Far Cry 3 Performance, Benchmarked

[ojas]

Yeah should have been Low, High, Ultra.

Or Low, Medium, Very High, Ultra

 

[mikenygmail]

[citation][nom]sugetsu[/nom]"The good news for folks with Piledriver-based processors is that the FX-8350 is nearly as quick as Intel's Core i3-2100 (never mind the fact that the Core i3 costs $90 less)."My God... Are the reviewers of this website paid to make AMD look bad? Any person with a minimum hint of common sense can clearly see that there is virtually no difference between FX 8350, the i3, the i5 and i7. This is a big disservice to the community.[/citation]

Good comment. They might try to make AMD look bad, but they fail. AMD is a threat to intel and nvidia.

 

[mikenygmail]

Looks like my 6970 2 GB will have no problem running this game at high detail levels, good job guys but enough with the anti-AMD nonsense. As most here have noticed and a few brave souls have said, it's a big disservice to the community. We are not mindless console gamers, on the contrary most people who read these articles are intelligent.

 

[killerclick]

Why not include 6850?

 

[silverblue]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]So wait, you're satisfied paying more money for less performance? I'll gladly cop to adding that line (don't blame Don for it). I found it interesting that the cheaper Core i3 managed higher minimum frame rates, and that the Bulldozer-based chip had an even more pronounced impact on those minimums. If you're buying high-end graphics, seems like valuable information to me![/citation]
Personally - and this is just my opinion - I'd look at low detail tests to see where the CPU bottlenecks lie as I think that even at medium levels, the 7970 is limiting performance. It does highlight one significant piece of information - Piledriver and Bulldozer significantly outperform Stars here.

To the people asking for this card and that card, I think it's pretty easy to infer from the relative performances of the 7950 Boost, 670 and 7970 where the 680 and 7970 GHz Edition will lie.

 

[RazorBurn]

Will this Game end the "Will it play Crysis 2?" phrase?

 

[danielmunhato]

if were playing in ultra quality, there´s not cpu bottleneck.

 

[godfather666]

Very helpful benchmarks, thanks.

About the AMD comment, come on guys, the reviewer was just pointing out the truth: The 8350 plays the game very well, but still falls slightly behind the much cheaper Core i3.

Yes, some of the more expensive Intel CPUs don't show much improvement over the i3 either, but that's only because there's a GPU bottleneck.

Point is, the FX-8350 is a great CPU and a huge improvement over Bulldozer, but it's not the best option for gamers.

All I'm saying is: there is absolutely no reason to think the reviewer has some hidden pro-Intel agenda.

 

[cknobman]

LOL sorry Don but your article loses so much credibility when you make a comment like this: "The good news for folks with Piledriver-based processors is that the FX-8350 is nearly as quick as Intel's Core i3-2100 (never mind the fact that the Core i3 costs $90 less)." when the chart clearly shows the AMD chip and all of Intels core processors (i3,i5,i7) so close to each other the difference could almost be considered within the margin of error.

So you slant the comment to make AMD look bad(by saying it almost keeps up with a cheap i3) when really there is clearly a bottleneck going on because even Intels ultra powerful and expensive i7 processors dont really outpace the i3 either.

 

[DaRAGingLunatic]

I have a four core - core i7 920 2.8Ghz - with dual geforce 670's, in sli.

I run this game at maximum. Everything looks great. Runs for about 40 minutes until my computer overheats and reboots. Turn fans up to full blast on GPU's and it can last 1 hour before computer reboots from overheating. ;-(

 

[siman0]

holy crap guys, games theese days are mostly ran off the GPUs ayway. To be honest the i7 is a bit of a waist it really isnt needed, the I5 and the FX work grate. Hell the Phenom II x6 isnt bad ethier. Games are still slowly adopting more multi-core/thead computing. AMDs CPUs are grate if the program running is highly threaded, I7 and I5s are power house muliti core CPUs so yes they will be more "powerful". But all you need is a good enough CPU and IO system to kep the GPUs happy. I have a monster I7 rig now, it runs Far Cry 3 fine could never be happier. In the next room my friend is running a Phenom II x6 3.3 with 2 7970s he is running Far Cry 3 (which he got free and where i got mine) just fine and at more FPS than me. He also spent 250 on his CPU and moboard combo I spent 600 on mine. Give though his was open box/ used and mine was new, but still thats a hell of a computer.

 

[deathengine]

[citation][nom]daraginglunatic[/nom]I have a four core - core i7 920 2.8Ghz - with dual geforce 670's, in sli. I run this game at maximum. Everything looks great. Runs for about 40 minutes until my computer overheats and reboots. Turn fans up to full blast on GPU's and it can last 1 hour before computer reboots from overheating. ;-([/citation]

I gotta tell you, no game i have has been able to heat up my case more than this one so far. IT is certainly demanding. With 680's in sli my internal case temps neared 130F. Granted my case doesnt have the best cooling, (corsair 600t) but this game pushes these cards.
Graphics are really great. And there are sme amazing Vistas to be seen when standing up on hills with the jungle scenery, mountains and water down below.

