Nvidia Says Core i7 Isn't Worth It

[Marcus Yam]

Nvidia would prefer that you spend your money on GPUs rather than CPUs

Nvidia Says Core i7 Isn't Worth It : Read more

 

[Eggrenade]

Wow, answering B.S. stats with more B.S. stats. Of course you can "prove" your point if you run a very limited scenario. This is why we come here, for a lot less B.S. and some real scenarios.

 

[1971Rhino]

I had no idea I had a "BMW" in my case.......awesome!

 

[ricin]

As a game engine developer, I grow tired of Nvidia rhetoric. First off, to make such a broad generalization is sickening. What they *are* saying, even if they attempt to mean something else, is that good game engines today are *GPU* bound and not CPU bound, meaning that the GPUs are so slow that the CPUs spend a ton of time waiting on them.

Idiots. It doesn't even make sense.

 

[JTP709]

It sounds to me like Nvidia did in fact answer Intel's BS stats with a real world scenario: running Far Cry, Crysis, and other games on their processors along with different Nvidia cards, delivering actual frame rates in what we would actually see if we bought that system. Once again reaffirming my belief that the i7 is overkill for gaming.

 

[Hatecrime69]

[citation][nom]Eggrenade[/nom]Wow, answering B.S. stats with more B.S. stats. Of course you can "prove" your point if you run a very limited scenario. This is why we come here, for a lot less B.S. and some real scenarios.[/citation]

Well intel's stats were bs, and nvidia could have probably done a less weighted benchmark in their favor, but they are telling the truth, in many game situations a core 2 duo/quad is just a few frames slower than the much more expensive i7..of course rts and flight sim games may show more cpu difference but at least nvidia is showing an example of what is true for the most part in many popular titles

 

[thepinkpanther]

why didnt Nvidia just use AMD chips? and see if performance went up by 80%? it should have been Phenom II + gts 250, then gtx285. Then the same test with i7. I guess intel has to say BS until their larabee (i dont know how to spell) comes out, then they will say GPU is just as/if not more important.

 

[burnley14]

What a shock: a GPU manufacturing company tells you to spend more on GPUs and less on CPUs. That sounds completely unbiased . . .

 

[afrobacon]

So the i7 is a Hummer?
I disagree with this statement, the hummer of today is slow, wastes gas, any is pretty much a glorified minivan. The i7 on the other hand is fast, lightweight, outperforms it's competition, etc. Though still pricey and not quite worth getting one yet. My opinion at least.

 

[burnley14]

What a shock, a GPU-producing company is encouraging you to spend less on CPUs and more on GPUs. That doesn't seem biased at all . . .

 

[burnley14]

Damn double post. Sorry.

 

[touchdowntexas13]

In order to compare those two processors properly, shouldn't they have used a multi-gpu setup so that the processor was the bottleneck? I thought that there isn't supposed to be much of a difference between the speed of those two processors if the gpu/game is limiting both processors from being pushed to their max.

I do agree that the gpu is more important in gaming, but Nvidia really seemed to be belittling the core i7.

 

[Guest]

GPU performance is much more important for gaming than CPU performance.\

I see no point in buying the fastest / most expensive hardware of any kind since performance/price ratio goes to hell once you're past the mainstream segment.

 

[sot010174]

Oh yeah... so I should rebuild my pentium 2 machine and install a Geforce GTX 295 2 million gigs of ram, so it'll load vista in 3 nanoseconds.

Cmon Nvidia, just because you can't even yet build a x86 processor you go banging about how a fast CPU is uninmportant. This maybe is a hint about their upcoming CPU performance. Pathetic.

 

[blackpanther26]

one question why do they compare the i7 965EE $1000 chip to the E8400 $167 chip. When they could have used the i7 965 at $280? Is it Nvidia wants to scare people away from the i7 becuase of the way Intel is acting latly?

 

[mindless728]

GPU performance is more important than CPU performance, they went from mainstream CPU to Enthusiast CPU and got little gain, then they went from mainstream GPU to high end GPU (SLI) and received much higher fps

 

[zehpavora]

I think they're kinda right. We all know that, most of the time, the GPU bottlenecks the CPU, meaning that you may buy a i7, but if you want to see significant performance, change your GPU first. I think they're right, but I disagree in the fact that a i7 is worse than a Core Duo. Multitasking is everything for me, since I use PS, Firefox in about 5 tabs, WinRAR, games, and so on. Balance, my friends, is what we should go for in a computer.

 

[Guest]

We do use our systems for a whole lot more than just gaming.

So while the GPU may be important for gaming, the CPU is still important for other applications which may be resource intensive.

With my Core i7 system, I find that I am able to do a whole lot more with it than I could with previous systems.

Maybe Nvidia would prefer that software authors create programs that would rely entirely on the GPU such as that Russian De-Cryption program that uses the GPU to crack encryptions faster than previously thought possible?

