Phenom as good or better than Intel in gaming?

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OK, Im sure this is going to surprise a few people, and before you vote, Id ask you to have a look here http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=775&p=6 and here http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=4 I was quite surprised to see these results. We always see Intesl cpus oceed in benches, this is one of the few times we see Phenom oceed, and as you see it does quite well. I know its only 2 findings from the same site, but if anyone has other links with Phenoms being benched in gaming at a 3.0 overclock, please share, as we all know, Deneb is on its way, and the IPC seems to be 10-15% faster and higher clocks. We may see a dramatic change soon when it comes to benching games, as well see both cpu makers being included in benches in the future!

 

[BadTrip]

AMDZONE NEEDS MORE DRONES

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Youre in three threads here, all about AMD, and crapping in each one, now whos the drone. Have nothing to add here? Move on

 

[closed_deal]

Fairly interesting read, just makes me think about what actually makes any given processor/architecture good at gaming compared to synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark.

The Phenoms in those links faired equal or just below the Intel cpu's in those game benchmarks, but in synthetic benchmarks they pail in comparison. Why is that?

 

[yipsl]

Here's a look at triple core performance. It does well in Supreme Commander:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_3742726__9

It also does well in Crysis, World in Conflict and Company of Heroes:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2320536,00.asp

Not overclocked to 3.0, but it shows the architecture isn't that bad. When Deneb quads and Heka triples with L3 cache arrive at stock 2.8 and 3.0, they should do well against current Intel duals and quads, though Nehalem is supposed to fair better.

I'll see if I can overclock my triple core next weekend, but I only have a stock cooler right now. It's not a black edition (the 8850's are arriving in December with unlocked multipliers) but some sites have gotten a stable 2.7.

The Phenoms in those links faired equal or just below the Intel cpu's in those game benchmarks, but in synthetic benchmarks they pail in comparison. Why is that?

Phenom's aren't all that bad. They do better than I expected overall, which is why I stuck with an AMD platform. Look at the benchies across the board:

=on&prod[2194]=on&prod[2162]=on&prod[2163]=on&prod[2164]=on]http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/compare,836.html?prod[2193]=on&prod[2194]=on&prod[2162]=on&prod[2163]=on&prod[2164]=on

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-q3-2008/DivX-6-8-3,830.html

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Im thinking Intels SM4 , all those things are better for Intel. The arch's themselves lead to better performance in certain things/apps. Now if it came to decoding, Im thinking that Intel would have a good lead, as they always have, going back to the P4 days over the K8 series.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

If you look at the 3.0 clocking, the Phenom often wins at that speed. This holds much promise for Deneb. If we see these improvements with IPC improvements in Deneb, it will fair very well against Intel at higher clocks in gaming

 

[yomamafor1]

From the LegionHardware you posted in another thread, Phenom 9950 @ 3.0Ghz was having a hard time catching up to E6850. With the exception of Devil May Cry 4, Phenom fared poorly in all other games (in UT3 Phenom @ 3.0Ghz ran on par with Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz).

Let's take Anand's numbers.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3344&p=15

As it can be seen here, Phenom consistently performed lower than Intel's counterparts.

I think afterall it really depends on the codes. However from the looks of it, Phenom fared rather poorly on majority of the games out on the market.

 

[cal8949]

its good deal for someone that wants a budget quad core pc. you can get 2.3 ghz phenom x4 black edition with an unlocked multiplier for $120

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Thanks for the link. It appears Phenoms arent that far off at all but obviously losing to Intels cpus in most games, tho not all. Also , Id point out that the difference between a Intel dual at 3 Ghz is only 1-3 fps behind a Intel quad at the same speed in SupCom. So quads arent making a huge difference in that game. I was just surprised ti actually see Phenom do well at any testing/benching vs Intel. This makes me look forwards to Deneb and see what it brings. Im taking off my enthusiast hat here and looking at the bigger picture, which is AMDs viability . Theres some hope here and there for them, and things are getting better. Once Deneb hits, Im hoping to see them in benchmarks, as theyve been pretty much unseen, and for good reasons, and that also hurts AMD. With Deneb, this may change

 

[yomamafor1]

I agree. Although my outlook on AMD is rather pessimistic, I think we should wait until more solid benchmarks arrive.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Agreed. Just like i7, we simply dont know enough, and we know more about i7 than Deneb

 

[Onus]

Perhaps AMD will cater to niche markets with its CPUs, but put a solid GPU at every price point. I'm not worried about the viability of AMD, I just wonder how we might see their product mix shift, and where their corporate focus will be, say a year from now. I'm not at all worried, just curious.

