Originally posted by: TuxDave
Originally posted by: RMSe17
Wow.. after seeing these benchmarks I am strongly considering getting a C2Q or maybe even a Phenom 2. I was all set on getting the i7 920, been waiting for D0, but now I wonder.. why pay more $$ for equal or lower performance in games? At higher heat levels too... Sure i7 can RAR stuff faster than anything on the planet, but when it comes down to it, I play games more than run the installations for them... My world got turned upside down. thanks
Why get a quad for gaming at all?
Because Folding@Home is a pretty good game!
FC2, 2560 res, PhII & i7 @ 3.6 ghz both score 64 fps, 2.1 ghz i7 right there @ 63 fps.
Oops, with CoH, I thought the PhII edged the i7, but it was actually the E8600 which edged the i7, 83-82.
Most of the results at high res are so tightly bunched, though. GPU's holding things back.
You could make the comment "i7 @ 2.1 Ghz matches PhII @ 3.6", or you could say "PhII @ stock nearly matches overclocked i7 in high res gaming". Both are accurate, just a matter of spin.
ok someone please explain what a gpu bottleneck is to this guy, as well as the fact that a 4ps difference when both platforms are getting over 50fps is essentially noise.
That review is a little silly to me. I guess you could look at it as a 2.1GHz i7 matches a 3.6GHz PhII. Or you could look at it as a 3.6GHz i7 gets 40FPS vs. 36FPS for the PhII at 1920 res.
That review seem odd to me. They say they are using a GTX295 (a quite powerful card). At 1680 res (with 0xAA - isn't that technically 1xAA? - and 0xAF) and an i7 at 2.1GHz get 43FPS. That same i7 at 3.6GHz gets only 47FPS. That's terrible scaling, is that game that GPU limited at 1680x1050 0xAA/0xAF on a GTX295?
*edit - Just read the other replies, as Flipped Gazelle said it's really a matter of how you spin it.
- Jul 3, 2003
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1st off no one is saying "so much better" - why in the heck should AMD 940 be beating or even tie Intel 965EE at all ever??? How come so many review sites use very low res and say look, AMD sucks the big one compared, maybe compete against Intel's last gen at best - when right before our eyes with games like FarCry2, WaW, CoD4, Fear2, Warhead all which are some of the more played games, the AMD beats it or is pretty darn close to or a tie.
This is why I started with and asked:
So 2 part ? - 1 why then if for gaming even bother blowing huge cash (as I did) on Intel i7 965EE when AMD Pii 940 is faster in gaming - 2 why???, so what changes so much so that AMD at 640 or 800 res in benchmarks no beats Intel, yet in real every day res for many it does?
and I'll add, for gamers (many or most) is i7 just a great bench-mark cpu, cause even though I own 1, I don't see it doing anything special in real life res and settings for gaming - shame for $1,500.00 it can not kick AMD butt at any res - as many reviews showing, at higher res even with some multi-gpu like the GTX 295 review (posted again below) - still amd holding its own very well - as said in earlier posts, I personally find if test with HD4870X2 (not Nvidia) based card, AMD 940 actually does better yet vs Intel 965EE as go to 2 HD4870X2's.
From Legionhardware GTX295 cpu scaling:
Phenom II X4 series, it does start to make a lot of sense when you look at the 2560x1600 performance. The Phenom II X4 940 was just 4fps slower than the Core i7 series in Company of Heroes at 2560x1600, 3fps in Crysis Warhead, 1fps in Far Cry 2, 1fps in Unreal Tournament 3, 5fps in World in Conflict, with the biggest upset being a 14fps loss in Left 4 Dead, while the Fallout 3 performance was identical.
Ideally, those planning on gaming with a $500 US graphics card capable of smooth gameplay at 2560x1600 with full in game graphics enabled, are likely going to do so. Therefore the Phenom II X4 940 does make sense, as it is able to almost match the performance of the world?s fastest processors. So then rather than spending $340 US on a Core 2 Quad Q9650, or $560 US for a Core i7 940 processor, why not just buy the Phenom II X4 940 for $230 US?
click HERE
This is an excellent question, the data graph specifically in reference is here and we see clearly that the performance if CPU dependent as it scale so well with the CPU's clockspeed.
Just looking at the i7's scores:
i7 920 scores 48fps
i7 940 scores 54fps
i7 965 scores 62fps
Clearly the game is not GPU bound, otherwise an i7 965 would not generate 29% higher fps than an i7 920.
So your question is quite a good one, and worthy of pause for consideration, what is it about PhenomII and the AM2+ platform that enables it to deliver higher performance in this game than Nehalem and the Bloomfield platform?
