Core i5, Core i7, CrossFire, And SLI: Gaming Paradise, Redux?

[speedemon]

[citation][nom]Sardaukarz[/nom]I wonder if u will ever include WOW in ur benchmark suite. Its just a MMORPG but it happens to be the most played game on the planet, thus making it interesting for a lot of us out there who are looking on information when deciding to buy one video card vs another or one processor vs another. Thnkz.[/citation]

Why would they do that? I mean c'mon my ipod touch can run WOW. not to mention WOW is kinda.... GAY now watch all the people that live in this game vote me down

 

[Guest]

Did they download the TLB disable so that the AMD chips won't have the TLB fix automatically enabled by Windows? If not, the AMD chips are taking atleast a 10% performance hit.

More on the TLB disable tool here:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=171105

 

[carlhenry]

cant wait to build (or should i wait?!) a new i5 rig!
i dont have the budget to purchase those i7's and tend to lean on AMD builds but seeing the performance of i5 is just WOW(WOW as in WOW not World Of Warcraft)! hmm.. but i wish AMD would come up with something new sooner coz the i5's might crush my beloved AMD
no competition means high prices --- NooOOOOoo!!!

 

[Guest]

"Really? My 4850 (512MB) outperforms my old 8800GT (512MB) playing WoW, with the same settings enabled. But that could just be a fluke as I think WoW is or at least was optimized for Nvidia cards."

With full shadows on the 4870 does indeed do better than my 7950 but the AA on the Radeon still comes off as more jagged, especially noticeable with fishing lines for example.

Anyway, I love my 4870 and wouldn't go back to the 7950 to be sure - even if that's been a great card for its run as well - but I find it annoying that the game favors nVidia GPUs in such an extreme way.

Of course, pushing up to higher resolutions might see a lot of difference. It is, as I noted, highly CPU-bound in many situations.

 

[WarraWarra]

[citation][nom]AMDnoob[/nom]Why does AMD suck sooo much?!?! I (thought) I loved AMD but the 965 is a complete JOKE! 140W at 3.4Ghz and it just stays w/ the Intel i7-920@2.66????? tht's not right. And trust me, I'm not hating on AMD, just constructive criticism and these i5's and new i7's are just going to bowl them over. They need to pull somethin out... like NOW![/citation]

You do know it is just a more stable overclocked Pii X4 920/940 and if looking at it this way you can see that a q9550 90w @ 2.83ghz overclocked will eat up 155w @ 3.6ghz/3.8ghz give or take a few watts.
So q9550 @ 3.4ghz is about 140w same as amd 965 3.4ghz even though rated at 90w for q9550 2.83ghz. Same with the 965 or 955 or 920/940.

You can mess with under-volting the cpu to reduce the heat etc.

The confusion is the 965 3.4ghz or v8 engine in a big USA SUV driving at slow @ 120mph fuel consumption is being compared to a ford pinto 2L/2000cc engine driving at 120mph, obviously the pinto is going to get better fuel consumption.

It is not that extreme but you get the idea. LOL the ford and SUV can not even reach that speeds but you get the idea.

 

[WarraWarra]

Nice review, not sure why L4D @ 2560x max settings had no sli for 285 for both q9550s and 965, nice to see almost 3 year old q9550 still keep pace.

WOW
Guys if you have issues get more ram and get a decent ISP "internet service provider" + check the mediocre dns settings provided by your lazy ISP and fix it or replace with opendns dns ip's as well as connect to a decent server that does not have a huge tornado / thunderstorm around the server town or in between your town and the server town then you will not have issues.

Adsl is slower in USA but more stable not shared like cable the speed you pay for is the you get on Adsl, cable 1 user = 10Mb/s, 10 users = 1Mb/s and so on.

Internet / lag
Also if there is a sortie in the middle east some guys isp's connected to a mainline backbone will feel the line shrink and service degrade a lot only to read in the news about a event in the middle east the next day. This is old hat for many years already.

We here in the USA does not have or does not have basic slow 25Mb/s to 50Mb/s basic internet like in Siberia Russia / Europe / UK with their 6Gb/s grandma internet connection in Scandinavian country's. Most users is stuck with hsdpa mobile phone slow UK/England 7Mb/s speeds on their USA cable internet if that lucky or on adsl if not slower.

It's called democracy, you can have any internet speed as long as it is slower than your 3g/hsdpa mobile phone internet.

LAG
PS> 100ms = 1 second delay if 30+ guys have similar and more ai / users enter then it can go upto 2.5s /250ms to 4s /400ms seconds delay and any servers trying to cope / balance the game will have issues = major lag.

