I7 920 vs Phenom II 965 with an ATI 5870.(Finally!)

Here you go guys: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/cpu_mainboard/amd_vs_intel_-_the_gaming_sweetspot/1

I'm really surprised that it took this long for someone to do this exact write-up. The only thing missing is benches while OCed on the CPUs. These results had stock clocks for the i7 920 and the Phenom II 965. So I guess if the i7 920 was at 3.4ghz it would of destroyed the Phenom II. Which most of us allready knew, but atleast we have some proof of that finally.

PS: Now all we need is a crossfire review with both CPUs at 3.8/4.0ghz, to get an even better feel for the difference. Ask and I shall recieve. lol. This article came out a couple weeks ago. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling.html
 
Good find, Sincreator - thanks.

I too would be interested in seeing how the P2-965 and i920 would do both oc'd and with multiple top-end GPUs, although I'd personally be happy with just one 5870 :D.
 

Cryslayer80

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It would not have destroyed it, especially in gaming.
 



Well the i7 in the article is at 2.66ghz and it's still faster than the Phenom 965 at 3.4ghz, so what do you think would happen? Give the i7 3.4ghz and it would be a hell of alot faster I would say, unless an extra 740mhz wouldn't make a difference with the i7 paired with a 5870. :sarcastic:

BTW, my next cpu was going to be a 955/965 BE, but after seeing this I may start to consider an i5/i7 alot more. Especially since I would like to have as little of a CPU bottleneck as possible when my 2 5850's get here.

Come on tom's, don't you think this is worth investigating yet? With all the talk about the 5800 series and CPU bottlenecks, I think it's time to do an article to see what can push them more in single and crossfire modes. I don't mean a 3/4 page article like the one I linked, I mean a FULL article showing the comparison between the core2quad/core2dual/Phenom II x3/Phenom II x4/intel i7/intel i5. It would help us greatly in making future upgrade decisions. Although it looks like the best CPUs are very clear, but it would be nice all the same to see what holds the 5800's back the most.
 

rodney_ws

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Well, Nehalem is a newer architecture... who here is really surprised that clock-for-clock Intel is faster? Sometimes it's nice to have things quantified, but I'm generally willing to accept things without precise numbers to back them up. I did enjoy the little value chart at the end though.
 



Ya, you don't see that, that often. Damn FSX must be pretty hard on hardware as well, with those systems and the FPS isn't all that impresive I mean.(well at those settings at least)
 
Well, something bothering me by these results. Why are the results so close in the gaming benchmarks? If you use multiple cpu configuration, Intel wins all the time by a clear margin with at least two 4870 or GTX260... but why a card as strong as a GTX295, the 5870, is not able to clearly advantage Intel...?

Is is because it's a single gpu card? One thing clear for sure, going AMD for a gaming rig enthusiast is not that much of a bad idea if you take into account all the money you are saving. Even there, I would choose a PII 955 over a PII 965.
 



Because the i7 is at 2.66ghz, and the PH II is at 3.4ghz.
 

Cryslayer80

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Because in gaming AMD is superior and even that benchmark is a little biased.
 

And your not? LOL :sarcastic: I own all AMD/ATI hardware, and I can even see that the i7 would be superior, but I guess there is no point in arguing with fanboi's. I guess you would of been happier if they had the i7 at 3.4ghz and have shown an even bigger difference? LOL, funny stuff. :pt1cable:
 

yannifb

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Yes but its not like when you buy a PII 965 it won't be at 3.4ghz... And also it performs very well considering it was made to compete against c2q and can gold its own against an i7
 

Cryslayer80

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The fact that you own (or lie about owning) AMD hardware doesn't make your statement true. I have a C2D on another PC so should I say: "Lolz I've gotz Intelz and likez AMDz so Im unbiasedz"?
 

Terry1212

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This is a more realistic benchmark because they compared the processors against each other in their stock form, which is the way it should be. To overclock the i7 to the same frequency as the 965, run the tests, and then say the 965 got killed is NOT a fair comparison because processor frequency isn't the only thing that plays a role here. There are other things in the architecture of a processor that can determine it's speed. The i7 is faster. Ok, we got that. It also costs more. The motherboard and triple channel memory kit also costs more. You're paying for that increase in performance.
 

jennyh

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Two words : Turbo mode. We don't know what speed that i7 was running at really, do we?