Does the 512KB L2$ of Phenom II versus the 256KB L2$ of Nehalem make all the difference in this special corner case? (Far Cry 2 appears to be a unique situation if I am reading the reviews correctly)
This is kind of what I was getting at in the earlier reply on the first page (I use the default 20 posts a page). Super low res/low setting tests are great for isolating the CPU for gaming benches, but that's just one piece of the pie. There is more to PC than the CPU and GPU. A higher res test, while quite possibly GPU bound to some degree, would reflect what happens in the real world much better. A64/Phenom and i7 receive and send their data in quite a different way than C2D or P4's. How do platform differences matter when the GPU is maxed?
I think this is the review I was talking about earlier.
They are testing a lowly (borrowed 'lowly' from aigo...) Phenom 9600. While it's hardly the star of the show most of the time you can see a trend in a lot of games as the resolution and stress on the entire platform and GPU increase.
In all my babbling all I'm trying to say is that I think basing your purchasing decisions for a CPU on 640x480 benchmarks might not be a good idea. You wouldn't buy a graphics card based on 3DMark alone, right? There is an entire platform that goes with the different vendors CPU's, I think that deserves more attention.
And for the record I am not saying Phenom was/is better then C2D. People use their PC's for a whole lot more than just gaming, and Intel's Core 2 architecture generally was faster at other tasks and clocked much higher. I'm just trying to make a point when looking at a CPU for gaming, personally I wouldn't and don't put too much thought or care into low res gaming benches.
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exactly Idontcare and SlowSpyder , you put it in much better wording than I did - yes I'm just little sore to see being I own one of those pricey i7 965EE (hence all the comments) and shocked not seeing more of a difference, however would love to see AMD and Intel both take a shot at a reply - the games that AMD is doing well or maybe taking slight lead is the more newer games, that really says something as well to me...
Nice to see more today than just slapped up benchmarks, we can get that here in the forums from each other - lets see bit more from the review sites.
I'm curious - prior to buying your 965EE, did you read any of the reviews, many of which showed that i7's gaming performance at high resolutions wasn't better than C2Q's (and thus, PhII)?
With the exception of FC2, Core i7 just doesn't offer an advantage in today's games... but hopefully, as I stated previously, that will change as new games - and GPU's - make better use of i7's advantages.
Really, it sounds to me like you are saying, "I just bought a new Mercedes, and it doesn't get me to work any faster than a Honda Civic". You are bumping up against traffic, speed limits and red lights. Only when those are torn down can you go faster...
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To be 100% - I would have one no matter what as from company I work for I normally have both AMD and Intel top solution.
Also in being fair I had them before they was released to the public, however what you say is correct, add to that, guess when I see over and over Intel (this is more internal among the industry and not so much in public) as well as reviews focused on showing Intel killing AMD when owning both, I see AMD in real res holding its own or here and there faster by a bit -
ok and add to that, being I have the top end cost many times more Intel cpu, just think it should be 6 to 8 times better as price is.
Last, really can not help but to think there must be more to the i7 in gaming or at least a good reason why it does not do better, at least in non-gpu bound game as few have said like FC2.
I will say though, if your AMD fan and game, for the most part, you are NOT getting a cheap slow solution as some would think, actually could be getting the better solution over-all right now - guess that shocks me a bit, not saying I'm Intel fanboy either, just early reviews and many yet today, unless they do real life res, they favor Intel.
thanks Flipped Gazelle for asking, you are right, if shopping for a new rig, Mercedes may not always make you the most happy -
konakona
Diamond Member
- May 6, 2004
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when they say i7 excels with a multi-GPU setup, do they mean playable vs unplayable difference or like 70fps vs 120fps? Can one increase visual quality a notch or two in any of those games by going with an i7 CPU? just curious.
all these cutting-edge eyecandy touting games are GPU-bounded in nature, that I am well aware of. some of my friends claim MMORPG games are much more CPU dependent and they are able to discern every bit of difference in situations when there are whole lot of players (50+) in one setting (i.e. towns, raids). wonder if there is any truth to it.
all these cutting-edge eyecandy touting games are GPU-bounded in nature, that I am well aware of. some of my friends claim MMORPG games are much more CPU dependent and they are able to discern every bit of difference in situations when there are whole lot of players (50+) in one setting (i.e. towns, raids). wonder if there is any truth to it.
