Alien: Isolation

If first person survival mixed with horror is your sort of thing, then Alien: Isolation, based off of the Alien franchise, should be an interesting title. Developed by The Creative Assembly and released in October 2014, Alien: Isolation has won numerous awards from Game Of The Year to several top 10s/25s and Best Horror titles, ratcheting up over a million sales by February 2015. Alien: Isolation uses a custom built engine which includes dynamic sound effects and should be fully multi-core enabled.

Alien Isolation on ASUS GTX 980 Strix 4GB ($560)

Alien Isolation on MSI R9 290X Gaming LE 4GB ($380)

Alien Isolation on MSI GTX 770 Lightning 2GB ($245)

Alien Isolation on MSI R9 285 Gaming 2GB ($240)

Alien Isolation on Integrated Graphics

Aside from a small dip by the Core i7-2600K when using the R9 285, the i3-7350K matches the other CPUs in Alien Isolation.

Legacy and Synthetic Tests Gaming: Total War: Attila
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  • cknobman - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    I definitely think they should have at least included those results.
  • fanofanand - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Some people purchase a "K" processor for the binning, not to overclock it.
  • JackNSally - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Ok. So exclude those that buy it to overclock?
  • fanofanand - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link

    I was responding to the comment saying the only reason to get a k was to overclock.
  • WithoutWeakness - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Absolutely should have included overclocking. Sandy Bridge chips had very conservative stock clocks and great overclocking potential. At the time you were almost guaranteed 4.4GHz-4.7GHz on air and and there were lucky users reaching 4.8-5GHz (and more under water). My 2600K has been running stable at 4.6GHz (a 35% overclock) for six years now at 1.35v. Those single-threaded charts would look much different if you included overclocks and the multi-threaded charts would seriously widen the gap.

    I'm glad Intel has opened the gates for overclocking i3's but this review really just shows how small Intel's gains have been in the last six years. I'm hoping Ryzen brings some serious performance to the table (especially at the high end) and lights a fire under Intel's asses. Better iGPUs and lower power consumption are great for laptops and and basic users's needs but there has been no innovation in the HEDT market for many years unless you're willing to shell out $1700 for the 10-core Extreme Edition.
  • CaedenV - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Yep! Sandy Bridge was/is good tech!
    I got the non-K i7 Sandy Bridge, and even that overclocked easy to 4.2GHz. It was an artificial limit, but I didn't need to spend the $50 premium to get a potential 3-500MHz out of it. Been humming along for 6 years now and hasn't missed a beat!
    At this rate I will probably be 'upgrading' my game rig to a tiny little i3, and recycling my i7 as a home server for storage and VMs.
  • eldakka - Sunday, February 5, 2017 - link

    "(and more under water)"

    Shocking.
  • dragosmp - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Agreed, Ian might have posted them. Still, read between the lines: there is a statement the 2600K does 4.8-5GHz. At 20% higher clock speed, the 2600K destroys the OCed i3 7350K, no contest. It may consume 4x the power, but dunno, do you care when the GPU consumes 5x more anyway?
  • CaedenV - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Ya, not too useful on the gaming charts as even the non-K chips kept up with the GPUs just fine. But getting to see what it does for productivity tasks would be interesting.
    Actually, stock vs OC i3, i5, i7, and i7 Sandy would be very interesting to me.
  • dave_the_nerd - Friday, February 3, 2017 - link

    Too much individual variation. Non-overclocked performance is the guarantee. Everything else is up to chance in the silicon lottery.

    Also potential for abuse: say, the manufacturer sends reviewers some golden sample that hits 5.1GHz on air. Hah! GPU makers used to pull stunts like that.

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