Whats the difference? i3, i5, i7

[foothead]

It also wins in L4D @2560x1600. I wouldn't really call that a fair comparison though. I will try to find one that is better.

Still looking. I saw an article with a 5970 a while back where the 965 beat the 920 in almost everything.

 

[Remeniz]

Check this...

With gaming it seems that the two are pretty much similar.

 

[foothead]

Just found it. At 4.0 GHz, PII won in Wolfenstein, Modern Warfare 2, Farcry 2 (Major surprise), Battle Forge, H.A.W.X.

Tie in Crysis Warhead

i7 won in Batman AA (duh), L4D2 (again, duh), Company of Heroes: Opposing Forces

This is what I was talking about. High resolution, AA, AF, high powered video card. Basically high end gaming situations.

Source: http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/cpu_scaling_with_the_radeon_hd_5970,1.html

Sorry guys, Phenom II is the clear winner here.

 

[Mutant Corn]

The PII is most certainly NOT the clear winner there. That test proves fairly decisively that the i7 is better in games that aren't GPU limited, and that AMD's chipset is only slightly less of a bottleneck than Intel's.

 

[foothead]

You call a HD 5970 GPU limited?

The i7 won in the games that have heavy physics implementations. Of course it would win in that, but as far as regular gaming, or if you were to game with a physics card, the phenom II wins.

 

[Mutant Corn]

You call a HD 5970 GPU limited?

The i7 won in the games that have heavy physics implementations. Of course it would win in that, but as far as regular gaming, or if you were to game with a physics card, the phenom II wins.

Yes, I do.

Let's look at the individual games, shall we?

First up- Batman AA

Both games show a slow but steady climb as the clocks rise, with the i7 taking the lead the entire way. However, the increase in FPS is out of proportion with the clock increase. This game is GPU bottlenecked, but the i7 is able to push keep the lead. Like you said, most likely by handling the physics calculations better.

Next is Left 4 Dead 2

This is pretty much the same situation, though if you'll notice, the PII has a much higher increase in performance before it hits the GPU wall. The i7 is bottlenecked from the start, for the most part.

Modern Warfare 2

The i7 is very obviously GPU bottlenecked early on here, while the PII is slower until 3.8GHz, and only pulls ahead by 3 at 4GHz. The i7 at 3GHz has the same performance as the PII at 3.8GHz. The i7 is decisively faster in this game.

Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts

Same situation. The i7 is bottlenecked early on, while the Phenom II has some headroom. It eventually hits the wall as well, though. The big difference here is that the i7 at 2.4GHz is still faster than the Phenom II at 4GHz. Again, the i7 stomps it.

Crysis Warhead

Yet again, both CPU's hit a GPU wall. The i7 at 2.6GHz matches the Phenom II at 4GHz.

cont....

 

[Mutant Corn]

...cont

Far Cry 2

This one is GPU limited from the get-go. The i7 is faster at first, but between 2.0 and 2.6 GHz it gains 3 fps, and doesn't gain any more. The PII matches it at 2.6, and gains another 3 fps. Yet another GPU limited game.

Battleforge

The i7 shows no improvement from 2GHz to 4GHz, while the PII shows a 17% gain, mostly from the beginning. The i7 at 2GHz in only 1FPS slower than the PII at 4GHz, and matches it at 3.4GHz.

Wolfenstein and H.A.W.X. are very much GPU bottlenecked, though the PII's chipset proves to allow a little more performance. HT>QPI I suppose.

 

[foothead]

Of course at low clock speeds, the i7 is going to win. It has eight threads, while the Phenom II has four, among major architectural differences. That really isn't the question though, because nobody with a 5970 is running them below 4GHz, that I have seen.

Basically, in a real life situation, the Phenom II does beat the i7, no matter the reason. And with eyefinity setups, and multi-cards, it actually wins by more, not less. No I can't find a controlled benchmark to prove this, it's just what I have seen.

 

[Mutant Corn]

The point was not that the i7 wins at lower speeds, but that it shows an obvious bottleneck, as does the PII. With a better GPU, the i7 would still win at higher clock speeds as well. And you can't discount the places where the i7 wins even at a MUCH lower clock speed.

Also, when the PII wins, it's by a maximum of 3FPS. For most of these games, it comes down to which chipset is better..the CPU's have little to do with it. That would still hold true in CFX setups. What this test has proved is that the 790FX chipset is ever-so-slightly better than the X58 for gaming.

 

[foothead]

True.... true....

I still think that the Phenom II would probably stay pretty even with it.

I saw someone with 2x 5970 and a PII @4.6GHz on OCN posting game benches a while back, and it showed no sign of being bottlenecked. Except for Vantage, scores were pretty consistent with 2x 5970 and i7 rigs.

Basically, I don't thing there are cards powerful enough for that until next generation.