 

[zenmaster]

OK, Im sure this is going to surprise a few people, and before you vote, Id ask you to have a look here http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=775&p=6 and here http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=4 I was quite surprised to see these results. We always see Intesl cpus oceed in benches, this is one of the few times we see Phenom oceed, and as you see it does quite well. I know its only 2 findings from the same site, but if anyone has other links with Phenoms being benched in gaming at a 3.0 overclock, please share, as we all know, Deneb is on its way, and the IPC seems to be 10-15% faster and higher clocks. We may see a dramatic change soon when it comes to benching games, as well see both cpu makers being included in benches in the future!

All this shows is that those benches hit a GPU wall.
A massive change in CPU Clocking on the Intel CPUS (3.0 vs 3.6Ghz) showed 0-1 FPS Difference.
Hence, we have hit a GPU wall.

That shows nothing about the AMD Chips being competitive.
In fact, They even point out that a Q6600 underclocked from 2.4 to 1.6 Ghz shows about the same performance.

In the text of the article, they clearly discuss the GPU limits not the CPU limits.
Other games require a strong CPU to fully match the GPU.
It depends upon the game.

 

[epsilon84]

I find Phenom gaming performance to be fairly inconsistent, in some games it matches Core 2, but falls behind in others. Overall, Core 2 is still some way ahead, and is the more consistent performer, especially considering it generally overclocks a fair bit higher than Phenom.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Well, with multithreading taking off (sarc), who knows? Looking back, their fusion ideas were a big part of their future plans. If theyve diverted from this direction, it means theyre reaching. The general direction is towards a fusion type solution, and I think thats where we should look

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Thats simply not true. You cant have it both ways. Either the games that show no cpu bottleneck, the Phenom equals or even betters the Intel solutions clock for clock, or as seen in 2 of the games, at least, theres a cpu bottleneck, as can be seen by higher clocking equals higher fps http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=10 Look here for example, whats that saying? Between 3.3 and 3.6, we see an increase of 5 fps, or close to 4% increase in fps. Reread those links

 

[the last resort]

You know, this is a huge stretch, but maybe AMD is keeping quiet about the Denebs because they have a complete jewel on their hands. Maybe they know that their processor at 3.0 GHz can completely wipe Intel's new Nehalem chip off the board. At least, what if the 3 GHz Deneb could take out every Wolfdale, regardless of speed? If I was AMD, and possibly had a jewel that Deneb could be, I'd like to be as silent as possible so not to alert the competition. Because if AMD alerted intel of this crown jewel, then maybe Intel will try harder to beat AMD. But if AMD keeps quiet, Intel will never know how fast their processors need to be to be the best. Im rooting for AMD this time around. I want to see a beast of a processor come out of their camp.

 

[alvine]

when I was doing my build (month ago) I was thinking between q6600 or amd 9850. I chosen intel cpu because I saw better overclocking potential and I have it running at 3.4ghz and this was my first overclock ever haha . Hopefully future applications will utilize 4 or more cores and by the time I will do complete upgrade (I guess 2-3years, will change gpu when they come out) there will be am3 and new intel processors with improved steppings and such. I don't know why people go for the first processors when they come out when prices will drop.

 

[epsilon84]

You know, this is a huge stretch, but maybe AMD is keeping quiet about the Denebs because they have a complete jewel on their hands. Maybe they know that their processor at 3.0 GHz can completely wipe Intel's new Nehalem chip off the board. At least, what if the 3 GHz Deneb could take out every Wolfdale, regardless of speed? If I was AMD, and possibly had a jewel that Deneb could be, I'd like to be as silent as possible so not to alert the competition. Because if AMD alerted intel of this crown jewel, then maybe Intel will try harder to beat AMD. But if AMD keeps quiet, Intel will never know how fast their processors need to be to be the best. Im rooting for AMD this time around. I want to see a beast of a processor come out of their camp.

