Phenom II 965 seems faster in some games than I7 920

[anubis44]

Hi all. I have recently been asked by a number of friends, family, etc. which CPU to with for gaming. Although my inclination was to recommend an i7 920, I came across this comparison of CPU scaling with the Radeon 5970 on Legion hardware:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=869&p=0

The gist of the article is that there is little to no difference between the i7 and the Phenom II X4 965 at clock speeds enthusiasts would actually use. (Eg. certainly not underclocked, and probably somewhat overclocked or at least at stock speeds). In fact, in a few titles, the Phenom II was slightly faster when overclocked to the same 4.0GHz clock rate as the i7! The tests were conducted at 2560x1600, so it's true that even the Radeon 5970 was maxing out its frame rates, but still, how could the Phenom II loose many benchmarks to the mighty i7 and still deliver the goods in real world games? We've all seen that the AMD path can make sense for those with modest budgets, going with lower to mid-range graphics cards, but how can the Phenom II beat the i7 with an ultra-high end graphics subsystem like the 5970? The games where the Phenom II prevailed or was equal to the i7 were: Wolfenstein (Max quality - 2560x1600), Call of Duty: Modern War 2 (DX9 - 2560x1600), Crisis (DX10, High quality - 2560x1600), Far Cry 2 (DX10, High quality - 2560x1600), Battle Forge (DX10, Max quality - 2560x1600), HAWX (DX10, Max Quality - 2560x1600).

At this point, I'm not so sure I'm going to be sending my friends and family to the Intel side for gaming. The Phenom II X4 saves them about $100 vs. the i7 920 on the CPU alone, the boards are cheaper also, and AMD doesn't seem to screw around with different sockets quite as much as Intel does, meaning your AMD mobo might just last you through another CPU revision upgrade.

Just wanted to get some intelligent input into what some of you other Sharks think about these results.

[bldegle2]

thus the reason I have stuck with AMD over the years, still dabble with the Intel stuffs, but my main rig and lappy are AMD through and through....

really can't go wrong with either.....I just like saving some hard earned for something else....

laterzzzzz...........

[taggart6]

I paid 600 for my 550BE system and I love it. I guess it didn't hurt that I could unlock all 4 cores and OC to 3.6. =)

[Un4given]

With the offloading of work to the GPU, gaming is becoming more and more dependent on the GPU, but the CPU still plays a role when games are still heavily dependent on the CPU for AI, physics, and vertices calculations.

So there are still some games that will require more CPU than others, but the difference in that respect is fading and more of what is going to be needed is at the GPU level. As the graphical intensity, graphic settings, and resolution increase, the CPU becomes less of a factor than the video card.

It is for that reason that the grandson still games just fine on an Athlon 64 X2 with 4GB RAM and a 4850 video card, and I've not bothered with upgrading from my overclocked Q6600. In fact, I just what I needed to know to move my Milkyway@Home calcs from the CPU to the GPU. Yes, I could run up to 4 separate projects at one time, but they required ~8 hours each. Moving to my GPU I complete a project about every 2.5 minutes. In the last two days I have done a 100 fold number of packets from that which I had done previously using my CPU.

Those that participate in F@H know this fact to be very true.

[Learux]

Here you go

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...u-scaling.html

[anubis44]

Here you go

www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling.html

Yes, thanks, I did see that site also. That's why I was curious about why Legion Hardware's benchmarks were showing the Phenom II keeping up in a virtual dead heat with the i7 at 3.4+Ghz speeds.

[Learux]

But wait there is more.

www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/819

[anubis44]

Thanks for that link to hardware secrets, Learux. It shows that the Phenom II and i5 are essentially neck and neck in most benchmarks, except Photoshop, DiVX encoding and WinRaR, where the i5 was faster. It also shows that when gaming with high-end graphics cards, the CPU is becoming far less important than the video subsystem. That suits me just fine. I can feel confident throwing a 5970 or two 5850s into my current rig and not worry that I'd be getting dramatically better performance with an i5 or i7.

[Nater]

except Photoshop, DiVX encoding and WinRaR

So basically except for the stuff where you really need a fast CPU? That's like saying a minivan is just as good at hauling stuff as a truck, except when you need to haul something substantial.

