need the power of an i7 than go use a c2d, its much cheaper than p2 and will outperform it in many games.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: taltamir
the whole point is the use of strawman argument. if you don't need the power of an i7 than go use a c2d, its much cheaper than p2 and will outperform it in many games.

C2D is "much cheaper" than PhII? PhII X3 710 is $120, C2D E7400 is $120, using Newegg prices, and in most games the X3 is the superior performer.

 

[cbn]

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 think Phenom II will really have an advantage to the upcoming i5 mobo mainly because I have seen some AM2+ mobos that can run true x16.x16 Crossfire and these only cost $120.

Having "true" x16.x16 Multi-GPU can really help system longevity because we are already at the point where 4950x2 is already exceeding the bandwidth of a PCI-E 1.x slot.

 

[taltamir]

now, mobo quality and price i can agree with.

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: taltamir
the whole point is the use of strawman argument. if you don't need the power of an i7 than go use a c2d, its much cheaper than p2 and will outperform it in many games.

Unless you are willing to flat out deny AT's claims that p2 felt smoother and played better, I am inclined to think p2 tends to do better for minimum framerate for quite a few games, which is where it really counts. People were speculating it to be the effects of IMC.

 

[dmens]

People were speculating it to be the effects of IMC

um, i7 has an IMC.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: dmens

People were speculating it to be the effects of IMC

um, i7 has an IMC.

But the C2d which konakona specifically mentioned in that comment doesn't which is what someone else suggested was cheaper better than a PHII. You should read all the comments before replying because in this case, the i7 wasn't even mentioned.

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: dmens

People were speculating it to be the effects of IMC

um, i7 has an IMC.

you are damn right it does. the point is, according to the AT review only C2Q sometimes had trouble with min framerates; IMC is one thing that sets apart PII/i7 from C2Q, and hence the speculation.
soonerproud got my point heh

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: konakona

Originally posted by: taltamir
the whole point is the use of strawman argument. if you don't need the power of an i7 than go use a c2d, its much cheaper than p2 and will outperform it in many games.

Unless you are willing to flat out deny AT's claims that p2 felt smoother and played better, I am inclined to think p2 tends to do better for minimum framerate for quite a few games, which is where it really counts. People were speculating it to be the effects of IMC.

felt? last i checked minimum frame rates were measurable.
got any benchmarks?

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: dmens

People were speculating it to be the effects of IMC

um, i7 has an IMC.

But the C2d which konakona specifically mentioned in that comment doesn't which is what someone else suggested was cheaper better than a PHII. You should read all the comments before replying because in this case, the i7 wasn't even mentioned.

ok fine, a C2D then. i guess i should have went straight for the "feeling smoother" garbage, because that is grade-A bullshit. how is that method of evaluation any better than the crazed stereophiles who claim $20k cables sound better?

 

[taltamir]

feeling smoother is a great way to TELL there is a problem... but it should be followed by actual science... when i felt something was "wrong" on mass effect despite high FPS i investigated and got a framedump, I was seeing most frames take about 10ms to render, and every now and then a random frame will take 40+ ms to render followed by more 10ms frames... 1000 / 40ms = 25FPS

If there is really a "smoother feeling" there has to be a test that actually proves it is there.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: taltamir
feeling smoother is a great way to TELL there is a problem... but it should be followed by actual science... when i felt something was "wrong" on mass effect despite high FPS i investigated and got a framedump, I was seeing most frames take about 10ms to render, and every now and then a random frame will take 40+ ms to render followed by more 10ms frames... 1000 / 40ms = 25FPS

If there is really a "smoother feeling" there has to be a test that actually proves it is there.

I agree, I made a point somewhat similar to this a while back. If you (as a "professional tester") find this, it really behooves you to find a way to put some numbers to it. It's similar to game/cpu/gpu combos that benchmark great but suffer from microstutter.

OTOH, there definitely is something to "feel". A BMW and a Saturn could have similar raw performance #'s, but most would anticipate the BMW "feeling" better.

