Speculation: AMD's response to Intel's 8-core i9-9900K

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How will AMD respond to the release of Intel's 8-core processor?

  • Ride it out with the current line-up until 7nm in 2019

    Votes: 129 72.1%
  • Release Ryzen 7 2800X, using harvested chips based on the current version of the die

    Votes: 30 16.8%
  • Release Ryzen 7 2800X, based on a revision of the die, taking full advantage of the 12LP process

    Votes: 17 9.5%
  • Something else (specify below)

    Votes: 3 1.7%

  • Total voters
    179

moinmoin

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2017
4,933
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That's some cute reverse psychology you are applying there. People were asking for competition. AMD finally delivered that with their first take on Zen by turning up the core count (an area Intel did nothing about for near 10 years) that restricted Intel's remaining advantage in consumer space to ST and gaming. Turning that into i can't think of a more blatant "we admit defeat" than that is laughable.
Uh .. what ?? WHAT ? Intel didnt do anything for core count??

Ok. Ok.
1. C2D +C2Q
Seeing how C2D and C2Q are from 2006 you actually appear to agree with me. *shrugs*
Your other points are unrelated to my point (but you are good at mental gymnastics, I give you that).
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
AàÀÀÀÀAaaÀÀAàÀÀAÀA

Intel has *always* had the lead in practically all situations; core count is not a goal in itself but a means to an end. Offering 4/8 desktop and the entire xeon range doesnt seem to me like anyone was in need of extra cores. The only good thing amd has done is offer a 16/32 at a lower price than iintel, for those home professionals who need it. At no price point has amd beaten intel since 2005. Extra cores WERE (and largely still are, although we've seen a big improvement) irrelevant for the consumer market. At no point did any home user buy a 20-core Xeon to play GTAO because 3/4 of those cores are useless.
Your statement makes as much sense as "well AMD didnt do nothing about meteors!".
Intel didnt increase the core count of mainstream cpus beyond 4 because increasing the core count of mainstream cpus beyond 4 in 2014 WAS DUMB.

Feel free to disagree.
 
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Despoiler

Golden Member
Nov 10, 2007
1,966
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Uh .. what ?? WHAT ? Intel didnt do anything for core count??

Ok. Ok.
1. C2D +C2Q
2. for YEARS there was no core scalability outside of very few professional applications, with the market developing these *because* of the C2D. Before that nobody coded for multicore because nobody owned one; if you had a Pentium D or Athlon X2, your second core was busy tunning winamp.
AMD came out with a 3-core ht and tried to sell it as a 6-core, let's not forget that.
3. Sure TR is cool but realistically 4 cores is still ideal for ST if you are a typical consumer, and ht takes care of your occasional video render.

When Intel is selling a 6/12 4.7ghz for $400 ON A MAINSTREAM PLATFORM i dont think they are denying the gaming market those extra cores they so much need ... have you forgotten what HEAT means?
If you are a photoshop professional, go buy a Xeon.

You need to accept that the people who "demand" from AMD just want their Skyrim to run at 60 frames - they are not industry suppliers or render farm owners. Those who are do not care about the stats of the cpus they buy.

I worked for IBM. I read the internal info and the paperwork on their Blade servers. You know who makes the best servers? Sun does. And who sells the most servers? IBM does.

WAIT YOU TELLIN ME AN INFERIOR PRODUCT SELLS MORE ??

For that market it's not the quality of the cpu that matter but the support that can be attached to that product; this *is* changing now that IT people can actually do IT, but for the easily-swayed consumer public, what matters is being N1 in what is most publicized: ST clockspeeds and "perfect" corecount.

It doesnt matter that the 9900k is a pre-overclocked ripoff, because it hits all the marketing requirements to be considered the BEST.CPU.EVER.

4 cores aren't enough though. 6 cores is the current sweet spot for most gaming engines. Even Intel agrees with this now. The funny thing is they were saying quad cores were all we need right up until they released their first mainstream 6 core. Then that became what everyone needed. So long as it was Intel. No one buys Intel's marketing because they are following whatever AMD is doing. Nothing they have released in the last couple years has been proactive. Their entire lineup from consumer to enterprise has been a reactive exercise in trying to counter AMD.

