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

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Believe it or not, World of Warcraft supports up to 32 threads (long time ago) and since 3.3.2 patch doesn't even need manual setting (I think it was 3.3.2) which was like 3-4 years ago 😛.

But I think they are very bad at optimising the existing hardware to run their game 😛.
 

Simple. MMOs are targeted at the lowest common denominator to get as many players as possible. That means a lot of people running old desktops and weak laptops. A lot of people are still running old dual-cores and even single-cores. Much as we would like it otherwise, the quad-core still isn't the most common CPU out there. I can understand why a developer wouldn't want to spend the extra time and money making a game multi-thread friendly when the majority of their target audience won't benefit from it.

Games like Crysis, BF, and CoD are different. Those are marketed specifically to the tech-heads and the gamers who have the hardware to run them ( though of course they can still run on low-detail for others. ) Not only that, but they can sell enough copies on consoles to make up for the lost sales of people with weaker, older PCs.
 


oh... that's certainly true in it's own way... that said the fx series chips are almost boringly easy to overclock. Just about as simple as an IB or SB chip when it comes down to it.

That said if your purpose is to "save money" and get "similar" performance through overclocking a cheaper chip, there is a lot of value in the fx6300 and fx8320.
 
"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." Core 2 Quad Q8400 was a cache bottle necked quad core though plus it had a rather low base clock rate by default though Core series as a general rule overclocked great so the latter was easy enough to offset.
 
In summary invest your money in a good graphics card if your a gamer. Even core 2 duo/core 2 quad CPU's hold up pretty well today despite there age especially overclocked and depending on the model.
 


Coming from a Q6600, I can guarantee you that this is not true. I didn't change my GPU yet (waiting till maxwell 200+watt performance models or 20nm), so with the same GPU (GTX570), Q6600 fails to deliver acceptable FPS in a lot of good titles.

A nice example is Skyrim. Q6600 with almost max settings could go to ~25 FPS in some locations at whiterun where the 4770K will almost never moved from the 60FPS limit (Vsync enabled) while being at MAX settings with high res on etc etc...
Same happens with Crysis 3. And with Diablo 3. And with Marvel Heroes. And with World of Warcraft.
There will be exceptions like Tomb Raider which almost doesn't care what CPU you are using.

Every CPU has its limits. There is a point when your system's performance bottleneck comes from your CPU instead of your GPU. This happens when your CPU cannot allow your GPU to achieve its full potential. When this is around 10-20%, its acceptable. But the Kentsfield/Yorkfield in my case, the limitation can go up to 60% (or more depends on the GPU and I only have a GTX570 which you can find this performance today from a GPU of $150). You can o/c them but, the 25 FPS is beyond saving...

So my Q6600 limit was a GPU of GTX275 class...
 
Some decent deals on intel i5 and i7 processors. I'm guessing this is to clear out inventory for the Haswell refresh. On promo at Newegg:

i5 4670K - $220
i7 3770 - $280
i7 3770K - $315

Anyone venture to guess whether it's worth the wait for "Devil's Canyon" for better overclocking?

I'm also tempted to pull the trigger on a Xeon E3 1230 V2 ($227) or V3 ($245).

I need to upgrade my platform. My latest Skyrim mod-pack and settings are just killing my Phenom II. Wish I could stay AMD on this PC, but I need the single-threaded performance. I also do alot of transcoding (which I currently offload to my Xeon E3 1230 V2 Home server when no-one else is home trying to play Minecraft or watch videos).

I'm also going to be travelling this week and will have access to a Microcenter, so that would mean even better deals. So just trying to decide whether to pull the trigger now or wait... Decisions, decisions......
 

haswell refresh will come out in..well.. i think it is in the shops already and chris or don has a review like "haswell refresh, more yawn" out tomorrow or monday or something. devil's canyon is rumored to launch on june 2. take it with NaCl grain.
tweaktown jumped the yawn and published a vague...ish preview of core i7 4790 (non-k) on a z[REDACTED DUE TO NDA]7 motherboard and corsair h1something-i cooler running considerably cooler than 4770k - both at idle and on load. by considerably i mean low/mid double digits.. i forgot the exact numbers. so.. there.
 
...and there is Broadwell to consider.

So, yeah. I guess if you already have the Z87, it might be better to wait it out for Broadwell or Skylake. Haswell-E looks to be a major kick in the wallet.
 


Yes, the Devil's Canyon will have the better heatspreader and TIM so you can look for 5GHz speeds.

And if you get the I-5 4690K version you are looking at that stunning performance for about 230-240 bucks.

 


Yes, but the Devil's Canyon are the unlocked Haswells, the K series. They have a better heatspreader and TIM so you will no longer have the poor performance and overheating like before. As I said, they should go up to 5GHz and beyond, run cooler, everything they should have been. These are coming out early June.
 

ivb and haswell already go up to 4.8-5 GHz with binned samples and/or with exotic cooling. better t.i.m. improves heat transfer, doesn't reduce heat generation. devil's canyon, or any cpu's overclockability will be different on a per-sample basis. 5 GHz is not a casual goal for every d.c. cpu.
 
Better heat transfer will mean lower cpu temp for a given cooling setup which should mean more consistent and less temperamental overclocks. Hopefully that will also mean higher sustainable overclocks.
 
Here is a little info update from our debate on Athlon 760K vs FX.

I was running some tests with AIDA and I found the numbers that I should have given you before, to back up my claims.

FX L3 cache latency is about 40ns.

My Athlon 760K with DDR3-2400CL10 and UNB at 2600HMz is about 55ns for the RAM.

Instead of L3 cache being 10x faster like it should be, it's really too close to RAM speed for any performance advantage. Richland having a better IMC really makes a difference.

a15fea93_aida3.png


If you look at intel cache speed, it is magnitude faster.

Example FX:

bta234dfs.jpg
 
^^ is that remotely fair (as close as possible) comparison? looks like high o.c. athlon v.s. barely o.c. fx with... is that ddr3 1333 ram vs athlon rig's ddr3 2400?
what are you using to cool the athlon and what psu are you using? from the fx specs from the screenshot, it looks like the fx is running at stock settings.
 
i don't know if that's a prank entry. the specs are wrong. intel doesn't use 22nm soi, ibm does. lga 2011 cpus don't have igpus.
i think it's the new haswell refresh core i7 4790 non-k cpu that got mislabeled.
 

Yep - it's been fixed now.
 
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