Also no reason to play at 30000x30000 and 24aa / 24af settings get real 1680x1050 and 4aa no af is decent, dynamic light = low / off , shadows = low / off use common sense.

 

[tripsr4kids]

I had no idea how cpu dependent WoW was until I built my brother a comp for the game. e5200@3ghz GTX260. I told him it would smoke WoW, to my horror Dalaran drops to 15 FPS(high settings ofc). Other (populated) areas can drop way under 20fps. Ipod cannot play wow.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]MustWarnOthers[/nom]It's so irritating to see Crysis benchmarks.To start, the game is mediocre.The game was released nearly 2 YEARS ago, and the current, state of the art hardware rigs still cannot squeeze out enough power to make the game run at any FPS that would be considered "Silky".What exactly does that tell you?It tells you that the efficiency of the coding of these new shading techniques etc in Crysis, suck giant ballsack.[/citation]

Aye, but the first time we leave it out, watch the comments explode with demands for Crysis
This is why I tried to get as many games in here as possible. Hopefully there's at least *something* for everyone!

 

[noob2222]

RE: WoW benchmarking

WoW is a MMO programmed by Blizzard not to allow 3rd party servers to be created. So how would you benchmark WoW using the exact same parameters for every bench ran. The only way possible to run a reliable bench with ANY MMO is if the provider supplied the tools to do it, otherwise no 2 runs no matter how hard you tried would ever be the same results on the same machine. So if you can't get identical results using one machine, how can you try to compare 2 different machines? You Can't.

 

[luke904]

[citation][nom]anonymous x[/nom]I like vista, rock solid and stable since I got it years ago. Don't listen to the bashers who never have tried the product.[/citation]
i'd take a win xp P4 2.8 with a gig of ram, over a 2.0 dual core vista system with 2 gigs of ram. i know because my schools computers are faster than my vista laptop.

vista has all these bull shit error messages (access is denied) that come up if i try to do the simplest things. i try to change affinity of a process, i try to end an "important" process (virus scan etc) i want to be in control of my computer not microsoft. hell i cant even access the f****** cookies folder... WTF

VISTA SUCKS, 7 may be better performance wise but i still dont take it over xp

 

[luke904]

W

hy does AMD suck sooo much?!?! I (thought) I loved AMD but the 965 is a complete JOKE! 140W at 3.4Ghz and it just stays w/ the Intel i7-920@2.66????? tht's not right. And trust me, I'm not hating on AMD, just constructive criticism and these i5's and new i7's are just going to bowl them over. They need to pull somethin out... like NOW!

the new i5 and i7s do put amd behind but id put money on that they cut prices by next week, maybe even release a new PII

look at all the high end pII's (except the 965) they are all 125 watt TDP, does that make sense- no a 945 uses less power than a 955 period (yes i know they have a new 95 watt 945) TDP is not a good way to judge Power consumption, tomshardware.com is.

id still take a 955 over an i5- $10 cheaper, cheaper mobo, and in general the same (sometimes better, sometimes worse) gaming performance.

we can all agree that cpu's under $200 is where AMD is superior

 

[luke904]

PS> 100ms = 1 second delay if 30+ guys have similar and more ai / users enter then it can go upto 2.5s /250ms to 4s /400ms seconds delay and any servers trying to cope / balance the game will have issues = major lag.

uhhh dude... 100ms=.1 sec
mila=1/1000 thus 1000ms in one sec

 

[Ixad]

Thank you Tom's for taking a look at exactly what impact CPU selection has on game experience. This is exactly the sort of article I find useful in weighing my upgrade options to get the most for my dollar. I'm very much looking forward to the overclocked CPU testing.

Great work guys, keep it up.

 

[jimmysmitty]

So the biggest down side to considering a AMD CPU and nVidia GPU is the fact tht AMDs chipstes are CF only thus limiting it to nVidia based chipsets that will probably lower overall AMD CPU performance and possibly limit OCing as the nVidia Intel based chipsets do.

Wish AMD would get a SLI license so they can have a good chipset with SLI.

Overall I am a tad baffled at the charts. not easy to read but make the Core i5/17 out to be a pretty good CPU for the price.

And lashton, think of P55 as P45 for Core i5/Corei7 LGA1156 32nm. Its going to be all sub $200 mobos with up to 2 PCIe 16x lanes and decent hardware along with good OCing results. Each will run only dual channel DDR3 which is cheap now so that wont add more to the price.

In all Core i5/i7 will bring more to the table to fully compete with AMD. I wouldn't be suprised if AMD does a price cut to combat it. And as of yet we haven't seen OCing results for them. But from early reports (take with a grain of salt) someone said they got it to OC to past 4GHz on the stock cooler. I can't wait to see the results so I can plan a upgrade path for 2010.....