Are you telling me a superior company lets an inferior company dictate where the market is going?

If it's about sales you can look at Mindfactory data showing AMD outselling Intel 2:1. You can talk about all the benchmarks, but in reality most consumers make a decision on price to performance for as much money as they want or can spend. No one really cares what the top CPU is when 98% of the people can't or won't afford it. The 9900k will not go down in history as the best CPU ever because it costs too much. It will never have the mindshare such as the 2500k garnered. It won't be as legendary the AMD Thunderbird. if you want to talk enterprise wins you can look at all of the supercomputers being built that are using AMD Epyc. I've seen 4 using Epyc and none with Intel.

Are you telling me they put inferior CPUs in supercomputers?

As far as servers we used to have Sun servers running our carrier grade VOIP cluster until they couldn't keep up with the traffic. Sun offered no product to get more performance per rack. We switched to IBM blades because they could deliver. 90-100% load down to 10% with the new servers. I don't buy the broadstroke "Sun makes the best servers" argument you are pushing.
 
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epsilon84

Golden Member
Aug 29, 2010
1,142
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4 cores aren't enough though. 6 cores is the current sweet spot for most gaming engines. Even Intel agrees with this now. The funny thing is they were saying quad cores were all we need right up until they released their first mainstream 6 core. Then that became what everyone needed. So long as it was Intel. No one buys Intel's marketing because they are following whatever AMD is doing. Nothing they have released in the last couple years has been proactive. Their entire lineup from consumer to enterprise has been a reactive exercise in trying to counter AMD.

Are you telling me a superior company lets an inferior company dictate where the market is going?

If it's about sales you can look at Mindfactory data showing AMD outselling Intel 2:1. You can talk about all the benchmarks, but in reality most consumers make a decision on price to performance for as much money as they want or can spend. No one really cares what the top CPU is when 98% of the people can't or won't afford it. The 9900k will not go down in history as the best CPU ever because it costs too much. It will never have the mindshare such as the 2500k garnered. It won't be as legendary the AMD Thunderbird. if you want to talk enterprise wins you can look at all of the supercomputers being built that are using AMD Epyc. I've seen 4 using Epyc and none with Intel.

Are you telling me they put inferior CPUs in supercomputers?

As far as servers we used to have Sun servers running our carrier grade VOIP cluster until they couldn't keep up with the traffic. Sun offered no product to get more performance per rack. We switched to IBM blades because they could deliver. 90-100% load down to 10% with the new servers. I don't buy the broadstroke "Sun makes the best servers" argument you are pushing.

4 (hyper-threaded) cores are still more than enough for gaming though. Last I checked, the 7700K was still beating every AMD CPU for gaming purposes, and in 99% of games is right on the heels of the 8700K/9900K. Intel didn't release the 8700K/9900K because they were behind in gaming and 'needed' 6 or 8 cores, they needed to release those chips so AMD doesn't double their core count on the desktop market. That would look bad PR wise.

Despite the great strides Zen made in terms of ST performance (relative to the construction cores), it was still lacking the sheer clockspeed and IPC of Intel, so AMD could only compete in one way - more cores. Nothing wrong with that strategy and it makes perfect sense given the situation. Unfortunately, not all software has 'caught up' and many can't take advantage of those extra cores yet.

Do most normal folk actually 'need' 6 or 8 cores? I'd argue probably not. Is it good to have? Of course, especially if you dabble in some CPU intensive tasks. It's really not a make or break situation on the desktop to have >4 cores. If your workloads revolved around heaviliy multi-threaded apps, chances are you would have invested into some of the older HEDT platforms already, or got Ryzen when it launched. For most 'normal' folk though? I bet if you surveyed a bunch of people on the street and asked them how many cores their PC / laptop / phone has, most of them wouldn't have a clue.

My daily machine is a 4C/4T i5 laptop and it does everything I need, including some casual gaming. Does it hold a candle to my 8700K desktop machine? Of course not, the 8700K benchmarks twice as fast, but its really not functionally twice as good in the majority of tasks that I do.

