Left 4 Dead 2: CPU benchmarks-Quads win by a mile!

[UnhappySoul]

Left 4 Dead 2: Multi-core support is strong in this one. Time has come to dump those ancient Core 2s boys and embrace the Quads!! :\

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,...PU-benchmarks-Phenom-II-very-strong/Practice/

 

[theevilsharpie]

Not quite.

If you look at the benchmark that actually matters (1680x1050 w/ 4xMSAA and 16x AF), the only CPUs that have any trouble running the game at all are the Athlon X2's and the low-end dual-core Core 2, and they just slightly dip into the lower frame rates. Everything else achieved a minimum 60fps, which is all you need unless you're using 3D glasses or your display supports a refresh rate higher than 60hz.

What this benchmark shows is that as long as you have a reasonable modern CPU, the graphics card is all that really matters when it comes to gaming. The only exceptions I can think of are simulators or RTS games.

 

[sandorski]

Wish there were some Athlon 2 X4s included. Results seem pretty clear though.

 

[UnhappySoul]

of course at high res an AA an AF apllied it'll always come down to graphics card power but when u measure the true power of a CPU by keeping the GPU effects to the least the Quads will always win.

also if u SLI Tri or QUadSLI u'll be much better off with Quads even at high rez.

 

[theevilsharpie]

of course at high res an AA an AF apllied it'll always come down to graphics card power but when u measure the true power of a CPU by keeping the GPU effects to the least the Quads will always win.

also if u SLI Tri or QUadSLI u'll be much better off with Quads even at high rez.

I suppose you could drop the image quality, but why would you if you're already getting 60fps?

Again, 60fps is all you can really use on a standard LCD. To go higher, you'd have to turn off Vsync, which doesn't give you anything other than reduced imaged quality.

The performance improvement of a super high-end quad core in L4D2 is only visible in a bar chart. In game, the performance is identical.

 

[UnhappySoul]

hmm, yeah but what u should look for is the min FPS when the shit hits the fan.
thats the key.

 

[theevilsharpie]

Of all the listed CPUs, only the dual-core Athlons had a minimum framerate that I would consider less than completely fluid.

 

[MrK6]

That's some decent scaling - it's good to see developers putting quads to good use.

 

[IntelUser2000]

It's actually remarkable how far AMD has come so far, and how single thread performance isn't as important as per core performance(there is a difference between the two). Without the i7, AMD would have been competitive with Intel per clock for most apps.

I know for the sake of the buyer, that site isn't too impressive considering they disable features like Turbo Mode, but its perfect for architectural comparison.


Some notes:

-It's a 4-thread optimized game seeing Hyperthreading does nothing for performance and its scaling reasonably well for clock.
-Core i7 is 25% faster clock for clock over Core 2 family
-Quad core gain over dual core is an impressive 45%
-Considering gains in IPC and SMT enabling 4 threads, Clarkdale at 3.0GHz should be playing with the Q9650

 

[ViviTheMage]

I crank up MSAA and AF, so my E8400 still matches up with the i7.

 

[bigriggg]

looks good, i had it cranked last night, the demo, and was getting 200fps on 4 cores, and was lpaying with my friend, he was getting 100 fps, so it does make a difference

 

[cusideabelincoln]

That Phenom II 550 surprises me; it beats out the E8400.

 

[SonicIce]

It's still the source engine right? Could I play it on Athlon 64 3500 and 6800GT? I could with L4D1

 

[theevilsharpie]

I don't see why not. You may have to turn down some of the graphical detail, of course.

 

[myocardia]

I'm not at all surprised. It has been just about exactly the required amount of time from the birth of quads to their widespread use in software that can benefit from them. Note, widespread use to me means when it is considered rare for a software not to have that capability. I don't expect much CPU-intensive software to be released from this point forward that isn't optimized for quad cores.

 

[fffblackmage]

Looks like my overclocked E6320 will continue to be "good enough." XD

 

[cbn]

That is pretty strong CPU scaling.

So what would playing L4D 2 be like on a 120 Hz monitor?

 

[Ben90]

That is pretty strong CPU scaling.

So what would playing L4D 2 be like on a 120 Hz monitor?

Feels just like playing any other game at 120Hz

Wow holy crap. I turned my monitor down to 60Hz to see what everyone elses experience is like. That is really really painful. Before i even got into the game, just moving the little driver screen i noticed how choppy it was. Got into l4d and ill quote myself: "Wow this is bad". Terrible mouse lag and choppy as hell. Im sure the input delay could be fixed but the framerate was...bad, no other way to put it

It almost makes me want to switch back to my trinitron CRT for some 800x600@240fps goodness. If all i did was game i would definately go back

 

[coreyb]

all valve games are like this. it would of been nice to see some overclocked benches though.

 

[Fox5]

The multicore support is probably aimed at having a decent xbox 360/ps3 port rather than a need on the pcs for it. (though it could mean playability on atom based systems, if only those had a decent IGP)

I'm sure this will still play reasonably well on a high end single core.