Intel core i3-4130 users & W 10 OS upgrade

[Mobomonkey]

I understand that probably the single most useful component of W 10 OS for gamer's, is that it's supposed to assist multi threading, thereby easing the strain & consumption on the CPU. So, I'm looking for feedback from any gamer's who've already upgraded to W 10 & whether you've checked to see if it's made a difference to the draw on your i3 (or similar). Thanks.

 

[GhislainG]

Presuming you used Google to find an answer, then you probably know that it makes little difference (same or lower FPS). The main benefit is the new DX12 support that won't improve the performance of older games. You'll have to wait until new DX12 games are released and then there will be an improvement that has yet to be determined with most processors. Don't expect a huge improvement; a faster CPU will still perform better.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I have an i3 4130 and have been benchmarking it with overclocks and OS change. No significant difference.

 

[GhislainG]

I have an i3 4130 and have been benchmarking it with overclocks and OS change. No significant difference.

The OP probably read about DX12 that will make games faster since it's multi-threaded, but the performance improvement may not be what some people are hoping for.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Yes. That's why I was doing things, to collect facts.

 

[Mobomonkey]

Presuming you used Google to find an answer, then you probably know that it makes little difference (same or lower FPS). The main benefit is the new DX12 support that won't improve the performance of older games. You'll have to wait until new DX12 games are released and then there will be an improvement that has yet to be determined with most processors. Don't expect a huge improvement; a faster CPU will still perform better.

So, you seem to be suggesting that any multi-threading support is tied in with DX 12, whereas my googling led me to believe that it's a separate function.

 

[Mobomonkey]

I have an i3 4130 and have been benchmarking it with overclocks and OS change. No significant difference.

Thanks DonkeyOatie (great moniker btw) that's exactly the sort of feedback I was hoping for! Seems like Ghislain's right then & any multi-threading benefit will only come with DX 12 games. I'll not hold my breath then. I'm currently waiting for the usual front end upgrade packages on W 10 before I change from my perfectly satisfactory W 7. Also, I'm thinking to upgrade several components in my system build, including an i5 CPU, so it makes sense to wait till then before upgrading the OS. Had there been a noticeable difference in the draw on the CPU, I might have dropped the CPU upgrade further down my list of important affordable upgrades. Thanks again.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

8.1 was well threaded, and the i3 still has only two actual cores. I've been doing a lot of benchmarking in Gaming, General use, and computation. In computation, the i3 is closer to a Pentium than an i5; in Gaming it is closer to an i5 than a Pentium. The computation uses up to 8 threads, so saturates both CPUs (well see what happens when I get to the i7 4790K )

Although W10 may thread more efficiently than W8.1, I don't see much/any benefit on the i3 4130 I'm testing. The OS is so unimportant in gaming and most applications, the application is using almost all the resources.

Have I misunderstood what you are asking?

 

[Mobomonkey]

8.1 was well threaded, and the i3 still has only two actual cores. I've been doing a lot of benchmarking in Gaming, General use, and computation. In computation, the i3 is closer to a Pentium than an i5; in Gaming it is closer to an i5 than a Pentium. The computation uses up to 8 threads, so saturates both CPUs (well see what happens when I get to the i7 4790K )

Although W10 may thread more efficiently than W8.1, I don't see much/any benefit on the i3 4130 I'm testing. The OS is so unimportant in gaming and most applications, the application is using almost all the resources.

Have I misunderstood what you are asking?

No, I don't think you've misunderstood, but I realise I should have stated that my prime concern is gaming in my OP & probably that I'm running W 7 too. Yeah, the i7-4790K is probably the ideal gaming CPU but too rich for my budget at present, plus I want to increase my RAM from 8<16Gb & replace my old HDD's with larger SSHD's to cope with what seems to be a trend toward massive games nowadays! I'm quite impressed with how my poor i3 is coping with current games at present & while you correctly point out that it only has 2 cores, it does have 4 threads, hence my OP question about multi threading assistance. I'm wondering whether it might be better to hold out as long as possible before upgrading my CPU, so I can hopefully jump straight to an i7 & miss out the i5 intermediate stage.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

I would certainly wait. You need to see how Skylake shakes out and what motherboard are released in the next wave (after it has been in the field for a while) and the range of CPUs below the two top-end chips that have been released. Where will the 'sweet spot' be? Will there be a XEon1231v3-like chip?

Finally, with the release of W10 at the same time there may be changes to the 'technoshpere' as products are adapted to the actual environment.