You are right that DIY buyers willl always favour price/performance, so AMD naturally sells better in this regard. I commend AMD on bringing affordable 6 core CPUs to the masses, and if that forced Intel to respond with Coffee Lake then that is great for everyone involved.

No one is expecting the 9900K to 'go down in history as the best CPU ever', it is what it is, a $500 flagship CPU.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
1. Yes they are enough; or rather, they were enough at the time.
Intel *is* a market leader so, uh, yeah, people code with scalability in mind if the market is full of quadcores.
2. Yeah ... this is gonna be hard for you, i know. The market leader doesnt have to innovate as much ..
3. Can you not read? People judge the 9900k even when they are not buying it.
4. Again yes. Yes they do. Associated services and previous business ties are more important than performance.
5. Im sorry to hear that Sun disappointed you.
 

maddie

Diamond Member
Jul 18, 2010
4,723
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1. Yes they are enough; or rather, they were enough at the time.
Intel *is* a market leader so, uh, yeah, people code with scalability in mind if the market is full of quadcores.
2. Yeah ... this is gonna be hard for you, i know. The market leader doesnt have to innovate as much ..
3. Can you not read? People judge the 9900k even when they are not buying it.
4. Again yes. Yes they do. Associated services and previous business ties are more important than performance.
5. Im sorry to hear that Sun disappointed you.
Regarding point 2 above, "The market leader doesnt have to innovate as much".

Maybe you're just pushing an argument as far as it can go, but the greatest Intel CEO Andrew Grove stated, "only the paranoid survive". Ignore at you peril.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
Nop, nop, nope. I am not defending Intel, im just looking at the last 20 years and i consider their choices as a company, not as a pool of engineers. They have obviously made profitable decisions, they read the market reasonably well, and i know that when a young brilliant mind in a corporate room says "hey guys lets do this because its BETTER than what we are doing now", all the old dogs look at the guy like he just said the worst thing possible. People in charge of things like administration, or finance, dont like new stuff. They like predictable stuff, carefully planned roadmaps with as little change as just necessary because if you can profit 20% or profit 40% but risk disaster ..

Well the wise man says to invest in both, but the people who run accounting, they prefer the safe way.

Im under the impression that Intel is as of now, already doing as little as possible to top AMD and would not be surprised if they meet Ryzen 3000 with some new tech of their own.
 

moinmoin

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2017
4,933
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Im under the impression that Intel is as of now, already doing as little as possible to top AMD and would not be surprised if they meet Ryzen 3000 with some new tech of their own.
That would be?
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,582
10,785
136
Uh .. what ?? WHAT ? Intel didnt do anything for core count??

From Nehalem through Kabylake, no, they didn't. They briefly escalated from 1 core (Prescott) to 4 cores (Core2Quad) and then . . . nothing. Except in the very limited HEDT space where they sold you rebranded Xeons, more-or-less.

It doesnt matter that the 9900k is a pre-overclocked ripoff, because it hits all the marketing requirements to be considered the BEST.CPU.EVER.

Best CPU for whom? Definitely not people that need a chip like the 2990WX. Or its Rome-based successor. Hell I wouldn't recommend the 9900k over a 7980XE either for AVX512 loads, since the 9900k still doesn't support that.

Yes, the 9900k maintains (or slightly exceeds) the clockspeed of the 8700k, maintains IPC, and increases core counts. It's a nice little bump around all the performance edges. Yes, the AMD "mega core" CPUs don't have the same ST performance, oh well! Too bad. Even Skylake-X doesn't have that. Not exactly (except where AVX512 is concerned). If you persist in claiming the 9900k is "BEST EVER" then you are missing the mark.
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
That would be?
What are you asking me? If i have insider knowledge of future Intel products?
Because that would not be a great question.

It's in Intel's favor to keep the impression of competition; they may have well some new design that they did not need to field, but stashed away just in case AMD makes something magnificent.

I'd like to remind you that the technology that ba ... actuslly no, i dont want to make statements that could be false, so i will say that i *think* the technology behind fabrication, is no mystery to anyone in the industry. There is no case where one company can DESIGN a 6ghz part and the other cant design a 4ghz one, because while some minor details might be propietary, it's really who can deliver on arranging contracts. And then there's being tied in into previous architectures, yes. But the tech is available for everyone .. at least at a design level.