Won't happen I'm afraid. Deneb is basically a die shrink with a larger L3 cache and perhaps some minor tweaks thrown in.

Even if Deneb is a miracle Nehalem killer, boasting about it now is hardly going to give Intel much of a heads up. It takes a LOT more than a few months to create a new CPU, look how long Intel took to make a CPU that beat K8.

 

[dokk2]

its good deal for someone that wants a budget quad core pc. you can get 2.3 ghz phenom x4 black edition with an unlocked multiplier for $120

it better be unlocked,,because 2.3ghz is too low for anything below an 8800gt,will only bottleneck the gpu[according to tom's].....

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

If its gpu bottlenecked, from what Im getting, is that Phenom performs equal, close, or maybe better, but in cpu bottlenecked games, Intel wins out, as it should be, as Intels solutions are better currently, but things like this doesnt wash well for certain people. But its true. And if AMD can pick it up some, the disparity will be so close as to not matter. Thats the thing, people want to say "cpus cant be a bottleneck" when in these benches it shows otherwise. Then they come to the conclusion where Intel generally wins in MOST benches, that AMD is totally inferior, when actually, it depends if the game is cpu limited or not, and thats all there is to it. I dont know why people think it goes both ways, the answer is obvious

 

[zenmaster]

Thats simply not true. You cant have it both ways. Either the games that show no cpu bottleneck, the Phenom equals or even betters the Intel solutions clock for clock, or as seen in 2 of the games, at least, theres a cpu bottleneck, as can be seen by higher clocking equals higher fps http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=770&p=10 Look here for example, whats that saying? Between 3.3 and 3.6, we see an increase of 5 fps, or close to 4% increase in fps. Reread those links

Pick Your Link and Analyze the Results.
Your 1st link above shows little Difference between a Q6600 underclocked to 1.6Ghz and a Q9650 Clocked to 3.6Ghz.
Hence GPU Bottleneck.

This link shows a Q6600 @ Stock 2.4 Ghz beating the 3.0Ghz OC'd Phenom by 125 Frames to 120 Frames.
This is a Quad-Core Optimized Game since you can see the 2.4Ghz Q6600 Beating a 3.0Ghz Dual Core C2D.

So you need to look at Quad vs Quad.

Since this chart shows CPU and not GPU Limits, the AMD gets trounched.
But even here we are hitting non-CPU walls with a 50% in Clock Speed frm 2.4Ghz to 3.6Ghz only shows a 10% clock increase.
It could be a GPU Limit or they could consider running their DDR2-1066 RAM at DDR2-1066 Speeds instead of the DDR2-800 Speeds as showin in the charts to see if they were hitting a memory wall.

In General, "Walls" are not Brick in nature but more like a molasses pit where things start to slow as you enter into them.
As you progress far enough into the wall, you may hit a hard limit.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Lets say this, a Inel cpu will let you jump 5feet, but a AMD only goes to 4 feet, If the game only requires 4 feet, theyll both be equal. Whereas, if the game allows for 7 feet and you have a gpu that can get there, the Intel solution will still die out at 5 feet regardless. heheh, ok so maybe its not the best way to show it, but its easy to understand, and I believe its being applied in these benches

 

[epsilon84]

If its gpu bottlenecked, from what Im getting, is that Phenom performs equal, close, or maybe better, but in cpu bottlenecked games, Intel wins out, as it should be, as Intels solutions are better currently, but things like this doesnt wash well for certain people. But its true. And if AMD can pick it up some, the disparity will be so close as to not matter. Thats the thing, people want to say "cpus cant be a bottleneck" when in these benches it shows otherwise. Then they come to the conclusion where Intel generally wins in MOST benches, that AMD is totally inferior, when actually, it depends if the game is cpu limited or not, and thats all there is to it. I dont know why people think it goes both ways, the answer is obvious

If a game is GPU bottlenecked then it doesn't really matter how the CPU performs in those games. Of course AMD performs close to Intel in those cases because CPU speed becomes irrelevant. In games where CPU speed *does* matter the faster CPU would come out on top, and in most cases it would be Intel. I fail to see how that in anyway makes Phenom a 'better' gaming CPU.