Choosing a Gaming CPU at 1440p: Adding in Haswell
by Ian Cutress on June 4, 2013 10:00 AM ESTHaswell Update:
Because we have only managed to get hold of the top Haswell processor thus far, it is a little difficult to see where Haswell lies. On the front of it, Haswell is more than adequate in our testing scenario for a single GPU experience and will perform as well as a mid-range CPU. It is when you start moving up into more GPUs, more demanding games and higher resolutions when the big boys start to take control.
On almost all fronts, the i7-4770K is the preferred chip over anything Sandy Bridge-E, if not by virtue of the single threaded speed it is due to the price difference. Sandy Bridge-E is still there if you need the raw CPU horsepower for other things.
Our analysis also shows that without the proper configuration in the BIOS, having a GPU at PCIe 2.0 x1 is really bad for scaling. On the ASUS Z87 Pro, the third full-length PCIe slot is at x1 bandwidth, as it shares the four PCIe lanes from the chipset with other controllers on board – if it is moved up to PCIe 2.0 x4, then the other controllers are disabled. Nonetheless, scaling at either PCIe 2.0 x1 or x4 cannot compete with a proper PCIe 3.0 x8/x4/x4 setup.
Over the course of Haswell, we will update the results as we get hold of PLX enabled motherboards for some of those x8/x8/x8/x8 layouts, and not to mention the weird looking PCIe 3.0 x8/x4/x4 + PCIe x2.0 x4 layouts seen on a couple of motherboards in our Z87 motherboard preview.
As mentioned in our last Gaming CPU testing, the results show several points worth noting.
Firstly, it is important to test both accurately, fairly, and with a good will. Choosing to perform a comparative test when misleading the audience by not understanding how it works underneath is a poor game to play. Leave the bias at home, let the results do the talking.
In three of our games, having a single GPU make almost no difference to what CPU performs the best. Civilization V was the sole exception, which also has issues scaling when you add more GPUs if you do not have the most expensive CPUs on the market. For Civilization V, I would suggest having only a single GPU and trying to get the best out of it.
In Dirt3, Sleeping Dogs and Metro2033, almost every CPU performed the same in a single GPU setup. Moving up the GPUs and Dirt 3 leaned towards PCIe 3.0 above two GPUs, Metro 2033 started to lean towards AMD GPUs and Sleeping Dogs was agnostic.
Above three GPUs, the extra horsepower from the single thread performance of an Intel CPU was starting to make sense, with as much as 70 FPS difference in Dirt 3. Sleeping Dogs was also starting to become sensitive to CPU choice.
We Know What Is Missing
As it has only been a month or so since the last Gaming CPU update, and my hands being deep in Haswell testing, new CPUs have not been streaming through the mail. However, due to suggestions from readers and a little digging, I currently have the following list to acquire and test/retest:
Celeron G1101
Celeron G1620
Pentium G2020
Pentium G6950
i3-2100
i5-3570K
i5-4570T
i5-4670K
i3-560
i5-680
i5-760
i5-860
i5-880
i7-920
i7-950
i7-980X
QX9775
Q6600
Xeon E3-1220L v2
Xeon E3-1220v2
Xeon E3-1230v2
Xeon E3-1245v2
Athlon II X2 220
Athlon II X2 250
Athlon II X2 280
Athlon II X3 425
Athlon II X3 460
Sempron 145
Phenom II X3 740
Phenom II X4 820
Phenom II X4 925
Phenom II X6 1045T
FX-4130
FX-4200
FX-4300
FX-4350
FX-6200
FX-6350
A8-5600K + Core Parking retest
A10-5800K + Core Parking retest
As you can imagine, that is quite a list, and I will be breaking it down into sections and updates for everyone.
But for now, onto our recommendations.
Recommendations for the Games Tested at 1440p/Max Settings
A CPU for Single GPU Gaming: A8-5600K + Core Parking updates
If I were gaming today on a single GPU, the A8-5600K (or non-K equivalent) would strike me as a price competitive choice for frame rates, as long as you are not a big Civilization V player and do not mind the single threaded performance. The A8-5600K scores within a percentage point or two across the board in single GPU frame rates with both a HD7970 and a GTX580, as well as feel the same in the OS as an equivalent Intel CPU. The A8-5600K will also overclock a little, giving a boost, and comes in at a stout $110, meaning that some of those $$$ can go towards a beefier GPU or an SSD. The only downside is if you are planning some heavy OS work – if the software is Piledriver-aware, all is well, although most processing is not, and perhaps an i3-3225 or FX-8350 might be worth a look.