[taggart6]

except Photoshop, DiVX encoding and WinRaR

So basically except for the stuff where you really need a fast CPU? That's like saying a minivan is just as good at hauling stuff as a truck, except when you need to haul something substantial.

If that substantial load is once a year then its a moot point. however if you move large loads every day then it makes sense.

It's pretty much the same with the PC's intent. Sounds like Anubis is fine for his gaming rig. If he was heavy into photography or video editing then it would be a different story.

[Nater]

The point is, if you're going to bench CPUs to figure out which one performs the best, you're going to lean more heavily towards the programs that use the CPU the most.

Frames per second in a particular game is about as good a measurement of CPU performance as is the time it takes to do a bracketed HDR exposure in Photoshop a good measure of GPU performance.

Games benchmarks in CPU reviews are a vestige from a long ago time when CPUs actually really mattered for games. Not just in a 'could bottleneck your GPU' sort of way, but when they really made a difference. With the exception of a few games (Supreme Commander comes to mind) they don't anymore.

[taggart6]

The point is, if you're going to bench CPUs to figure out which one performs the best, you're going to lean more heavily towards the programs that use the CPU the most.

Frames per second in a particular game is about as good a measurement of CPU performance as is the time it takes to do a bracketed HDR exposure in Photoshop a good measure of GPU performance.

Games benchmarks in CPU reviews are a vestige from a long ago time when CPUs actually really mattered for games. Not just in a 'could bottleneck your GPU' sort of way, but when they really made a difference. With the exception of a few games (Supreme Commander comes to mind) they don't anymore.

Not really if the benchmark reflects the very environment a users wants to use it in.

No one is saying the Phenom II 965 is completely totally better then the I7 920. The only thing being said is, hey in games it seems to do as well or better.

I think a lot of gamers, such as myself, will see that and say hey I want a gaming rig at a lower cost. That looks like a great option.

I see what your saying but this thread isn't trying to argue whats the better all around chip. I think Anubis was just trying to point out that the 965 is probably a decent chip for gaming since it comes at a lower price, has potentially better upgrade ability, and offers comparable performance for games.

[anubis44]

In a nutshell, taggart6, that's exactly what I was intimating. Thank you for summarizing so succinctly. Nobody is suggesting the Phenom II is faster for the tasks that the benchmarks have clearly shown the i7's superiority. Gaming, however, is definitely one area where the verdict is far from entirely clear for me. Both the Phenom II and the i7 seem to drive the 5970 card quite similarly when you're looking at the highest resolutions. I was merely trying to understand why a chip that appears to lose benchmarks at lower resolutions actually beats the i7 in several at 2560x1600.

The answer to this question is far from obvious.

[taggart6]

In a nutshell, taggart6, that's exactly what I was intimating. Thank you for summarizing so succinctly. Nobody is suggesting the Phenom II is faster for the tasks that the benchmarks have clearly shown the i7's superiority. Gaming, however, is definitely one area where the verdict is far from entirely clear for me. Both the Phenom II and the i7 seem to drive the 5970 card quite similarly when you're looking at the highest resolutions. I was merely trying to understand why a chip that appears to lose benchmarks at lower resolutions actually beats the i7 in several at 2560x1600.

The answer to this question is far from obvious.

The answer is easy:

IT'S MAGIC!

[Nater]

No, it's not magic. It's the fact that extremely high resolutions and AA/AF levels, games are far more limited by the GPU than by the CPU.

The performance deltas here are on the order of one to three frames per second. Basically so low that you can consider it even. There is a reason why CPU tests use low resolution game runs (mainly to test the memory subsystem). As has been known, running games at the level people actually play them at has little to do with CPU performance.

Pretty much any modern CPU can easily handle any game out there. This just goes to reinforce that. If AMD's inferior Deneb chips can keep pace with Bloomfield or Lynnfield chips in gaming, but get battered badly in CPU intensive tasks, it's obvious that most games don't hit the CPU very heavily.

If you're ONLY going to be gaming and never plan to, for example, rip a DVD to H.264 or compress large .rar files, then you'd be fine with a less powerful CPU. However, if you actually do any sort of semi-productive work on your PC then you're better off with intel processors.