This is why people herpderp when Adored says 16/32 5.1ghz - we want to know what spaceship they got that from.
And if it's actually not weird, but just a direct result of new cobalt components, do you really think the company with god-knows-billions doesn't know about that?
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,444
2,084
126
From Nehalem through Kabylake, no, they didn't. They briefly escalated from 1 core (Prescott) to 4 cores (Core2Quad) and then . . . nothing. Except in the very limited HEDT space where they sold you rebranded Xeons, more-or-less.



Best CPU for whom? Definitely not people that need a chip like the 2990WX. Or its Rome-based successor. Hell I wouldn't recommend the 9900k over a 7980XE either for AVX512 loads, since the 9900k still doesn't support that.

Yes, the 9900k maintains (or slightly exceeds) the clockspeed of the 8700k, maintains IPC, and increases core counts. It's a nice little bump around all the performance edges. Yes, the AMD "mega core" CPUs don't have the same ST performance, oh well! Too bad. Even Skylake-X doesn't have that. Not exactly (except where AVX512 is concerned). If you persist in claiming the 9900k is "BEST EVER" then you are missing the mark.
Man, it's like you read nothing of what i wrote.
 

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,582
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But the tech is available for everyone .. at least at a design level.

Tell that to the people on the Godson/Longsoon design project. They never hit 4 GHz, and they had the best technology money can buy steal. Also, RISC-V?

Man, it's like you read nothing of what i wrote.

When you predicate your entire statement on falsehoods, nothing else really matters.
 

ZGR

Platinum Member
Oct 26, 2012
2,052
656
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4 (hyper-threaded) cores are still more than enough for gaming though.

I completely disagree. My 4c8t is my bottleneck even at 4k for nearly every game I play. But I know others who are happy even with a 4c4t so....

At 60hz, 4c8t is fine imo, but not for much longer. Seeing how fast 144hz has dropped in price, I can't say I can recommend any CPU fewer than 12 threads except for the 9700k.
 

moinmoin

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2017
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What are you asking me? If i have insider knowledge of future Intel products?
No, where you get your belief that they are capable of the "magnificent" surprise after stumbling around in face of the first serious competition in the decade for now 2 years and counting, and all they were able to offer so far is exploiting and exhausting their existing tech, one they introduced more than 3 years ago. "Impression of competition" indeed. Soon Intel for the first time is going to have to directly compete not only with AMD but through them also with pure play foundries that still grow and progress thanks to the huge mobile market. Meanwhile Intel stashes away their Custom Foundry efforts.

Seriously, the most promising current tech at Intel of which they are actually able to make products of is 3D XPoint, and that got nothing to do with processors.
 
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DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
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Not "able" but "willing".

Also, that whole bit about the tech being available, you know ... read that.
 

ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
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I completely disagree. My 4c8t is my bottleneck even at 4k for nearly every game I play. But I know others who are happy even with a 4c4t so....

At 60hz, 4c8t is fine imo, but not for much longer. Seeing how fast 144hz has dropped in price, I can't say I can recommend any CPU fewer than 12 threads except for the 9700k.

Agreed. Moving forward quad cores will show their age just like dual cores did. Hyperthreaded quad cores are holding back top tier GPUs running 1080/1440p 144hz in BFV multiplayer.

Shoot even the 2700X is massively holding back 2080/2080TI in BFV when using competitive settings for 144hz, so I really don't think anyone can claim that CPU advancement isn't needed for gaming. If you want to push high framerates smoothly it requires a very fast CPU for many of the new titles.

The 3080TI will expose serious CPU bottlenecks once it's released and should make a great case for ZEN2 and whatever top tier chip Intel has out.
 
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rbk123

Senior member
Aug 22, 2006
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I'd like to remind you that the technology that ba ... actuslly no, i dont want to make statements that could be false,

Why change now? Don't be so hasty - New Years isn't for another week or so, so no need to make a resolution just yet.
 