I wouldn't get too upset over the price of the i7, the highest end stuff is never cheap... they're not bang for the buck parts. Intel has always charged a huge amount for their Extreme Edition. AMD did the same with their FX parts... you paid quite a premium for a few hundred MHz and an unlocked multiplier. This is just the nature of the business, they are just not bang for the buck parts.
Dadofamunky
Platinum Member
- Jan 4, 2005
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Privatize the profits, Nationalize the losses. It's an echo of the Saving & Loan scandal of the late 80's, on steroids.
I could not possibly agree more. Now, to start with, a) throw these bastards in jail till they die; b) re-institute financial oversight with big, nasty sharp teeth. We do those two things, confidence will come back to the financial markets.
I really wish we could start a thread about this. Not in this category, obviously. I've spent a lot of time blogging about this very topic, which obviously has NOTHING to do with the present thread. I :heart: PC tinkering.
Dude, how do I get hold of you outside of this thread? My messaging contact is available here.
IntelUser2000
Elite Member
- Oct 14, 2003
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-You know Core i7 excels with multi-GPU setups like SLI right??
-You know Core i7 excels at low resolution single GPU setups right?
-And you know Core i7 is a bit behind at high resolution single GPU??
Add 1+1 and see what you get. There is abundant CPU power for games(in fact better than Core 2) but there's something that prohibits it when it gets to a situation where its GPU bound.
What is it??
Speculation is that its because games are extremely optimized to the previous configuration, PCI-Express and Memory Controller right next to each other.
Core i7 breaks this, PCI-Express controller is still on a seperate chip, but the memory controller is now on the CPU. Now it requires an extra hop for the PCI-Express transaction to go to the main memory transaction.
(I've heard due to that its less of a problem on ATI GPUs because ATI is now AMD. Plus its harder to compare to AMD when they had this config for a while. For Intel this is new)
Now it may not seem much, but in high resolutions its so dominated by GPU performance that even small changes will make big differences CPU-wise. All the 3 linked benchmarks are using Nvidia GPUs.
Lynnfield with PCI-Express and Memory Controller with CPU should be able to fix this problem.
Denithor
Diamond Member
- Apr 11, 2004
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Guru3D: Core i7 965 vs QX9770 vs E8400 - TripleSLI GTX 280
Conclusions:
The rest of that article is definitely worth a read as well. Note it came out shortly after i7 launch, before AMD released the PhII chips. I have not seen Guru3D update or release a new article to compare i7 directly to PhII.
exar333
Diamond Member
- Feb 7, 2004
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Maybe a better analogy (since a vehicle analogy is required here in AT
) is "I just bought a super-expensive maximum-torque 4x4 truck, and my quarter-mile times are the same as my trusty V6 Camry."I purchased an i7 knowing that the gaming performance was pretty much the best, but definitely not OWNAGE, by any means. It is very good, and it is bested by other processors in some games and/or resolutions. It IS however, king in encoding and rendering. I do a lot of encoding, and I can't express how much of a boon it has been to me in this area. The i7 was never marketed as a gaming processor, and it doesn't matter how much you spent on the EE version, it doesn't make it any faster. The EE is great for very high-end air cooling or water/phase cooling rigs.
OP, your concerned about "bang for the buck"? Why didn't you just get a 920 and OC it to > 965EE speeds and be happy? 920's have been on sale for less than $250.00, there is no better deal for a processor than that IMHO.
Looking at his sig, I don't think he has much concerns about "bang-for-the-buck"
FC2 results from that link are quite interesting though, I wonder about the reason. If it were L2 cache, shouldn't C2Q rule then, but even they are slower than Ph2 and no better or worse than i7.
That Guru3D link is a good one, and supports the data put forth in the 1st two links in this thread, that at super-high resolution (2560), the "top" CPU's perform similarly because even high-end multi-GPU solutions are saturated.
Even though there is not a PhII in the Guru3D article, I think the C2Q's can give us a rough guesstimate as to how the PhII's perform.
What's heartening, from a consumer's perspective, is the increasing affordability of a Core i7 system. Newegg has a couple of 1366 mobos for $170 AR, and you can populate it with 6GB RAM for $85.
Later this year as next-gen video cards are introduced, I'm sure we'll see the i7 spread it wings as a gaming CPU.
Even though there is not a PhII in the Guru3D article, I think the C2Q's can give us a rough guesstimate as to how the PhII's perform.
What's heartening, from a consumer's perspective, is the increasing affordability of a Core i7 system. Newegg has a couple of 1366 mobos for $170 AR, and you can populate it with 6GB RAM for $85.
Later this year as next-gen video cards are introduced, I'm sure we'll see the i7 spread it wings as a gaming CPU.