It is possible to consider the non-IGP versions of the A8-5600K, such as the FX-4xxx variant or the Athlon X4 750K BE. But as we have not had these chips in to test, it would be unethical to suggest them without having data to back them up. Watch this space, we have processors in the list to test.
A CPU for Dual GPU Gaming: i5-2500K or FX-8350
Looking back through the results, moving to a dual GPU setup obviously has some issues. Various AMD platforms are not certified for dual NVIDIA cards for example, meaning while they may excel for AMD, you cannot recommend them for team Green. There is also the dilemma that while in certain games you can be fairly GPU limited (Metro 2033, Sleeping Dogs), there are others were having the CPU horsepower can double the frame rate (Civilization V).
After the overview, my recommendation for dual GPU gaming comes in at the feet of the i5-2500K. This recommendation may seem odd – these chips are not the latest from Intel, but chances are that pre-owned they will be hitting a nice price point, especially if/when people move over to Haswell. If you were buying new, the obvious answer would be looking at an i5-3570K on Ivy Bridge rather than the 2500K, so consider this suggestion a minimum CPU recommendation.
On the AMD side, the FX-8350 puts up a good show across most of the benchmarks, but falls spectacularly in Civilization V. If this is not the game you are aiming for and want to invest AMD, then the FX-8350 is a good choice for dual GPU gaming.
A CPU for Tri-GPU Gaming: i7-4770K with an x8/x4/x4 (AMD) or PLX (NVIDIA) motherboard
By moving up in GPU power we also have to boost the CPU power in order to see the best scaling at 1440p. It might be a sad thing to hear but the only CPUa in our testing that provide the top frame rates at this level are the top line Ivy Bridge and Haswell models. For a comparison point, the Sandy Bridge-E 6-core results were often very similar, but the price jump to such as setup is prohibitive to all but the most sturdy of wallets. Of course we would suggest Haswell over Ivy Bridge based on Haswell being that newer platform, but users who can get hold of the i7-3770K in a sale would reap the benefits.
As noted in the introduction, using 3-way on NVIDIA with Ivy Bridge/Haswell will require a PLX motherboard in order to get enough lanes to satisfy the SLI requirement of x8 minimum per CPU. This also raises the bar in terms of price, as PLX motherboards start around the $280 mark. For a 3-way AMD setup, an x8/x4/x4 enabled motherboard performs similarly to a PLX enabled one, and ahead of the slightly crippled x8/x8 + x4 variations. However investing in a PLX board would help moving to a 4-way setup should that be your intended goal. In either scenario, the i7-3770K or i7-4770K are the processors of choice from our testing suite.
A CPU for Quad-GPU Gaming: i7-3770K with a PLX motherboard
So our recommendation in four-way, based on results, would nominally be an i7-3770K. We cannot recommend the 4770K as of yet, as we have no data to back it up! Although this will be coming in the next update, and if any predictions are made, the 4770K would be the preferential chip based on single thread speed and the newer chip.
But even still, a four-way GPU configuration is for those insane few users that have both the money and the physical requirement for pixel power. We are all aware of the law of diminishing returns, and more often than not adding that fourth GPU is taking the biscuit for most resolutions. Despite this, even at 1440p, we see awesome scaling in games like Sleeping Dogs (+73% of a single card moving from three to four cards) and more recently I have seen that four-way GTX680s help give BF3 in Ultra settings a healthy 35 FPS minimum on a 4K monitor. So while four-way setups are insane, there is clearly a usage scenario where it matters to have card number four.
Our testing was pretty clear as to what CPUs are needed at 1440p with fairly powerful GPUs. While the i7-2600K was nearly there in all our benchmarks, only two sets of CPUs made sure of the highest frame rates – the i7-3770K/4770K and any six-core Sandy Bridge-E. As mentioned in the three-way conclusion, the price barrier to SB-E is a big step for most users (even if they are splashing out $1500+ on four big cards), giving the nod to an Ivy Bridge configuration. Of course that CPU will have to be paired with a PLX enabled motherboard as well.
One could argue that with overclocking the i7-2600K could come into play, and I do not doubt that is the case. People building three and four way GPU monsters are more than likely to run extra cooling and overclock. Unfortunately that adds plenty of variables and extra testing which will have to be made at a later date. For now our recommendation at stock, for 4-way at 1440p, is an i7-3770K CPU.
