Gaming performance: fewer cores w/higher clock, or more cores w/lower clock

[Kenrou]

I've always read that AMD CPU's were incredibly weak and now I believe it.

- CPU stock, TitanX overclocked

 

[magellan]

Exactly my point, there isn't a game nowadays that wouldn't run on a fast 4 core given a few programming tweaks (and a few programming lessons to the actual programmers). OFC it might change eventually as games get more photo-realistic, but personally i don't see it happening soon. You might want/need more if for example you're gaming and streaming or gaming and folding or have several monitors and always multitask.

Tried out Shadows of Mordor said to be one of the most demanding games to date, disabled HT and ran the benchmark on 1920x1080 Ultra settings with the HD addon, max 201 average 146 min 106, re-enabled HT and got around ~10 fps faster on all counts. I think i have room to wiggle if i need to multitask

- Bit outdated but workable ?

It's nice to see hyperthreading making a diff. I've read and seen gaming benchmarks that suggest hyperthreading is best left off for gaming and some say it's better left on and had evidence to support both POV's.

I've seen similar stuff in the HPC world and the basic understanding in the HPC world for grid engine frameworks is to leave hyperthreading on so the OS can use it, but exclude hyperthreading cores from usage by grid engine jobs.

 

[JrClocker]

When I game on my machine (5820 K), I have folding@home running at 7 threads with 1 more thread for the second GPU. My processor usually maxes out at 90 to 95% with 60 fps...at 5760x1080 resolution:

Witcher 3
Star Wars Battlefront
Elite Dangerous
Fallout 4
Wasteland 2

 

[Kenrou]

One game i'm very interested is Mass Effect: Andromeda, from the footage it looks BEAUTIFUL. And supposedly they guaranteed buttery smooth 60fps at 1080p max settings, i wonder if they meant AMD or Intel

http://www.gamesradar.com/mass-effect-andromeda-review/

 

[Kenrou]

Tested: How many CPU cores you really need for DirectX 12 gaming

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3039...es-you-really-need-for-directx-12-gaming.html

"I’d say for the vast majority of gamers, the sweet spot lies somewhere between a quad-core with Hyper-Threading and a six-core on the Intel side of the aisle. A Skylake Core i5-6600K will be fine for DirectX 11 games and probably the vast majority of the early DirectX 12 games, but the lack of Hyper-Threading will eventually hurt. For AMD fans, that means a six-core FX or eight-core FX part."

 

[EarthDog]

So, nothing changes. It will be a couple of years before DX12 titles start to saturate the market.

 

[mackerel]

Not sure how representative those results will be for near future games, but I find it curious that HT "cores" seem to be worth up to about 50% of a real one, which matches the best case scenario I've seen elsewhere. It also makes me wonder what type of instruction mix is used in game code. Integer performance can benefit from HT, and in theory AMD processors in general are strong there. For floating point stuff HT doesn't really help, and I've not managed to find a case to prove it will help in mixed floating/integer type scenarios.

 

[wingman99]

From the DX-12 gaming bench marks Ashes of the Singularity 15%-18% HT performance increase is not to bad for a quad core with HT.

 

[OC-NightHawk]

So, nothing changes. It will be a couple of years before DX12 titles start to saturate the market.

Change is slow. It is a death of a thousand pricks until one day the machine is simply too slow for a task. Right now I think for i5 processors with no HT they are in decline and obsolescence is imminent. They still have value but as time goes on they will simply start to feel the pressure of newer software requirements and have fully reached the state of being obsolete. This is a process that will take years.

My old Q9650@ 3GHz with 8GB DDR2 and two GTX 560TI in SLI was capable of playing games like Mass Effect 1 - 3 at 1080P High settings @30FPS. It wasn't until Dragon Age Inquisition where it started to show it's age and was utterly unable to handle the game. I'll always have a fond place in my heart for that old trooper of a machine.

 

[magellan]

It depends. In the case of X-Com a quad core with no hyper threading might struggle during moves. After monitoring the processor usage it explains the performance complaints on steam. This is probably the most CPU intensive game I have seen.

Most of the games I have run just fine on four or less cores. For these games the fastest quad core with the best graphics chips would be best. That said with games starting to come out that use 5 or more cores a quad i5 with no hyper threading will start to struggle to keep up compared to a processor that can operate more cores at once.

A well programmed game won't make a game magically work better when the processor doesn't have enough cores. Hyper Threading would help a little bit but is no substitute to actual real cores. I think we are looking at the start of the hex era.

Nighthawk I just wanted to say I'm amazed at the speeds you've realized w/your memory on your i7-5930:

CPU: Core i7-5930K @ 4.7GHz Cooled By: Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI Plus
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 32GB Quad-Channel Memory Kit @ 4800MHz (1199.2 MHz per channel)

That's faster than the memory on my old ATI 4870 and approaching the stock memory speed of my ATI (or was it AMD by then?) 6950.

What kind of latency and bandwidth do you get at those insanely high memory speeds? What kind of uncore and memory voltages did it require to get there?

 

[OC-NightHawk]

Nighthawk I just wanted to say I'm amazed at the speeds you've realized w/your memory on your i7-5930:

CPU: Core i7-5930K @ 4.7GHz Cooled By: Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI Plus
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR4-2400 32GB Quad-Channel Memory Kit @ 4800MHz (1199.2 MHz per channel)

That's faster than the memory on my old ATI 4870 and approaching the stock memory speed of my ATI (or was it AMD by then?) 6950.

What kind of latency and bandwidth do you get at those insanely high memory speeds? What kind of uncore and memory voltages did it require to get there?