 

[jimmysmitty]

Oh and Vista is a good OS. Just a lot of stupid people are using it. I have Windows 7 as well and its a great OS too. Seems faster than Vista and for some reason my hardware is much more compatable than with Vista......

 

[wh3resmycar]

What exactly does that tell you?It tells you that the efficiency of the coding of these new shading techniques etc in Crysis, suck giant ballsack.

if you somehow know how to code 100,000 moving leaves leaves, along with a 20 mile range view distance where the water ripples are noticeable, destructible environment (trees and huts) and the like better than crytek. feel free to make a game as graphically superior as crysis.

and i presume you believe cod4's static and confined environment looks so much better?

 

[taverasme]

In the realm of GPU bottlenecked performance, I have to disagree with Intel vs AMD. Anandtech has an amazing article showing that a Phenom II 965 BE, i7 975 and the new Lynnfield i7 840(?) all get the exact same FPS while running the same video card(295).

When you get so high up on the top end, the differences between those chips means little and performance differences are negligible, mostly depending on drivers and the game.

Needless to say, I run a AMD 5400+ Brisbane chip in my pc. Sure a Phenom II or i7 would run better, but they don't cost $60.

I would like to see more focus on price v. performance, we all know those that have money spend it, so how about showing us what we can get for what we want to spend.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]rooseveltdon[/nom]lol WoW could be maxed out completely with a single 4770 and a dual core cpu faster than 2.5 ghz its not demanding enough to really be considered in benchmarks any half decent desktop from 2008 with decent mainstream graphics cards could play WoW maxed out[/citation]
That's not entirely true. I'm running wow in window mode on an e6600 @ 3.4ghz, with chrome and other stuff on a secondary monitor. While it's definetly playable, I rarely hit the vsync limit, at times getting as low as 15fps - and that's on something faster than a 4770.

Someone later mentioned that u can't benchmark wow due to the dynamic nature of an mmo, so it's a poor choice for that reason. But it definetly isn't because the game's satiated by a 2008 laptop or the like. Sure it can run. But forged alliance can run on a single core pentium with an x1550 card as well - just not very fluidly.

 

[Shnur]

Thanks for the review Tom's!
I've recently decided my way through a P2 for a simple reason; being able to have multiple boards to choose from and being able to put it in a HTPC later if I ever get to upgrade the CPU and keep my 790FX board... I'm all about compatibility; kudos to nVidia and Intel for finally getting SLI on their boards. Hopefully that will make two products actually compete with each other on the same platform. One thing I'd like is to see more affordable video card thrown in, since a 4870x2 is ALREADY xFire and putting two of them together is called going for Quad xFire which we all know scales not so great. Just because by cutting 200-300$ on CPU/RAM/MB combo, I'm still not able to afford to put 800$ in video cards

 

[tkgclimb]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]crash--As mentioned in the story, these were tested on 790GX and X48 platforms, which don't do SLI. While there are Nvidia-based SLI platforms available for both configurations, I felt that they were quite a bit more rare and applicable to a much smaller contingent of readers than the CrossFire-capable platforms. The beauty of X58 and P55 is that they'll do both!Regards,Chris[/citation]

your hardware test says your using 790fx (just wanted to clarify that you were using a dual 16x mobo, the 790fx, and not a single 16x mobo, the 790gx, because that might make crossfire act a little different)

 

[Brett4u6]

I'm glad they included a test with Microsoft Flight Sim X, but I think it showed the tester's unfamiliarity with those who still fly the sim.

Almost no one still into FSX is flying the default scenary with no addons. These greatly increase the demand on the CPU. I have a QX9650 w/ high end SLI cards and can no way get playable frame rates at the settings they used when flying low near a city.

In any case, the review was to show performance of the various platforms and leaving the frame rate limiter on eliminates the value of the test for FSX. All the other games reviewed would be quite playable at ~30 fps, but still they saw the value for comparative reasons of showing the 100+ fps scores.

While still playable at low frame rates, I have no doubt that FSX can put more of a strain on the system than any other games tested and hence still adds great value to the testing line up.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Weel, at least the gamers are having fun discussing this.

 

[Guest]

Well, when you say you would like to see better scaling from crossfire than sli, you have to remember that the 4870 X2 already has crossfire!! So for this, they are scaling across 4 gpus, which I think is pretty impressive for the results.

 

[glenster]

Another consideration for comparison is that the Core i7 960 3.2GHz is due Q4 2009 for $562--see Wikipedia > Nehalem > 45 nm processor architecture. Another site says it's due Oct.18.

 

[overshocks]

i7 920 still owns.