Also, the best chart is the one at the end with the i7 costing 40% more. While losing.

Both overclocked to the max? Who can say? Yes the i7 will win, probably all of them. The chances of the 'win' being worth 40% extra? None whatsoever.
 

dna708

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Turbo for the i7 920 (I think) is:

2.93ghz 1-2 cores
2.8 ghz 3-4 cores

Still quite a difference, but it is true that it isn't 2.66ghz (and it probably isn't most of the time if not all the time).
 

Turbo mode on a 920 is pretty insignificant - 99% of the time, it will be running one speed bin up (2.8 GHz), and very very rarely, it might hit 2 bins up (2.93). It is nowhere near as aggressive or significant to benchmarks as the 1156 turbo.
 

dna708

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Which is why it loses to the the i7 860 in most benchmarks... s1366 is bought for the extra mem and video bandwidth truthfully...
 

jennyh

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Perhaps but it's still worth pointing out.

I'm sure a lot of people would love to misinform that a 2.6ghz intel cpu was just as fast as a 3.4ghz amd cpu, but the reality is somewhat different.

What you have is a much more expensive intel pc platform - including 50% extra memory - performing about the same as the top AMD one.

I'd like to see those benchmarks with Fusion for Gaming running too. If the intel can get turbo mode while still claiming 2.6ghz, I see no reason why the AMD can't get the Fusion for Gaming software overclocking it too.
 

dna708

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Okay, here are the facts straight from the article:

i7 920, we'll say 2.87ghz which is the average of the turbo modes give or take .06ghz.
43.6% more expensive than the 4gigs AMD system (Why didn't they just compare it to the 8gigs one)
16.5% faster than the 8gigs system (I don't remember if 8gigs actually slows down gaming ability???)

Very obviously, AMD takes the price/performance. 16.5% on average however, could be important depending on how low the fps of the game is already. The lower the fps is for both systems, the bigger the impact 16% is. If they both run at like 100fps, 16% means nothing..........

But if they are both struggling to make a game JUST bearable to play, then 16% can be quite a difference.

Of course 16% is just an average so we should take the number with a grain of salt.

Now is the price worth it? Realistically, no. But, are some people willing to pay the difference for that edge, definitely. Am I one of those people that want i7? Yes....

But even though it may not be the best way to spend my money (ratio wise), I still continue to love my investment in a s1366 system.

Then again, I don't game much anyway so the price/performance gap for me is a little smaller :-\.
 

jennyh

Splendid
Ok here is another way to look at those benchmarks.

Anything over 60fps is a total waste. This is definitely true when the minimum fps is over 60, and that was pointed out in the review.

In both the i7's biggest 'wins', both systems had a *minimum* framerate above 60fps. That was Farcry 2 and CoD4. Both of these games perform identically and no human would be able to tell any difference at any time.

In the other two games?

The Phenom played Crysis Warhead very, very slightly better. 1 fps on max, min and average is meaningless.

The i7 played FSX, very, very slightly better. Pretty much identical min and med framerates with the i7 scoring a small max framerate advantage.

So...


4 games tested, 2 of them are identical in terms of running perfectly above 60fps at *all* times. The other 2 are within 1 fps of each other.

Also note that the 16% faster i7 performance was almost all gained on CoD4, with both systems never dropping below 100fps.

Now, tell me truthfully - is the i7 worth ~$130 more based on these benchmarks? Because I will guarantee you that you would not notice any difference whatsover while playing, any of these games.

 
Absolutely.

(Admittedly, that's based on my usage, and many of the non-gaming apps are both where the gain is the largest, and where a small gain would be most noticeable.).
 

dna708

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I already said that AMD DEFINITELY takes the price/performance crown. However:

1. I think it's in euros
2. Obviously, in terms of these benchmarks (ie gaming) alone, i7 is not worth the price increase
3. I got my i7 system for around 1k (give or take 20ish dollars), which in my opinion made it worth it

It's true, in terms of games, the price/performance for i7 just isn't there. However, there are more factors than those included in the article that may make it worthwhile to select people (mostly people that don't game) such as overclocking, different sets of video card preferences (not that I wouldn't choose a 5850/5870 over anything else...), games played etc.

As the article says there are situation where either are better choices over the other. And I commend you for thinking it through slightly further than I did.