What We Have Not Tested
In the intro to this update, I addressed a couple of points regarding testing 1440p over 1080p, as well as reasons for not using FCAT or reporting minimum FPS. But one of the bigger issues brought up in the first Gaming CPU article comes from the multiplayer gaming perspective, when dealing with a 64-player map in BF3. This is going to be a CPU intensive situation for sure, dealing with the network interface to update the GPU and processing. The only issue from our side is repetitive testing. I focused a lot on the statistics of reporting benchmarking results, and trying to get a consistent MP environment for game testing that can be viewed at objectively is for all intents and purposes practically impossible. Sure I could play a few rounds in every configuration, but FPS numbers would be all over the place based on how the rounds went. I would not be happy on publishing such data and then basing recommendations from it.
The purpose of the data in this article is to help buying decisions based on the games at hand. As a reader who might play more strenuous games, it is clear that riding the cusp of a boundary between CPU performance might not be the best route, especially when modifications start coming into play that drag the frame rates right down, or cause more complex calculations to be performed. In that situation, it makes sense to play it safe with a more powerful processor, and as such our recommendations may not necessarily apply. The recommendations are trying to find a balance between performance, price, and the state of affairs tested in this article at the present time, and if a user knows that the future titles are going to be powerful and they need a system for the next 3-5 years, some future proofing is going to have to form part of the personal decision when it comes down to paying for hardware.
When I have friends or family who come up to me and said ‘I want to play X and have Y to spend’ (not an uncommon occurrence), I try and match what they want with their budget – gaming typically gets a big GPU to begin and then a processor to match depending on what sort of games they play. With more CPUs under our belt here at AnandTech, with an added element of understanding on where the data comes from and how it was obtained, we hope to help make such decisions.
As always, we are open to suggestions! I have had requests for Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider to be included – unfortunately each new driver update is still increasing performance for these titles, meaning that our numbers would not be relevant next quarter without a full retest. I will hopefully put them in the testing with the next driver update.
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TheJian - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
So if you take out the 1920x1200 from the steam survey (4.16 - 2.91% right?), you've written an article for ~1.25% of the world. Thanks...I always like to read about the 1% which means absolutely nothing to me and well, 98.75% of the world.WHO CARES? As hardocp showed even a Titan still can't turn on EVERY detail at even 1920x1080. I would think your main audience is the 99% with under $1000 for a video card (or worse for multigpu) and another $600-900 for a decent 1440p monitor you don't have to EBAY from some dude in Korea.
Whatever...The midpoint to you is a decimal point of users (your res is .87%, meaning NOT ONE PERCENT & far less have above that so how is that midpoint? I thought you passed MATH)?...Quit wasting time on this crap and give us FCAT data like pcper etc (who seems to be able to get fcat results into EVERY video card release article they write).
"What we see is 30.73% of gamers running at 1080p, but 4.16% of gamers are above 1080p. If that applies to all of the 4.6 million gamers currently on steam, we are talking about ~200,000 individuals with setups bigger than 1080p playing games on Steam right now, who may or may not have to run at a lower resolution to get frame rates."
That really should read ~55,000 if you take away the 2.91% that run 1920x1200. And your gaming rig is 1080p because unless you have a titan (which still has problems turning it all on MAX according to hardocp etc to remain playable) you need TWO vid cards to pull off higher than 1920x1200 without turning off details constantly. If you wanted to game on your "Korean ebay special" you would (as if I'd ever give my CC# to some DUDE in a foreign country as Ryan suggested in the 660TI comment section to me, ugh). It's simply a plug change to game then a plug change back right? Too difficult for a Doctor I guess? ;)
This article needs to be written in 3 years maybe with 14nm gpus where we might be able to run a single gpu that can turn it all on max and play above 30fps while doing it and that will still be top rung, as I really doubt maxwell will do this, I'm sure they will still be turning stuff off or down to stay above 30fps min, just as Titan has to do it for 1080p now. Raise your hand if you think a $500 maxwell card will be 2x faster than titan.