 

[airborne11b]

[citation][nom]ghfhdg@babacom[/nom]GPU performance is much more important for gaming than CPU performance.\I see no point in buying the fastest / most expensive hardware of any kind since performance/price ratio goes to hell once you're past the mainstream segment.[/citation]

Unless you're using a quad SLI setup, running crysis at 2560 x 1600, the CPU will not be the "bottle" neck.

Regardless of what you fanboys think, this is no surprise to PC enthusiast. A GPU makes up 70-80% of gaming performance. the other 20-30% comes from your CPU and ram combine.

Core i7 920 *$280* + x58 mobo *$250* +DDR 3 triple channel ram set = $100
Core2Duo E8400 *$170* + 780i mobo *$150* + DDR2 duel channel set = $50

You save around 250 bucks going with core2duo. Now consider that if you're on a budget and were going to just buy a cheap ol GTS 500 or 8800 GT for around $100 to go with your i7 set up. If you took that extra 250 bucks and went with a core2duo set up with a GTX 285, or SLI GTX 260 core 216 GPU's, you'll have spent the exact same amount of cash, but you'll have a rig that will get MUCH MUCH higher FPS in just about every single game out there.

CPU / RAM are always really small improvements as opposed to a GPU upgrade. GPU > CPU + RAM. Very simple equation when considering how to build a gaming rig.

Personally I want the best, so I'm running a 920 i7 + EVGA Classified + 2 GTX 275's with 6GB of DDR3 1600 ram. But thats because I have cash to burn. lol. But the point of the article was clear and true. GPU's are far more important than CPUs when it comes to gaming.

 

[cadder]

I've studied all of the recent Toms builds and it seems that GPU power is more important for gaming than CPU power. CPU power is required, but it's easy enough to satisfy that requirement with available CPU's, so then you need to focus on GPU power.

 

[Guest]

LMAO at the people defending Intel's dishonest marketing, a sure sign of a fanboy. A Core i7 will give a neglible if any performance boost in gaming, Intel is making a fraudulent claim for the sake of selling a product to people who don't know any better. So what if games are GPU bound, that's because GPUs can do the job better than CPUs. ATI and Nvidia having been pushing the envelope in every way possible, with cards reaching teraflop speed and beyond, what the f*ck do you want them to do better?

 

[scook9]

hasnt it been proven that the gtx200 architecture runs poorly on the i7 platform for no known reason (makes me think its a driver issue personally)...and now nvidia bad mouths said platform, coincidence I think not. ALSO, I agree with what was said above, about nvidia not being in favor with intel, im sure that lent itself to this as well. ALSO, I agree with this being propoganda BS with nvidia emphasizing its GPU over a CPU. Haven't they always done this? I would like to know the full details of nvidias test, as well as see the same test ran with a 4870x2 - just to remove that variable as well.

 

[Humans think]

[citation][nom]ricin[/nom]As a game engine developer, I grow tired of Nvidia rhetoric. First off, to make such a broad generalization is sickening. What they *are* saying, even if they attempt to mean something else, is that good game engines today are *GPU* bound and not CPU bound, meaning that the GPUs are so slow that the CPUs spend a ton of time waiting on them.Idiots. It doesn't even make sense.[/citation]

Could you explain? I find the nVidia statement quite truthful from my personal experience of upgrading my machines from times to times. The truth is that the real bottleneck nowadays is the GPU and not the CPU. A few games need a Core i7 processor to see real improvements like Flight Simulator. Are you a Chess game engine developer, or a flight simulator engine developer cause this would explain a lot? And since you are a developer and I own a quad core CPU I would recommend that you start taking the juice out of multicore processors. Because high clock speed dual core processors perform better in most games than low clock speed quad core processors.

[citation][nom]burnley14[/nom]What a shock: a GPU manufacturing company tells you to spend more on GPUs and less on CPUs. That sounds completely unbiased . . .[/citation]

Technically Intel started the war and such untruthful statements could not be let unanswered

@touchdowntexas13 you have a good point

 

[Balthazar2k4]

My i7 920 @ 4ghz will easily outperform a core 2 duo at the same clock speed using the same GPU. I have a C2Q and C2D and neither come close in any game I have tried. While I agree that most games are GPU reliant, the chipset/processor/memory combination of the i7 is superior. This is simply more skewed propaganda from nVidia. I own a GTX 260 and think it is great, but I wouldn't give up my i7 for a faster GPU....

 

[The Schnoz]

There are other things to think about. If you are building a new system you would be better off buying a Core i7 just for the LGA 1366 chipset. Not only will you get triple channel memory but you will also have a new chipset which should last longer than the LGA 775. Besides, if you're going to buy a chip for $170 bucks like the E8400 you might as well get an AMD AM3 based processor like the Phenom II X4 810 which is selling for the same price, has a new chipset with longevity, and supports both ddr2 and 3. Oh, but of course Nvidia wouldn't say that because they don't have any AM3 chipsets.