 

[Mobomonkey]

I would certainly wait. You need to see how Skylake shakes out and what motherboard are released in the next wave (after it has been in the field for a while) and the range of CPUs below the two top-end chips that have been released. Where will the 'sweet spot' be? Will there be a XEon1231v3-like chip?

Finally, with the release of W10 at the same time there may be changes to the 'technoshpere' as products are adapted to the actual environment.

Thanks D O. PC gaming is a potential minefield of choices! While I'm a gaming addict, I don't think I'm a hardcore PC gamer, in that I don't do multi-monitors, 3D, 4K res, VR headsets or the like. I currently use an LCD TV as my monitor, which I think makes gaming easier for my components as, despite being a large screen, it's native res is 1360 x 768 which is low by today's standards. Also, I'm quite happy with standard stereo sound too. I do want to be able to run contemporary games at the highest quality possible & know I'll have to upgrade my system quite soon, but Skylake, which is new to me, so thanks for that, is probably over the top for my relatively simple needs & will almost certainly be out of my budget range I'm guessing. It's all too easy to get caught up in the race for bigger, better, faster components, but I have to remind myself that it is a hobby after all.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Here's what we do at school. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2625445/build-log-consolidated-middle-school-builds.html

I'll dissuade them from Skylake unless they wanted a good OC rig anyway. I'm running on a nice 1080p 26" TV works well for both. Gamers are still using 5 year old CPUs, but not 5 year old GPUs (if they can help it). LGA 1150 is good to go for several years.

 

[Mobomonkey]

Here's what we do at school. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2625445/build-log-consolidated-middle-school-builds.html

I'll dissuade them from Skylake unless they wanted a good OC rig anyway. I'm running on a nice 180p 26" TV works well for both. Gamers are still using 5 year old CPUs, but not 5 year old GPUs (if they can help it). LGA is good to go for several years.

That's a great build at a great price D O, well done! My upgrade build is somewhat similar, my Mobo is the B85 Pro4 & my GPU is a Sapphire R9 270X. I got advice from Tom's for the parts on a low budget & have been very pleased with my bang for buck. At the time I was looking for minimum DX 11 compatibility & was advised to get a GTX 660. Fortunately, while I was searching & comparing, my R9 270X appeared on sale for just a tad more than the 660 price, so I had to buy it & I'm glad I did. It seems to handle even 2015 games with ease. So it's now mainly my i3 that's having to work hard on current games & I could do with more RAM it seems. Hey ho, such are the pleasures of PC gaming eh?

 

[teknobug]

i3 4160, Win 10 overall is a bit snappier (went back to 8.1 though) but for gaming, no performance differences (aside the weird Nvidia driver issues I've been having). You won't see benefits of DX12 until DX12 games (Or if Witcher 3, Arkham Knight and perhaps Battlefront gets it).

 

[Mobomonkey]

i3 4160, Win 10 overall is a bit snappier (went back to 8.1 though) but for gaming, no performance differences (aside the weird Nvidia driver issues I've been having). You won't see benefits of DX12 until DX12 games (Or if Witcher 3, Arkham Knight and perhaps Battlefront gets it).

Thanks teknobug. I'm waiting for W 10 to bed in before I switch, to avoid stuff like driver issues hopefully. I think I've got a much better understanding of the CPU load difficulty now & with W 10, it's the DX 12 that enables greater efficiency in graphics processing, so that will only apply with DX 12 compatible games. In the mean time, coz I've got an AMD card & therefore AMD Catalyst installed, it seems I've probably got AMD's Mantle, which is their equivalent of DX 12 & already has some compatible games, inc Thief, which is the only one I have already. So, there are no significant gaming advantages to W 10 yet, until either new games that are compatible with DX 12 are released, or, devs issue patches for current & older games, that enable DX 12 compatibility. I for one, am hoping for the latter, but even if it's only new games that feature DX 12, it should help to ease the incessant upgrading of PC components, for a while at least.

 

[GhislainG]

I really doubt existing games will be rewritten for DX12; it would be much easier and certainly less costly to patch them for DX11.3 compatibility. Because of its complexity, you can't expect all new games to be DX12 compatible (just like most current games are not Mantle compatible). Releasing new DX12 versions of a game makes a lot of sense because those that are CPU bound will benefit from it and likely be willing to upgrade.

