It's crazy how long we've had quad-core processors, but a cheap duo core processor can perform nearly the same for most games.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Haswell E review from Anandtech: 5930K, 5960X, and 5820K
- Thread starter LordOfChaos
- Start date
Felix Lighter
Member
I'll be upgrading from an i7 930 and my thought process here is that I want a solid foundation for my new machine. I believe games will start taking better advantage of the additional cores over time just out of necessity due to current gen consoles. I wouldn't call it future proofing exactly but the CPU/MB are the components I'd like to stick with for 4-5 years. I'm also ready to just go crazy (at least for me) on my next build.
My biggest hang up right now is waiting to see how OCing goes with the 6 core variants. I'm not willing to throw away too much single threaded performance for a couple of extra cores.
My biggest hang up right now is waiting to see how OCing goes with the 6 core variants. I'm not willing to throw away too much single threaded performance for a couple of extra cores.
Zombie James
Banned
It's crazy how we'd had this super-long generation of massively parallel CPUs (six threads on the 360, six SPUs on the PS3), yet when these games get moved onto the PC they rarely, if ever, use more than two. I'm not sure what goes on in the development process, but I'd love some insight into why most games haven't moved beyond two threads on the PC.
I'm probably way wrong on this, but the 360 "only" had 3 cores, and while the PS3 had all those SPU's, my understanding is a lot of devs just moved stuff from the GPU to them, while I'm guessing that stuff stayed on the GPU for the PC versions.
Edit: The 360 had three cores, but all had hyper threading so six threads in total.
How do you know they had good threading on consoles?
There has been blame put on DirectX, but it is quite hard to program something so random to multiple threads. The PS3 also just had just one general purpose CPU.
Anyway, dat Pentium...
How do you know they had good threading on consoles?
There has been blame put on DirectX, but it is quite hard to program something so random to multiple threads. The PS3 also just had just one general purpose CPU.
Anyway, dat Pentium...
Zombie James
Banned
The 360 CPU has hyperthreading, so six threads.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
BF4 barely runs on dual core machines.
Photolysis
Banned
Can see myself picking up a 5960X when I get a new machine. I do a lot of video encoding so it would be interesting to see what Handbrake makes of it. That's also a pretty high OC they managed as well.
For a lot of parallel number crunching, it looks very good, albeit expensive.
For a lot of parallel number crunching, it looks very good, albeit expensive.
Totally.
Sure the 4790k is better, but it has twice the cores, quadruple the threads and is five times the price.
Edit: The 360 had three cores, but all had hyper threading so six threads in total.
How do you know they had good threading on consoles?
There has been blame put on DirectX, but it is quite hard to program something so random to multiple threads. The PS3 also just had just one general purpose CPU.
Anyway, dat Pentium...
How is that possible? a dual core smashing new proccesors on Dolphin? Whats the logical explanation here?
Moral Panic
Member
Not as fast as I'd expected even when overclocked.
They're overclocked. 4.3Ghz vs 4.7Ghz. Single threaded benchmark scales well with clock speed.
They're overclocked. 4.3Ghz vs 4.7Ghz. Single threaded benchmark scales well with clock speed.
The 4670K I recently bought is apparently going to last me until the end of the generation. These increases are either minimal or non-existent. 3.5 years later and the 2500k is still trucking along perfectly fine.
edit: it can't be stressed what a shame it is that Intel is pretty much running without competition in the CPU space (sorry AMD). Because this is what happens.
edit: it can't be stressed what a shame it is that Intel is pretty much running without competition in the CPU space (sorry AMD). Because this is what happens.
Felix Lighter
Member
Single thread performance due to higher clock speed.
Especially those Intel Quads with 8 threads, those i7's were a worthy buy a year ago when everyone kept saying it was a waste and an i5 would be fine...well an i5 is fine but those i7's are going to be put to good use this generation and the CPU's out now from Intel...say like the i5's and i7's from the last 3 generations to present are more than enough for this generation imho ..at least the i7's ...i just cant see my 3770k@5.0ghz with 8 threads having trouble with anything in the foreseeable future
Reallink
Member
This is why I was asking in the other recent Haswell E thread how the line typically OC's. Software that doesn't take advantage of 6 or 8 physical cores (a majority at present) will actually perform worse on the E's than Devil's Canyon for example as (based on this review and the frequencies Intel are choosing to ship with) they will probably not clock as high and/or as easily as the 4790k or 4690k. Stocks clocks would show an even larger deficit for the E's being their base and turbo frequencies are a full 1+GHz lower than the 4790k.
IcyRhythms
Member
I wonder how quickly the 5960x can render video compared to my 2600K.
LordOfChaos
Member
Sadly enough. Jaguar actually posts higher ipc than their big steamroller cores. The latter is just able to clock much higher.
Prepare to spend a lot of money. DDR4 RAM is quite expensive, too.
DDR4 isn't as bad as I feared tbh.
The price on the 5820K is better than I expected (especially the Micro Center price of $299), so I'll probably do a build with it once a good mATX option (ideally an ASUS Rampage V GENE) comes out. Wanting to go mATX does mean I basically have to go with 8GB DDR4 sticks, which is going to be a pretty penny (seems to be at least $410 for the slowest 4x8GB kits).
Not that it makes a big difference, but has anyone benchmarked it seriously? I'm curious to see how the really high CAS levels affect things.
