Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: January 2012 (Archive)

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He did say world boss. In open-world raids you aren't really subject to the 25/10 limits of instances, so 40 people is not uncommon. Goes for raids on capitals as well, and in that case the crowding will get extra intense since you not only have the raid but also all the people just hanging out in the city. Frame rates can really suffer with all the AOE and stuff going on, even if you're fine in instanced raids.
 
This current hierarchy looks wrong to me.

Phenom II x4 BE just one tier below the i3's.

They look like they belong more to the Pentium Sandy/Ivy tier.
 


My brother had a Phenom II x4 at 4GHz and it kept up with my cousin's i3-2120. I'm sure the IB i3's are better, but really not my a huge margin most times.
 
[citation][nom]idecris[/nom]This current hierarchy looks wrong to me.Phenom II x4 BE just one tier below the i3's.They look like they belong more to the Pentium Sandy/Ivy tier.[/citation]

Tom's tests and those of most other sites these days put the Phenom II x4s usually only a little below the i3s while giving them a few wins over the i3s too.
 


It is finished, but other stuff is scheduled. It's currently in the queue for Tuesday the 12th.
 

If you ask me, you could have given it the recent enterprise SSD article's spot in the queue. 😀
 
The sub-$200 cpu comparison article is so relevant because this is the price point where in there is the most number of PC gamers in terms of demographic.

I highly recommend that TH give it greater importance as many budget and mid-level PC gamers follow the evolution of this hierarchy.
 
requesting CPU scaling benchmarks for different GPU scenarios

we've all seen cpu scalling done with 7970 or similarly powered cards to eliminate the so called GPU bottleneck.

but I'm curious how the CPU selection affects the perfomance of GPUs at different price points.

Could we have a CPU scaling separately with HD7770s, GTX660s and GTX660tis for example?
 

It increases the workload involved exponentially, which means we either have to wait longer between articles OR they have to cut corners elsewhere in the testing.

Using the most powerful graphics cards lets you isolate the CPU factor of performance as much as possible. Likewise, when testing graphics cards you use the most powerful CPU on hand in order to isolate the GPU performance as much as possible.
 
finally new tom's hardware CPU hierarchy and recommendations based on well threaded games and frame latency, not like the old one which was based only on lightly threaded games ,maybe Nehalem processors are old and they are out of production two years ago but I think Nehalem i7s should be in the same tier of Phenom II X4 980 and vishera processors.
i7-930= Phenom II 980=FX 4300=core i3-2100
i7-940=fx6300=FX8320=core i3-3240
i7-960=FX-8350=i5-2300
this^ based on single graphics card benchmarks, but for crossfire and SLI quad/hexa core processors are always faster than dual core processors, for example in this article http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc-overclock,2625-9.html an overclocked Core2duo E8400 to 4.4GHz wasn't bottleneck for the fastest single graphics card(which was 5870OC in that article) and it was as fast as core i5-750OC and i7-920OC in all games, but all quad core processors(i7 920/i5-750/C2Q Q9550) were obviously faster with GTX 295 and 5970(which they are single dual-GPU graphics card) than E8400.
I hope tom's hardware add Nehalem i7s benchmarks as well as dual graphics cards or single dual-graphics card like HD7990 or GTX690 benchmarks in the next gaming CPU article.
I also think Pentium G860 for 70$-75$ still a good gaming processors, both Athon II 640 and Pentium G860 have almost the same gaming performance ,the Pentium G860 is more efficient, available in all countries, and faster in lightly threaded games like
skyrim http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skyrim-performance-benchmark,3074-9.html
WOW http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793-10.html
SC II http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/starcraft-ii-radeon-geforce,2728-8.html
The Athlon II X4 640 is better for multitasking and tow times better in frame latency especially in well threaded games like
metro 2033 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-physx-hack-amd-radeon,2764-5.html
BF3 http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/7
crysis 2 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crysis-2-directx-11-performance,2983-8.html
http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/8
Batman Arkham asylum http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/batman-arkham-asylum,2465-9.html
GTA IV http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,669595/GTA-4-PC-CPU-benchmark-review-with-13-processors/Reviews/?page=2
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-balanced-platform,2469-11.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/balanced-gaming-pc,2477-11.html
starwars: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/star-wars-gaming-tests-review,3087-8.html
Dues EX: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/deus-ex-human-revolution-performance-benchmark,3012-7.html
And for people who are asking whether games benefit from hyper threading in core i3 or not, Hyper-Threading might not have a big impact on FPS, but in frame latency, it seems to have a huge impact for Intel's dual-core CPUs, before I read that article http://techreport.com/review/23750/amd-fx-8350-processor-reviewed/8 I thought like many other people that games don't benefit from HT, maybe because some games are a little bit faster when HT disabled on core i7s and I had this problem on my i7-920 before with this game which required to disable HT http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=348657
Until I recently tested core i3-2100 with hyper threading enabled and disabled in many games, and it was clear that most games including(crysis 2/dark souls/assassin creed revelation /BF3/NFS most wanted2/sleeping dogs) are stutter free when hyper threading enabled, IMO intel SB/IVB Pentiums and high end Core2Duo are the only processors that have good FPS with stuttering (frame latency) problem ,so when you compare quad core/hexa core/ hyper threaded dual core processors average frame rates are more important than frame latency in these processors.
EDIT: SC II and WOW are 3-threaded games and I sorted them as lightly threaded games because
1)well threaded games should at least fully utilize 4 cores.
2)these games are faster on i3-2120 than core i5-2300,here is benchmark for starcraft II shows that. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i3-2120-2100_5.html#sect0
IMO,even if i5-2300 and FX-8350 are slower in lightly threaded games than high end i3s,these tow processors are faster on well threaded games and more future proof.
 
[citation][nom]cravin[/nom]Where does a phenom ii 820 2.8ghz fall in here?[/citation]

[citation][nom]pyro226[/nom]It would be either in the category of the Phenom ii 810 or the Phenom ii 920.[/citation]

It is right with the Athlon II x4 630, so it'd be at the bottom of the fourth tier. To be more exact, it's probably just a tidbit slower than the Athlon II x4 630, so it's in the same tier as the Phenom II x4 920 and right above the Phenom II x4 810's tier.
 
[citation][nom]SuperVeloce[/nom]on an older game it can be a tidbit slower but not at newer titles with tendency to run better on big L3 caches...[/citation]

It has a small, slow L3 cache. I mistook it for the 840/850 models that lack L3 altogether and yes, I was a little off because of that. It'd be slightly slower than the Phenom II x4 920.
 
"That bad" is still only in the middle of the fourth tier. I don't consider that to be bad at all. The i5s would be in the first tier, so they'd be pretty much the best and a very large improvement, but that doesn't mean that the Phenom II x4 830 is a bad CPU.
 
Something is wrong at Intel Core i3-3220 graph.... And with some other too at the performance/price Starcraft 2: 99%, Skyrim: 97%, Farcry 3: 95%, Average: 100%(?) oO
And can you please again clear the previous posts?
 
[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]So absolutely no gain in any modern game from the additional threads of an i7-3770K?In which case, why suggest anything more than a 3570K?Side Note: Anything that equals a Core 2 Quad Q8400 isn't good enough any more. You'll be bottle-necked. Just my personal experience.[/citation]
This site usually tells people to get the 3570K, unless the are going to do things like video editing. Then that is the time we suggest the 3770K or higher echelon CPU.
 
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