 

[Mobomonkey]

I really doubt existing games will be rewritten for DX12; it would be much easier and certainly less costly to patch them for DX11.3 compatibility. Because of its complexity, you can't expect all new games to be DX12 compatible (just like most current games are not Mantle compatible). Releasing new DX12 versions of a game makes a lot of sense because those that are CPU bound will benefit from it and likely be willing to upgrade.

I don't expect anything from devs apart from greater size, cost & component demand of new games, GhislainG.
I understand it will be up to game devs as to whether their games are DX 12 or Mantle compatible. What I've very little idea of is just how complex it is to make any game compatible with either. I imagine it could be a relatively simple piece of coding, as it involves a sort of language translation at a fundamental level, but that's just the imaginings of a coding ignoramus. PC gaming is probably overtaking Console gaming at present, for many various reasons, but is a pain for devs because of the complexity of differing system builds, which, of course, both DX 12 & Mantle, attempt to address. When you consider the added growth in Mobiles gaming, & how both DX 12 & Mantle address the power consumption factor too, then I think we have good reason to at least hope for, if not expect, newer games being compatible.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Newer, yes, but I would not hold my breath. It needs to be at the Engine level and many games have licensed older engines that they continue to use. Using a newer engine will likely have a considerable cost.

 

[Mobomonkey]

Newer, yes, but I would not hold my breath. It needs to be at the Engine level and many games have licensed older engines that they continue to use. Using a newer engine will likely have a considerable cost.

I shan't be holding my breath O D, I'd never make a deep sea diver. Even at the Engine level, IF it's a matter of 'translation', then it ought to be 'patchable' surely?, but I suspect we're all floundering in the deep end now.

 

[GhislainG]

I really doubt existing games will be rewritten for DX12; it would be much easier and certainly less costly to patch them for DX11.3 compatibility. Because of its complexity, you can't expect all new games to be DX12 compatible (just like most current games are not Mantle compatible). Releasing new DX12 versions of a game makes a lot of sense because those that are CPU bound will benefit from it and likely be willing to upgrade.

I don't expect anything from devs apart from greater size, cost & component demand of new games, GhislainG.
I understand it will be up to game devs as to whether their games are DX 12 or Mantle compatible. What I've very little idea of is just how complex it is to make any game compatible with either. I imagine it could be a relatively simple piece of coding, as it involves a sort of language translation at a fundamental level, but that's just the imaginings of a coding ignoramus. PC gaming is probably overtaking Console gaming at present, for many various reasons, but is a pain for devs because of the complexity of differing system builds, which, of course, both DX 12 & Mantle, attempt to address. When you consider the added growth in Mobiles gaming, & how both DX 12 & Mantle address the power consumption factor too, then I think we have good reason to at least hope for, if not expect, newer games being compatible.

Unfortunately DX12 apparently is so complex that the upgraded DX11.3 will often be used by game developers. I'm sure you realize Mantle hasn't be widely adopted (partially because it's AMD GPU compatible only).

 

[teknobug]

I really doubt existing games will be rewritten for DX12; it would be much easier and certainly less costly to patch them for DX11.3 compatibility. Because of its complexity, you can't expect all new games to be DX12 compatible (just like most current games are not Mantle compatible). Releasing new DX12 versions of a game makes a lot of sense because those that are CPU bound will benefit from it and likely be willing to upgrade.

It's not the rewriting, DICE added Mantle to Battlefield 4 and for all we know they could even add DX12 to it (and Visceral with Hardline).

 

[GhislainG]

You are correct, but since they have a rather large user base, the cost per copy isn't that significant.

 

[Mobomonkey]

Thanks all for your fantastic input. Thanks specifically to those who've upgraded to W 10 & posted their impressions/results. I think, in summary, we can say that W 10 per se, will not help with CPU load, but has the potential, thru DX 12, to do so. DX 12 is either built in to a Game's Engine, or expensively applied latterly. Can we expect Game Devs to retro apply DX 12, almost certainly not. Will they incorporate it in new releases, maybe/probably. Will I still have to buy bigger, faster, better PC components to play newer games at a decent FPS, certainly. I think that covers it.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Thanks for the feedback. What did you end up with?

 

[Mobomonkey]

I'm still using the old i3-4130 & currently on W 7 64bit at present, but considering switching to W 10. Some players reckon that 10 alone helps with gaming, tho technically it shouldn't. I was playing a lot of Shadow of Mordor & that always puts max strain on my CPU, but I have to say that I'm quite impressed with my little old i3, in all games it handles them really well, it's only S.O.M so far that causes it to break sweat!