It's actually the stock speed of the RAM. I haven't tried pushing the RAM any faster because it just feels so fast already. The memory is advertised as 2400 but really it is 1200 MHz per channel. Since the X99 board supports quad channel memory the budget gaming memory kit screams at ~4800MHz. It's a perk of having a X board over a mainstream Z board.

Attached is a screen shot of CPU-Z memory specs.


Edit:

Also here is the SPD tab of CPU-Z.

 

[EarthDog]

It's actually the stock speed of the RAM. I haven't tried pushing the RAM any faster because it just feels so fast already. The memory is advertised as 2400 but really it is 1200 MHz per channel. Since the X99 board supports quad channel memory the budget gaming memory kit screams at ~4800MHz. It's a perk of having a X board over a mainstream Z board.

That isn't how it works. Your Memory is running at ~1200Mhz. Because it is DDR (Double Data Rate) it is 2400MHz effective. Adding up the number of channels does not yield another jump and equal more 'effective' MHz. Channels have nothing to do with the MHz it is running be it actual or 'effective'.

Yes, you do get a lot more bandwidth, but very few things can utilize it. Quad channel compared to dual yields negligible increases in most most cases (was tested back in X79 days and X99 again).

 

[OC-NightHawk]

That isn't how it works. Your Memory is running at ~1200Mhz. Because it is DDR (Double Data Rate) it is 2400MHz effective. Adding up the number of channels does not yield another jump and equal more 'effective' MHz. Channels have nothing to do with the MHz it is running be it actual or 'effective'.

Yes, you do get a lot more bandwidth, but very few things can utilize it. Quad channel compared to dual yields negligible increases in most most cases (was tested back in X79 days and X99 again).

I can grant not many things use the extra memory speed. There are a few tools that I use that have a "how much you got" attitude. The extra speed comes in handy.

I'm not sure I follow. CPU-Z is saying that each memory stick is operating at ~1200MHz. I have 4 channels of memory. How is that not ~4800MHz when combined?

Isn't it channel speed multiplied by the number of channels?

 

[EarthDog]

Because CPUz is not saying each stick is operating at ~1200Mhz where you add them up. That is the speed ALL sticks are operating at. You do not 'add up' the speed of the sticks in each channel for a 'new' effective rate.

They are running at 1200Mhz actual, with a DDR4 rate of 2400MHz. It's effective/DDR4 rate is the same in Single/Dual/Triple/Quad channel.

Isn't it channel speed multiplied by the number of channels?

No.

 

[OC-NightHawk]

Because CPUz is not saying each stick is operating at ~1200Mhz. That is the speed ALL sticks are operating at. You do not 'add up' the speed of the sticks in each channel for an effective rate.

They are running at 1200Mhz actual, with a DDR4 rate of 2400MHz. It's effective/DDR4 rate is the same in Single/Dual/Triple/Quad channel.

I always thought the DDR was made to run in groups. Back in the days of 533MHz FSB two channels of 266MHz DDR where used to get the RAM up to 533MHz speeds to match up with the processor when in dual channel configuration.

It's rather confusing then to say that 1200MHz in Quad Channel isn't 4800MHz. I guess maybe I used the wrong term. Maybe FSB?

 

[wingman99]

Your memory works in parallel so it is a even storage in the memory banks, some what similar RAID 0. The speed of the memory is how fast it is reads and writes to the CPU on the busses..

 

[EarthDog]

I always thought the DDR was made to run in groups. Back in the days of 533MHz FSB two channels of 266MHz DDR where used to get the RAM up to 533MHz speeds to match up with the processor when in dual channel configuration.

It's rather confusing then to say that 1200MHz in Quad Channel isn't 4800MHz. I guess maybe I used the wrong term. Maybe FSB?

nope.. that's still ddr.

Fsb was 'quad pumped'. So 1333 chips ran on 333 fsb...but it has/had nothing to do with the amount of memory channels.

 

[wingman99]

A front-side bus (FSB) was a computer communication interface bus, Chip on the motherboard connecting memory to the CPU, it had the memory controller. When you raised the FSB speed the memory speed increased also.

 

[OC-NightHawk]

Your memory works in parallel so it is a even storage in the memory banks, some what similar RAID 0. The speed of the memory is how fast it is reads and writes to the CPU on the busses..

I think I see what you and Earth Dog mean. I'm sorry it confused the heck out of me but I also found this article which explained too.

So I have more bandwidth with quad channel but all of the RAM is still operating at 2400MHz. I guess at some point then I'll upgrade the RAM but it still was a nice step up from the old machine.

Sorry about all the confusion.

 

[deathman20]

My take on it and roughly ball park figures. This is for the vast majority of games coming out of larger studios. Indy games don't really fit this list.

Games 2010 and earlier seem to be more Single/Dual Threaded.
Games since 2013-2014 seem to lean more Dual/Quad Threaded.
Games starting 2016-2017 will lean more on Quad+HT (Hex/Octo Core).

If it was a console port and only for PS4/XBox One there is a higher degree it will utilize a Quad+HT (Hex/Octo Core)
The utilization of DX12 will see more Quad+HT (Hex/Octo Core) games in theory but doesn't mean it will take full advantage of all the cores.

Course even these days there are games that come out that might really only be using a single core even from larger studio's depending on what the game is and the resources it needs. Each game seems to vary but as games become more realistic and adding more and more information, features, special effects, physics, etc they seem to start utilizing more and more of what they can get.

So as of today, best bang for the buck... would be Intel Quad Core / AMD Hex/Octo Core processor with the fastest speeds you can get IMO. Soon and as people mentioned above, Intel Quad + HT will start shining even more so with more games probably in the future. You can probably start seeing more / better utilization of cores on the processor in the future thanks to at least the Consoles. There slower speed CPU's make it necessary to utilize each core it has to the fullest to get the most out of it.