1440p yields an overall pixel count of 3,686,400 pixels for a monitor in 1440p resolution, substantially higher than the 2,073,600 pixels found on a 1080p monitor/tv etc. So since Titan is SHORT of playing ALL games maxed on 1080p we would need ~2x the power at say $500 for it to be even called anywhere NEAR mainstream at 1440p right? I don't see NV's $500 range doing 2x Titan with maxwell and that is 6-9 months away (6 for AMD volcanic, ~7-9 for NV?). Raise your hand if you call $500 mainstream...I see no hands. They may do this at 14nm for $300 but this is a long ways off right and most call $200 mainstream right? Hence I say write this in another 3yrs when the 1080p number of users in the steam survey (~31%) is actually the 1440p#. Quit writing for .87% please and quit covering for AMD with FCAT excuses. We get new ones from this site with every gpu article. The drivers changed, some snafu that invalidated all our data, not useful for this article blah blah, while everyone else seems to be able to avoid all anandtech's issues with FCAT and produce FCAT after FCAT results. Odd you are the ONLY site AMD talked too directly (which even Hilbert at Guru3d mentions...rofl). Ok, correction. IT'S NOT ODD. AMD personal attention to website=no fcat results until prototype/driver issues are fixed....simple math.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/anandtech.com#
Judging your 6 month traffic stats I'd say you'd better start writing REAL articles without slants before your traffic slides to nothing. How much more of a drop in traffic can you guys afford before you switch off the AMD love? Click the traffic stats tab. You have to be seeing this right Anand? Your traffic shows nearly in half since ~9 months ago and the 660TI stuff. :) I hope this site fixes it's direction before Volcanic & Maxwell articles. I might have to start a blog just to pick the results of those two apart along with very detailed history of the previous articles and comments sections on them. All in one spot for someone to take in at once I'm sure many would be able to do the math themselves and draw some startling conclusions about the last year on this site and how it's changed. I can't wait for Ryan's take on the 20nm chips :)
Laststop311 - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
Who actually buys a computer and does nothing but game on it every second they are on it? That's why the A8-5600k should not be the recommended cpu. Just gonna drag you down in every other thing you do with the computer. The i5-2500k should be here too. You can get them for a STEAL on ebay used I've seen them go for around 140-150. Sure you can pay 100-110 on ebay for the a8-5600k is a 40 dollar savings worth that much performance loss?TheJian - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
I didn't even go into this aspect (it's not just about gaming as you say clearly). But thanks for making the other 1/2 of my argument for me :)Your statement plus mine makes this whole article & it's conclusions ridiculous. Most people buy a PC and keep it for over 3yrs, meaning you'll be punished for a LONG time every day in everything you do (gaming, ripping, rar, photos etc etc). AMD cpu's currently suck for anyone but very poor people. Even for the poor, I'd say save for another month or two as $50-100 changes the world for years for your computing no matter what you'll use it for. Or axe your vid card for now and by a higher end intel. Survive for a bit until you can afford a card to go into your machine. AMD just isn't worth it for now on desktops. I'm an AMD fan, but the computing experience on Intel today is just better all around if you ever intend on putting in a discrete card worth over say $100 and this comment only gets worse as gpu's improve leaving your cpu behind.
You will get more cpu limited every year. Also it's much easier to change gpu's vs cpu's (which usually requires a new board for substantial gains unless you really buy on the low-end). Having said that, buying low-end haswell today gets you a broadwell upgrade later which should yield some decent gains since it's 14nm. Intel is just hard to argue against currently and that is unfortunate for AMD since the bulk of their losses is CPU related and looks to just get worse (the gpu division actually made ~15mil or so, while cpu side lost 1.18B!). Richland changes nothing here, just keeps the same audience it already had for total losses. They need a WINNER to get out of losses. Consoles may slow the bleeding some, but won't fix the losses. Steamroller better be 30-40% faster (10-20% is not enough, it will again change nothing).
firefreak111 - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
Quote: What we see is 30.73% of gamers running at 1080p, but 4.16% of gamers are above 1080p. If that applies to all of the 4.6 million gamers currently on steam, we are talking about ~200,000 individuals with setups bigger than 1080p playing games on Steam right now, who may or may not have to run at a lower resolution to get frame rates.Wrong. 2.91% is 1200p (1080p at a 16:10 ratio), which is barely higher resolution. 1.25% are truly above 1440p, a much smaller number. ~57 000 gamers compared to 1,380,000 gamers... I respect 1440p, getting a new system to play at that res, but the mainstream isn't any time soon.
I wish I could take this article seriously. You choose 4 games to recommend a CPU (Metro 2033, GPU Bound, Dirt 3, racing game focused on graphics, Civ V, which you knock off as unimportant based on FPS not turn times (which is all anyone really cares about in the late-game) and Sleeping Dogs, which is Open World but doesnt have complex scripting or AI.) and then choose AMD based on 3/4 of the games which are GPU bound and thus not favoring the faster Intel CPU's much?
FPS will only get you so far. Smoothness will be better on the faster CPU's. Anyway, most importantly, if you want to have a serious article with a good recommendation, how about testing CPU bound modern games? Shogun 2, mass AI calculations for many units combined with complex turn times (which is very important in any turn based game). Skyrim, with actually complex AI and large amounts of scripting, which uses the CPU to its utmost. Crysis 3, a good test for a balance of CPU and GPU focus. BF3 Multiplayer, which from personal experience needs a good CPU to play well.
