[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]I was the one who first used the clock rate/number of cores method. I stopped using it on purpose.The problem is, it represented the theoretical strength of the architecture more than it represented what a person could actually buy.In the end, after acknowledging some concerned forum posters, I agreed it makes sense to compare actual consumer-purchasable hardware than it does to compare synthetic tests with clock rates and configurations that don't necessarily correlate with shipping products. These are, after all, game performance reviews and not CPU architecture comparisons.Now I test with actual processors, and I think it better represents what buyers can expect from their rig.[/citation]
Aha. Ahhhhhhh. Ok, now i see what's happening.
In our heads, we're trying to figure out
A) What's going wrong with the 8350, which leads us to -
B) How many threads FC3 is using, what's affecting FC3 so much, etc.
While you're saying, hey, there's this awesome new game, if you want to play it, here's what you'll need.
Recognizing that your method does indeed make more sense, I'm not going to say "oh noes plz change it!!!"
BUT. But, but. Butt. ok, no. Do you think it's possible that you could do an article on this? Take a few games, mainly CPU bottlenecked (if they're not, create the bottleneck, obviously) and see what's going on. A purely academic-ish article.
Compare Phenom IIs, Core 2, Sandy/Ivy, Bulldozer/Piledriver. Scale cores/threads/modules, all the way to 12, 8 or 4, from 1. See how HT affects a game.
Then scale clock speeds for Piledriver and Ivy only.
You could, if you want test only one game from each engine or something. I don't know if scaling with threads is an engine-specific feature or not, but if it is, you could have stuff like Crysis, Crysis 2, FC3, BF3, some random Unreal Engine III game, etc.
Some of it is pointless and redundant (games for which you've already done it, for example) and i wouldn't want you to do that again, that would just be a waste of time. But games that do scale till 4, i'd like to see how far they go.
Basically i'm suggesting a CPU oriented article that examines how games react to various CPU architectures, in the process understanding more about the games/engines themselves.
Don't know if you'll have the time for this. But seeing the nature of debates sparked by game articles, i think it's needed.