Denithor
Diamond Member
- Apr 11, 2004
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Exactly - that's why the PhII can match i7 at 1920x1200 with lesser GPU setups.
Bingo. But I still think it's going to be in the multiGPU setups that the i7 is going to rule. From the reading I've done I have come to the conclusion that the major advantage of i7 (and PhII for that matter) is the IMC along with the QPI/HT portion of the chip (the uncore region). I think this works by streamlining the flow of data among different GPUs so the rendering work gets done in a much more efficient manner (each GPU core stays saturated instead of waiting for work as happens with Core2 architecture). This could also potentially result in less microstutter.
Guru did a separate review for the PII 920/940 a few weeks later with the i920 and C2Q in comparison tests.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/...0-and-940-review-test/
Originally posted by: RMSe17
Wow.. after seeing these benchmarks I am strongly considering getting a C2Q or maybe even a Phenom 2. I was all set on getting the i7 920, been waiting for D0, but now I wonder.. why pay more $$ for equal or lower performance in games? At higher heat levels too... Sure i7 can RAR stuff faster than anything on the planet, but when it comes down to it, I play games more than run the installations for them... My world got turned upside down. thanks
i7 is actually more energy efficient than the C2D, C2Q, or Phenom II. If it's giving you the same performance, then it's using less energy and producing less heat. If it's using more energy, then it's giving you better performance.
In most games, CPU utilization will be 30% or less on an i7.
Originally posted by: dookulooku
Originally posted by: RMSe17
Wow.. after seeing these benchmarks I am strongly considering getting a C2Q or maybe even a Phenom 2. I was all set on getting the i7 920, been waiting for D0, but now I wonder.. why pay more $$ for equal or lower performance in games? At higher heat levels too... Sure i7 can RAR stuff faster than anything on the planet, but when it comes down to it, I play games more than run the installations for them... My world got turned upside down. thanks
i7 is actually more energy efficient than the C2D, C2Q, or Phenom II. If it's giving you the same performance, then it's using less energy and producing less heat. If it's using more energy, then it's giving you better performance.
In most games, CPU utilization will be 30% or less on an i7.
Yep, here's what we see in that regard:
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Thanks, I appreciate the sanity check, so I'm not entirely off-base on this I guess.
Still though I like the new power numbers that Anand published. It's actually quite a nice showing for Nehalem.
Not sure why nobody actually crunches the data into performance/watt metrics anymore, guess its not sexy enough anymore. It's so 2007.
I went ahead and crunched Anand's data to convert it to performance/watt:
CPU...................................QX9770 (3.2GHz)..........Core i7-965 (3.2GHz).............Improvement
POV-Ray..............................11.4 PPS/Watt..............17.5 PPS/Watt......................53%
Cinebench (1 thread)............20.3 CBMarks/Watt.......26.6 CBMarks/Watt...............31%
Cinebench (max threads)......61.8 CBMarks/Watt.......81.5 CBMarks/Watt...............32%
3dsmax 9 SPECapc CPU........0.060 /Watt..................0.084 /Watt..........................41%
x264 HD Encode Test............0.32 fps/Watt................0.44 fps/Watt.......................38%
DivX 6.8.3............................2.61 Watts...................1.84 Watts............................29%
Windows Media Encoder........2.01 Watts....................1.34 Watts............................33%
Age of Conan.......................0.35 fps/Watt................0.46 fps/Watt........................31%
Race Driver GRID.................0.30 fps/Watt...............0.34 fps/Watt........................15%
Crysis..................................0.14 fps/Watt...............0.16 fps/Watt........................15%
FarCry 2..............................0.32 fps/Watt................0.42 fps/Watt........................34%
Fallout 3...............................0.25 fps/Watt...............0.37 fps/Watt........................45%
Unless I made a mistake in the math the i7 beat the QX9770 in every test. The average percent power consumption reduction per unit of work being done is 33% for the i7 over yorkfield.
Now I am finally seeing the 30-40% power consumption reduction numbers I was expecting once performance is normalized
Denithor
Diamond Member
- Apr 11, 2004
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Not what I'm looking for. If you look closer at what I posted above, Guru3D even stated that any of today's quads is sufficient to push a single GPU and there won't be big differences (verified in this article you linked). However, i7 scales much better with 2/3/4 card CF/SLI rigs than the Core2 architecture can manage and that's what I'm interested in seeing - how well PhII scales versus i7 at high resolution with like TripleSLI GTX 280s. Feature that card setup with PhII and i7 both at 3.8GHz (and overclock their uncore as well) and see how they compare.
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