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TempAcc99

Member
Aug 30, 2017
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4 (hyper-threaded) cores are still more than enough for gaming though. Last I checked, the 7700K was still beating every AMD CPU for gaming purposes, and in 99% of games is right on the heels of the 8700K/9900K

Because does benches only bench single-player on well-defined setups with little to no background processes. Add soem background stuff to the mix and more importantly multiplayer like BF-series and your 4/8 7700k will not look so good against say a 2600k or 2700k.
 

epsilon84

Golden Member
Aug 29, 2010
1,142
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Because does benches only bench single-player on well-defined setups with little to no background processes. Add soem background stuff to the mix and more importantly multiplayer like BF-series and your 4/8 7700k will not look so good against say a 2600k or 2700k.

Background stuff? Like Discord which takes up next to no resources?

Here you go, BF:V MP which, as you pointed out is probably one of the most CPU bound games to date:

https://www.techspot.com/review/1754-battlefield-5-cpu-multiplayer-bench/

2018-11-25-image-2.png

Seems to me that the little old 7700K is hanging in there just fine with the big boys! It still beats the 2700X with double the core count so yeah... myth debunked?

The demise of the 4C/8T CPU as a gaming chip has been 'slightly' exagerrated I'd say. The day that 4C/8T CPUs struggle with games will also be the day that 6C/6T CPUs struggle. Do you think game developers want to alienate all the gamers with modern i5 CPUs so soon?
 

epsilon84

Golden Member
Aug 29, 2010
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Agreed. Moving forward quad cores will show their age just like dual cores did. Hyperthreaded quad cores are holding back top tier GPUs running 1080/1440p 144hz in BFV multiplayer.

Shoot even the 2700X is massively holding back 2080/2080TI in BFV when using competitive settings for 144hz, so I really don't think anyone can claim that CPU advancement isn't needed for gaming. If you want to push high framerates smoothly it requires a very fast CPU for many of the new titles.

The 3080TI will expose serious CPU bottlenecks once it's released and should make a great case for ZEN2 and whatever top tier chip Intel has out.

Check the Techspot link I posted above. The 7700K has 10% lower min fps versus a 9900K (90 vs 100). Take into account that the 7700K is a 4.2GHz chip and the 9900K is 4.7GHz.

If you overclocked the 7700K to 4.7GHz like the 9900K I'm sure most of that performance deficit vanishes.

So no, I'm going to disagree that a modern HT quad like a 7700K is 'insufficient' for gaming. Sure, you might be 10% slower than a 9900K if you run it at stock... and have a 2080 Ti. It's still faster than the majority of CPUs on the market for gaming - better than any Ryzen chip and only beaten by a handful of high end CFL chips. It is most definitely still relevant as a gaming CPU, and will remain so for a while yet.

I completely disagree. My 4c8t is my bottleneck even at 4k for nearly every game I play. But I know others who are happy even with a 4c4t so....

At 60hz, 4c8t is fine imo, but not for much longer. Seeing how fast 144hz has dropped in price, I can't say I can recommend any CPU fewer than 12 threads except for the 9700k.

Wow, I really want to know what games you play that makes your CPU the bottleneck at 4K?!

Also, what 4C/8T CPU do you own? There is a big difference between a 2600K and 7700K, for example.

A 7700K is fine for 144Hz gaming. It's basically equivalent to a 8600K/9600K for gaming purposes:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/13.html
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/v7uiiFM6QhBHbn2DHjyCKk-650-80.png
 
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ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
1,151
530
136
Check the Techspot link I posted above. The 7700K has 10% lower min fps versus a 9900K (90 vs 100). Take into account that the 7700K is a 4.2GHz chip and the 9900K is 4.7GHz.

If you overclocked the 7700K to 4.7GHz like the 9900K I'm sure most of that performance deficit vanishes.

So no, I'm going to disagree that a modern HT quad like a 7700K is 'insufficient' for gaming. Sure, you might be 10% slower than a 9900K if you run it at stock... and have a 2080 Ti. It's still faster than the majority of CPUs on the market for gaming - better than any Ryzen chip and only beaten by a handful of high end CFL chips. It is most definitely still relevant as a gaming CPU, and will remain so for a while yet.