Use Nvidia and AMD GPU's, one could favor the other leading to a better recommendation (This brand for this CPU). Civ V will see large performance gains on a Nvidia card combined with a good CPU, due to its use of deferred contexts (dx11 multithreading) and Nvidia's support of it (AMD seriously needs to step up and support it, most game engines aren't because AMD isn't. Its built into DX11, so support it AMD!).
Lastly, recommend for the mainstream. 1080p is the mainstream. Not 1440p+, which is 1.25% of steam players, 1080, which is more than 30%.
CiccioB - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
I wonder what's the meaning of conducting such a big effort like this to test CPU performances and then making all the systems GPU bottlenecked just to take into consideration 4% of the gaming population.Moreover, some test done with an "old" GTX580 which bottlenecks in those resolution quite soon.
I renew my request of updating the list of games used and using most "popular" video settings in order to make a real comparison of what a gamer may find using the usual setup it may use at home. Monitor bigger than 24" are not popular at all.
Maybe an integration with a SLI/Tri SLI setup and a 5800x resolution may be added, but surely that should not be considered the way things work normally and taken a sdefinitive benchmark results to get some obviously confusing conclusions.
An A10-xxxx is way way behind any i5 CPU, and often even behind some i3 in realgaming. I can't really understand how one can believe in such a suggestion.
I am starting to think that something else rather than objective results are being created and shown here.
TheJian - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
AMD only visited ONE website in recent history. ANANDTECH.Also note they pushed this 1440p idea when the numbers were EVEN WORSE in the 660TI article comments section (and even the articles conclusions, we're talking 9 months ago - 1440p is STILL not popular nor above it). See Ryan's exchange in that article with me. He was pushing the Korean Ebay dude then...ROFL. I pointed out then that amazon only had 2 people selling them and they had no reviews (ONE, which was likely the guy that owned the place selling it), no support page, no phone, and their website wasn't even their own domain and email was a gmail address if memory serves. Essentially giving your CC# to some dude in Korea and praying. Which another site mentioned he did pray when ordering a test unit...LOL Techreport's 1440p korean review back then if memory serves. Yet Ryan claimed everyone in the forums was doing this...Whatever... Don't even get me started on Jared's personal attack while ignoring my copious amounts of data proving Ryan's article BS even with using Ryan's own previous article's benchmarks! It's kind of hard to argue against your own data right?
I sincerely hope this site goes back to producing articles on cpu/gpu that are worthy of reading. These days all they do is hide AMD's inadequacies vs. Intel and NV. They are the only site saying things like "buy an A8-5600 for any SINGLE gpu machines"...I can't believe how far they've gone in the last 9 months. Their traffic stats show I'm not alone. The comments here show I'm not alone. AMD can't be paying them enough to throw their whole reputation down the drain. Look what the Sysmark/Bapco/Van Smith scandal did to Tomshardware (Tom even changed all his bylines to "tom's staff" or some crap like that). He had to sell at far less than the site was worth before the damage, and it took years to get back to a better reputation and wash off the stink. Heck I stopped reading in disgust for years and many IT friends did the same. I mean they were running Intel ads in AMD review articles...LOL. I think that is just wrong (the van smith stuff was just unconscionable). For those who remember Van, he still writes occasionally at brightsideofnews.com (I only recently discovered this, also writes on vanshardware but not much analysis stuff). Good to see that.
Pjotr - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
What happened to the Q9400 in the GPU charts, it's missing? No, I didn't read the full article.HappyHubris - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
I know this was addressed in the article, but no 2013 gaming part recommendation should be published based on average FPS.Any Ivy Bridge i3 mops the floor with a 5800K, and I'd imagine that Sandy-based i3s would do so even cheaper. http://techreport.com/review/23662/amd-a10-5800k-a...
Kudos on an article that includes older processors, though...it's nice to see more than 1 or 2 generations in a review.
ArXiv76 - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
Having read technical articles, white papers and tech reviews for over 25 years I can't remember ever reading a "finding perfection" examination. My hypothesis is, does there exist a CPU(all CPU's tested) to GPU(all OEM's tested) mix that is ideal. Obviously speed is king so I am thinking more from an engineering perspective.Does this exist?
Steam and EA online are both great services. If there is a service that takes away physical media it's a huge winner to me. I still have my piles Sierra game boxes stored away.
bigdisk - Wednesday, June 5, 2013 - link
Oh, Anand / Ian CutressYou really shouldn't put your benchmark title and settings within an image. You absolutely want this as text in the page for SEO.
Cheers, good article.