 

[dmens]

A BMW and a Saturn could have similar raw performance #'s, but most would anticipate the BMW "feeling" better.

oh yes, i was convinced after one test drive. however, there's quantitative backing to that feeling, be it a skid pad, slalom, 0-60, whatever. i would expect the same with computing.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: dmens

A BMW and a Saturn could have similar raw performance #'s, but most would anticipate the BMW "feeling" better.

oh yes, i was convinced after one test drive. however, there's quantitative backing to that feeling, be it a skid pad, slalom, 0-60, whatever. i would expect the same with computing.

exactly, its not ENOUGH to feel... you need to then find quantitative data proving it.

 

[konakona]

I do wish they posted that information along with the quoted text, kinda got me wondering too:

After playing through several levels on each platform, even with the improved performance of the Q9550 after switching to the 9.3 driver set, we thought the Phenom II 940/720BE offered a better overall gaming experience in this title. Are we going to say those three words again? Our therapist advised us not to hold our feelings in as they would eventually manifest and be channeled into a bad review for someone. So without further adieu, Smoother Game Play, Smoother Game Play.

That feels better, but all joking aside, we simply experienced better player movement and weapon control during heavy action sequences with our Phenom II processors compared to the Q9550 platform. This was especially true if we were running background applications (IM, File Transfers, AntiVirus, etc.) and especially if CPU usage was over 90%, the Phenom II system never stuttered or gave us a slight pause between level transitions like the Q9550 (editor - Sounds like an SSD review).

It might not be noticeable to everyone and at first we thought it was a placebo effect, but doing a blind test with an A/B box always lead us to the Phenom II. The $64 question is if we had the same user experience with the i7 platform. The answer is yes. The i7 offered an improved game play experience over the Q9550 platform based on the same reasons we listed for the Phenom II. Simply put, integrated memory controller and CSI/HTT platform designs perform better than the previous front side bus platforms with these type of system loads.

Maybe we should leave our comments there and let them know we always want min framerate figures to be included in their benchmarks. That being said, I am more inclined to assume what they are saying is correct, they have been more right than wrong most of the times. I consider AT one of the most reliable sources of hardware benchmark results/information and don't nearly have enough resources to do the benchmarks myself, neither do most of you I bet.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: dmens

A BMW and a Saturn could have similar raw performance #'s, but most would anticipate the BMW "feeling" better.

oh yes, i was convinced after one test drive. however, there's quantitative backing to that feeling, be it a skid pad, slalom, 0-60, whatever. i would expect the same with computing.

Mmm... maybe I didn't do well in my analogy. I meant that the Saturn could have the same 0-60 time, similar slalom and skidpad performance, heck, even similar passenger room. But what the #'s on paper don't tell you is the interior is made with cheap, poorly fitted plastics, the engine's coarse, the shifter's notchy.. an overall less pleasant (although not necessarily unpleasant) driving experience. The quantitative number for this was... resale value.

Now as far as the "smoother" gameplay of the PhII system goes. I have no reason to distrust what the author is saying. Even though there isn't a number attached, I believe it. Maybe the PhII's IMC improves things a tad vs C2Q. But... maybe the was a minor issue with the Intel config. Maybe a subtle issue with the motherboard. When a reviewer makes a statement about "smoothness" w/o data, he's asking for trouble. Trouble with the strong Intel and AMD partisanship, and also trouble with folks who only believe in quantitative data.

Here's another example: camera lenses. You can have 2 lenses that resolve the same amount of detail - measured in lines per inch - and yet, for some reason, one lens "renders" better than the other. Maybe the micro contrast is a little better, the out-of-focus area smoother (and this is subjective, most people equating smoother with more preferable), a subtlety of color... things that can't be measured in hard numbers, yet discernable nonetheless.

 

[taltamir]

if i assumed everyone who had "feelings" was correct id be religious today. I want some empirical evidence.