Framerates on a 7700k are horrible playing BFV and jump all over the place. It's very noticeable. I've used a 7700k, 8700k, 9900k and 1800X. The only two that I would consider acceptable were the 8700k and 9900k. You're also once again looking at Ultra settings which create a GPU bottleneck even at 1080p. Drop the settings to target 144hz and the 7700k becomes a problem. Both the Techspot article and Hardware Unboxed show a clear GPU bottleneck at 1080p for the 8700k/9700k/9900k using ultra settings so I don't understand why they didn't pop everything to low and test down there if they wanted to truly get a picture of CPU impact upon the game. If smooth high hz gaming is your goal, a 7700k (or any current AMD CPU) simply doesn't cut it.
 

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,436
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Framerates on a 7700k are horrible playing BFV and jump all over the place. It's very noticeable. I've used a 7700k, 8700k, 9900k and 1800X. The only two that I would consider acceptable were the 8700k and 9900k. You're also once again looking at Ultra settings which create a GPU bottleneck even at 1080p. Drop the settings to target 144hz and the 7700k becomes a problem. Both the Techspot article and Hardware Unboxed show a clear GPU bottleneck at 1080p for the 8700k/9700k/9900k using ultra settings so I don't understand why they didn't pop everything to low and test down there if they wanted to truly get a picture of CPU impact upon the game. If smooth high hz gaming is your goal, a 7700k (or any current AMD CPU) simply doesn't cut it.

That's because people ignore the actual MT requirements for smooth game play in multiplayer while reading canned SP benchmarks for the game. Outside the little while in early to mid 2017 before Nvidia fixed their Dx12 drivers more than 4c8t was required in BF1 and up to maintain framerates. With BF1 even if the 1700x/1800x did get the greatest FPS, it was miles ahead in smoothness. I think it will be while before you really need something better than the 9900k core wise hell maybe even the 8700k (this I am not so sure). But honestly Whether console or games the things limiting player count or in RTS unit counts has been the CPU. If we weren't stuck at 4c8t for so long as the standard think about where we could be. If 8c16t becomes the standard could we have larger Battlefield maps with 128 people maybe 256?
 

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,436
1,654
136
An 8 core would be absolutely necessary for 128 man servers let alone 256 with the current game engine.
Yeah that is what I am getting at. People seem focused overly focused on, 10 FPS here, 20 FPS there. But the reality of it is we could have crazier games, including more players, or more features if we could up the overall computational power and that is what standardizing higher core counts is going to bring us. But as they say something like can't see the trees for the forest.
 

ZGR

Platinum Member
Oct 26, 2012
2,052
656
136
Wow, I really want to know what games you play that makes your CPU the bottleneck at 4K?!

Also, what 4C/8T CPU do you own? There is a big difference between a 2600K and 7700K, for example.

A 7700K is fine for 144Hz gaming. It's basically equivalent to a 8600K/9600K for gaming purposes:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/13.html
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/v7uiiFM6QhBHbn2DHjyCKk-650-80.png

I won't name too many older games, but for ones that are still actively supported/modded:

- Elite Dangerous PVP
- GTA V
- Subnautica
- Fallout 4
- ARMA 3
- Sins of a Solar Empire (DLC released last week for a game released in 2012??)
- Kerbal Space Program
- Planetary Annihilation

I am always CPU limited at 4k60 for these games because they are not benchmarked and I think that is the key. I play games with far more AI than they are benchmarked with.

Some games like Destiny 2, I can hardly maintain above 90fps during a Raid at 1080p. In R6S, I struggle at maintaining my 177fps cap at 180hz during Terrorist Hunt because my CPU is at 100%.

I basically listed nearly every game I play on this list and my CPU is the bottleneck in each scenario. There will be other people who play other games and will find even 4c8t completely overkill. There is no right answer in this scenario.

I can't wait for 4c8t to be resigned for budget CPU's, and it looks like Intel and AMD are doing just that.

And I don't think AMD needs to do anything. For the first time in years, I hear people talk about AMD who have basically no idea how to build a PC. Most people I have talked to laugh at the 9900k's price while seeing AMD's 2700X as the real value. I hope that changes with average Joe being hopelessly confused with good perf/$ options for both Intel and AMD.

If the next i7 is 8c16t at the same price as their 9700k, things would be a lot more interesting!