Man, those DDR4 memory prices @_@.
But, overall it doesn't look to be that expensive to jump into this.
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jabu/saved/h4LFf7
But, overall it doesn't look to be that expensive to jump into this.
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/jabu/saved/h4LFf7
I really don't get the point of running benchmarks on games that are obviously GPU-limited before they'll be CPU-limited.
I realize that many of the big CPU-heavy games can be difficult to benchmark, but using other benchmarks doesn't prove that these are useless for gaming. It just means they lacked the capability to truly test this notion out.
I realize that many of the big CPU-heavy games can be difficult to benchmark, but using other benchmarks doesn't prove that these are useless for gaming. It just means they lacked the capability to truly test this notion out.
CrackaF3tt
Member
Oh man do I finally upgrade. Been running i7 920 for like 5 years now. Such a heater.
There's only one thread and they have the same CPU cores only the Pentium is higher clocked.
Multiple cores is like multiple people. If the task can only be performed by one person it doesn't matter how many you throw at it, only how good the person performing it is. That's why quad core phones still perform like shit.
That's about how much I paid for DDR3 RAM in late 2011, those prices
Well I think the PS3 price debacle pretty much insured it will be a cold day in hell before Intel and possibly Nvidia ever see the inside of a console again.
Any extra money going towards the hardware would be better spent on the GPU than CPU. But thats not really a discussion for this thread.
People that are interested in buying these CPU's aren't looking for 'fine'. They want the best. And despite 'the verdict' from this review, I don't think they've proven that these CPU's are no good for gaming.
TC McQueen
Member
I've heard Nvidia burned that bridge pretty well somehow, and it wasn't entirely about price.
MrCunningham
Member
That 5820k looks like it could make a good replacement for my 2500k (I would have to get a whole new mobo, but still).... tempting....
I don't blame AMD for being aggressive when it comes to getting into consoles, but nVidia were apparently messing with Microsoft during the OG Xbox days too. I just don't think they care about consoles much.
I'm simply stating that there is no benefit in dropping over 1k if you are gamer for these cpus. This is a gaming site right?
Only one of these CPU's is one grand.
And like I said, I don't think anything has been proven yet. Its entirely possible that these could be good for games still. The benchmarks don't prove anything except that they aren't great for the few specific games chosen here(which are likely GPU-limited games).
Single core performance can go down as the core count goes up. I had hoped Haswell-E was gonna be the one to rock Dolphin, but my overclocked 4670K can do 6:54 on this benchmark already.
LordOfChaos
Member
It's both funny and sad that these Intel 8 core processors at their extreme top end draw 140 watts, while AMDs octas with whopping i3 (sometimes up to i5 if well threaded apps are used) like performance draw 220.
Hey, I'm a hardware junkie and spend lots of cash on my setup (Pc Master race for life) for gaming. But if I'm going to spend 1k+ on a new board, cpu and ram, I want at least a 10% (maybe 15%) increase in fps. But hey, if your objective is to cut down encoding time, then my all means. The white x99 board from Asus is beautiful. I wanna buy it just for that.
freshVeggie
Member
I read the review on pcgamer and if they are to be believed gaming-wise 8-core cpus & ddr4 don't give meaningful performance boosts.
This is actually great news for me. I planned on building/buying my first PC this fall/winter and was constantly questioning my timing, even considering waiting +6 months for 8-cores & ddr4 to get cheaper. Since it's my first time with a PC and I have to build something that'll last me at least 4 years, I always fear making crucial misjudgments.
But as it turns out I can disregard 8-core&ddr4 for my PC, yay.
Now the question is i5 or i7? Will there be a GTX 860Ti? AMD 280X or NVDIA 860Ti?
I should go to the pc building thread more often.
This is actually great news for me. I planned on building/buying my first PC this fall/winter and was constantly questioning my timing, even considering waiting +6 months for 8-cores & ddr4 to get cheaper. Since it's my first time with a PC and I have to build something that'll last me at least 4 years, I always fear making crucial misjudgments.
But as it turns out I can disregard 8-core&ddr4 for my PC, yay.
Now the question is i5 or i7? Will there be a GTX 860Ti? AMD 280X or NVDIA 860Ti?
I should go to the pc building thread more often.
Only one of these CPU's is one grand.
And like I said, I don't think anything has been proven yet. Its entirely possible that these could be good for games still. The benchmarks don't prove anything except that they aren't great for the few specific games chosen here(which are likely GPU-limited games).
Most readers don't know how to interpret benchmarks. And sadly, many reviewers don't know how to benchmark.
Computerbase has benchmarked a set of games with GPU limitations mostly eliminated:
Insane Metal
Member
I know. I was just dreaming =P
Most readers don't know how to interpret benchmarks. And sadly, many reviewers don't know how to benchmark.
Computerbase has benchmarked a set of games with GPU limitations mostly eliminated:
Do they explain their methodology at all? Because frankly, I don't believe that, unless they were only using games which are known to use 4+ threads.
Of course they do. It's all in the article I linked. Computerbase is one of the best hardware reviewing sites around.
The titles currently included in their main game benchmark set are AC3, BF3, Borderlands 2, CoDBLOPS2, Crysis 3, F1 2012, Metro LL and Skyrim. You can see individual results for those games in the article.
Woops, I see how to navigate the site now. I was just pretty confused at first.