And its actually fun to play!

 

[demonhorde665]

WTF, you only show the regular 660 at medium and lower detail levels , this deosn't help me one bit , as i was planning on getting that card on my next pc build becasue it sells with this game. surely the 660 (non ti) can run this at some resolution with ultra settings on ?

 

[demonhorde665]

correction you only show it in single config *

 

[Fokissed]

[citation][nom]sugetsu[/nom]"The good news for folks with Piledriver-based processors is that the FX-8350 is nearly as quick as Intel's Core i3-2100 (never mind the fact that the Core i3 costs $90 less)."My God... Are the reviewers of this website paid to make AMD look bad? Any person with a minimum hint of common sense can clearly see that there is virtually no difference between FX 8350, the i3, the i5 and i7. This is a big disservice to the community.[/citation]
Never mind the fact that the i3-2100 performed the exact same as the i7-3970X, and STILL outperformed the FX 8350.

 

[The Scion of Balance]

LOL sorry Don but your article loses so much credibility when you make a comment like this: "The good news for folks with Piledriver-based processors is that the FX-8350 is nearly as quick as Intel's Core i3-2100 (never mind the fact that the Core i3 costs $90 less)." when the chart clearly shows the AMD chip and all of Intels core processors (i3,i5,i7) so close to each other the difference could almost be considered within the margin of error.

So you slant the comment to make AMD look bad(by saying it almost keeps up with a cheap i3) when really there is clearly a bottleneck going on because even Intels ultra powerful and expensive i7 processors dont really outpace the i3 either.

Yes there is a bottleneck, it's called the GPU bottleneck, not the CPU. When you have a couple of different tier CPUs in the benchmark and they are close/similar in performance, it means that the video card itself doesn't have the horsepower to give more performance. The FX8350 doesn't perform better than an i3 in this particular game and that's a fact (and it's not wrong in this case for the reviewers to state it) and based on pricing, the i3 is a clear cut winner (don't take overclock into the matter as not everyone is willing to do it). But is it really that bad? No, as it's not so far behind and people who have an 8350 should at least be grateful as it doesn't perform as bad as in other games.


This is actually nothing new and I am actually surprised that people are arguing over this. Did you buy an 8 cores cpu and really hope that the 8 cores will perform much better in games right now? If so, then it's entirely your fault as you should have read reviews before buying something that you will just regret better.

 

[ohim]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]So wait, you're satisfied paying more money for less performance? I'll gladly cop to adding that line (don't blame Don for it). I found it interesting that the cheaper Core i3 managed higher minimum frame rates, and that the Bulldozer-based chip had an even more pronounced impact on those minimums. If you're buying high-end graphics, seems like valuable information to me![/citation]
[citation][nom]Fokissed[/nom]Never mind the fact that the i3-2100 performed the exact same as the i7-3970X, and STILL outperformed the FX 8350.[/citation]
And this is why Intel still makes shit loads of money from websites that talk crap and people that are biased about some benchmarks.

As you can clearly see a cheap ass I3 can be the same as top I7 and beat an FX8350 ... in what ? a Game ? actually it doesn`t beat anything , your brain can`t figure out the 3 fps gain or loss... but then again PCs are not gaming only platforms .. and we move to Premiere or other high demanding and better CPU optimizied applications and we can see that the I3 is actually crap, not to talk about OS experience how the PC will handle multitasking. So please hold your horses, this benchmark is just comparing a Ferrari with a BMW against a bike stuck in traffic and saying the Ferrari and BMW are crap about speed .

 

[boletus]

Wow, a game with graphics that aren't hobbled down to make it playable at highest settings on old consoles? And it's actually interesting to play? I will be getting this one.

 

[boletus]

Please do revisit this when you have a 690 or two and 3-way 7970's to throw at it. Not that I will ever have a rig like that, but it would be interesting to see.

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]So wait, you're satisfied paying more money for less performance? I'll gladly cop to adding that line (don't blame Don for it). I found it interesting that the cheaper Core i3 managed higher minimum frame rates, and that the Bulldozer-based chip had an even more pronounced impact on those minimums. If you're buying high-end graphics, seems like valuable information to me![/citation]

some people prefer not to hand intel ANY money after all the anti competition crap they have pulled over the years like paying off vendors not to carry amd products. Baring nvidia from making main board chipsets for intel cpus .
also the dual core 13 chip in question mgiht cost 90 bucks less , but you have to pair it with an intel based main board which usually cost more than amd based mainboards.

also keep in mind , when programs do start using more actual physical cores , intel's hyper threading will only go so far , and having real phsyical cores will mean a lot more , and well the 8350 has 8 of them .



one more question why did you only test the pile driver ? the cheapest pile driver chip is like 279 at new egg right now , while the bull doezer is not as good , they do have bulldozers at 13-160 price ranges seems it would have been nice to text the 8150 next to the 8350.


