Choosing a Gaming CPU October 2013: i7-4960X, i5-4670K, Nehalem and Intel Update
by Ian Cutress on October 3, 2013 10:05 AM ESTCivilization V
A game that has plagued my testing over the past twelve months is Civilization V. Being on the older 12.3 Catalyst drivers were somewhat of a nightmare, giving no scaling, and as a result I dropped it from my test suite after only a couple of reviews. With the later drivers used for this review, the situation has improved but only slightly, as you will see below. Civilization V seems to run into a scaling bottleneck very early on, and any additional GPU allocation only causes worse performance.
Our Civilization V testing uses Ryan’s GPU benchmark test all wrapped up in a neat batch file. We test at 1440p, and report the average frame rate of a 5 minute test.
One 7970
Civ5 seems to love IPC, with our Haswell and Ivy-E CPUs all near the top. All our PCIe 3.0 combinations hit 80 FPS or above.
Two 7970s
On multiple AMD GPUs the PCIe 3.0 combiantions get the biggest boost, along with anything using a PLX or NF200 chip to boost lane allocations. There seems to be a barrier around 100-108 FPS that only Haswell and Ivy Bridge CPUs are moving over, except the one 990X result. The i7-4960X takes top spot, and the i7-920 is 45 FPS behind - almost 1/3. The i5-4430 is lower than expected, showing little scaling after the first GPU.
Three 7970s
Civ5 has terrible scaling behond one GPU let alone two, meaning most of our tri-GPU results are similar to dual GPU. Again, anything purely PCIe 3.0 seems to get the biggest boost, with the 4670K still fighting alongside the 4770K.
One 580
For a single GTX 580 the top spots above 80 FPS are all on the side of Sandy Bridge and above, with Nehalem scoring below this marker. It seems that dual core CPUs take a bashing, suggesting a quad core minimum.
Two 580s
More NVIDIA GPUs for Civ5 means more cores and more lanes where possible, with the i7-4960X taking the top spot. This is almost 40 FPS higher than the i5-4430 and the Nehalem CPUs. The 4670K doesn't miss a beat against the i7-4770K.
Civilization V Conclusion
We see some of our biggest variations in CPU performance in Civilization V, where it is clear that a modern Intel processor (Ivy/Haswell), at least quad core, is needed to get the job done for the higher frame rates. Arguably any high-end AMD processor will perform >60 FPS in our testing here as well, perhaps making the point moot. For single CPU, the i5-4430 performs well in Civ5, though in dual GPU the i5-4670K might be a better investment.
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CrystalBay - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
"Watch Dogs" coming on PC requires a octo-core or better for Ultra settings.jimhsu - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
Yes to strategy games. Supreme Commander (the original, not the horrible "2" version), 80km maps, 8 players, 2000 unit limit, replay. Stuff like that.You could also throw in some sandbox games; TES is a good choice for its many CPU constrained situations, GTA5 possibly, ... (results may vary depending on threading tweaks).
romrunning - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Why is the i3-3225 missing from most of the CPU benchmarks? From the beginning of that webpage, it doesn't appear until "Explicit Finite Difference Grid Solver (2D)".IanCutress - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
It was one of the first CPUs I tested and I only focused on the GPU results at that time - I ran my SystemCompute benchmark just to see what it was like. I have not gone back to retest as of yet, though on the platform refresh I'll make sure to add the numbers.Ian
crimson117 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
> It is possible to consider the non-IGP versions of the A8-5600K, such as the FX-4xxx variant or the Athlon X4 750K. 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.I think you should make this a priority - one could save ~$20 with the 750K, which can make a big difference on a low budget.
Kai Robinson - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Why choose the P965 chipset for an LGA775 motherboard, instead of the P35 or P45 chipsets? And why no mention of the Q9650?DanNeely - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
For something that old testing came down to what Ian and the hardware vendors were able to scavenge up. A 965 and 9400 on the shelf somewhere beat a p45 and 9650 that need bought.cosminmcm - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
No, it doesn't. That processor (low frequency, half the cache) on that motherboard (no pcie 2.0) really doesn't do Core 2 Quad justice. A top model would probably beat (in my opinion it would certainly beat) similarly clocked Phenom 2 processors and be higher on the ladder.beggerking@yahoo.com - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
thats surprising... after all these years, i5-2500k still is a beast of a CPU...dishayu - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
"all these" = 2.