P.S. i'm not an amd fanboy , i will use intel chips mostly made the point above because i do know people that refuse to buy intel because of their buisness practices and poor ethics.

 

[demonhorde665]

gah typos , cheapest pile driver schip is 179 i meant not 279

 

[demonhorde665]

[citation][nom]ohim[/nom]And this is why Intel still makes shit loads of money from websites that talk crap and people that are biased about some benchmarks.As you can clearly see a cheap ass I3 can be the same as top I7 and beat an FX8350 ... in what ? a Game ? actually it doesn`t beat anything , your brain can`t figure out the 3 fps gain or loss... but then again PCs are not gaming only platforms .. and we move to Premiere or other high demanding and better CPU optimizied applications and we can see that the I3 is actually crap, not to talk about OS experience how the PC will handle multitasking. So please hold your horses, this benchmark is just comparing a Ferrari with a BMW against a bike stuck in traffic and saying the Ferrari and BMW are crap about speed .[/citation]

my thoughts exactly

bench these cpu's doing stuff like a 100,000 + poly scene render with ray tracing and displacment mapping in 3ds max , or a 20 minute video compression in premeire that takes hours to finish, the i7 and the FX-8350 will quickly sepperate them selves from the i3 by an enormous margin.

 

[army_ant7]

Just few things I observed...

On the Medium-detail benchmarks page, it seems that you forgot to put "Ti" after "650" as it was mentioned twice.

On the CPU bencmarks page, when you said "Dual-core chips from both AMD and Intel take fairly substantial hits..." I just found it a bit misleading (no offense) because the i3-2100 is still dual-core chip technically.
[strike]I also noticed how you used your "Medium-Detail" test settings for the CPU bencmarks (which is understandable seeing that the HD 7970 was already on the edge with your "High-Detail" settings), but it might've still been better to customize the graphics settings until you could squeeze as much detail as you can and still maintain playable framerates. In this way, you might've not experienced the same GPU bottle-neck starting from the i3-2100 and up.[/strike] Just my take on it.
(Edit: Oops. My logic was flawed. My bad... Only noticed that it was when I read silverblue's post. Yup, increasing graphics settings won't help the GPU bottleneck. It would make it worse. Though, I guess you, Don, didn't bother with lower details, because it might've not really mattered much as people wouldn't normally buy more expensive CPU's to play on the Low-Detail settings. Come to think of it though, knowing what CPU a person would need at Low-Detail settings might've still proven to be useful (to whomever would play at those settings). I mean, hey, you already did benchmarks at that setting for the graphics. Hehe... )

As for the 3x landsape 1080p setup, it looks like my CF'ed HD 7850's won't be able to handle Ultra most-definitely, unless they suddenly release game patches and/or newer drivers that magically, and I mean magically, optimize performance.
But that aside, you said twice that you don't think there are current generation graphics cards or setups that could handel that monitor setup at Ultra. I noticed how the HD7970 wasn't even able to reach half of a 30FPS minimum, so I'm thinking that it might not be so likely that two of them CF'ed would solve the problem, but what about:
3-4x HD 7970's CF'ed
2-4x GTX 680's SLI'd (I mentioned included 2 as a possibility just in case it performs better with Nvidia's architecture (with more memory bandwidth, which is what the 680 has over the 670) or drivers)
1-2x HD 7990/7970x2's
1-2x GTX 690's
(Edit: Oh yeah, and HD 7970 GHz Editions. Just remembered them because fuzznarf mentioned them above.)
I wonder if any of those setups would be able to handle it.

I wonder! Is this a taste of what we should expect from Crysis 3?! I really wonder since Don did mention has it uses a heavily-modified CryEngine. Crysis 3 may or may not have better graphics, and CryEngine 3 may or may not be more optimized.

 

[dscudella]

Oh wow, my Radeon 6850 is really starting to show it's age. Since it's not shown in benchmarks I place it maybe 1-2 FPS faster than the 7770. Which means at 1920x1080 with no AA I might be able to pull 60fps....I'm kind of sad now.

 

[-Fran-]

The biggest find in this article is not the "hot debate" on Mr Don's comment.

I'd say the Difference in performance from the G860 and the i3. In this engine, the 2 extra cores and L3 cache really show the difference in price. Remember that the G860 was a low budget favorite, but in this game, that's no longer the case.

Cheers!