Choosing a Gaming CPU October 2013: i7-4960X, i5-4670K, Nehalem and Intel Update
by Ian Cutress on October 3, 2013 10:05 AM ESTMetro2033
Our first analysis is with the perennial reviewers’ favorite, Metro2033. It occurs in a lot of reviews for a couple of reasons – it has a very easy to use benchmark GUI that anyone can use, and it is often very GPU limited, at least in single GPU mode. Metro2033 is a strenuous DX11 benchmark that can challenge most systems that try to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1440p with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from a second batch of 4 runs, as Metro has a tendency to inflate the scores for the first batch by up to 5%.
One 7970
Almost all our test results fall between 31-35 FPS, which technically means a 10% difference between Nehalem CPUs and the latest Intel and AMD CPUs.
Two 7970s
Doubling up to two 7970s and the Nehalems are in the ballpark of the Piledriver CPUs, but for comparison the quad core i5-4670K is similar to the full fat i7-4770K. Anything quad core and Intel, Sandy Bridge and above, hits 60 FPS average.
Three 7970s
At three GPUs we have a bit more seperation going on, with the Nehalems losing out due to IPC - only on the NF200 enabled motherboard do we get 70 FPS. There are no benefits moving to the hex-core Ivy Bridge-E i7-4960X, but the jump from 4670K to 4770K nets five FPS.
One 580
Similar to the 7970s, most modern CPUs perform the same. Beware of single core CPUs however, with the G465 not fairing well.
Two 580s
Similarly in dual NVIDIA GPU, there is not much difference - ~3 FPS at most unless you deal with dual core CPUs. Interestingly the results seem to be a little varied within that 41-44 FPS band.
Metro2033 Conclusion
In terms of single GPU, almost all the CPUs we have tested perform the same within a margin. On dual AMD GPUs we start to see a split, with the older Nehalem CPUs falling under 60 FPS. On tri-GPU setups the i5-4430 performs close to the Nehalems, and moving from 4670K to 4770K merits a jump from 72.47 FPS to 74-77, depending on lane allocation.
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warezme - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
I to invested in the venerable (speak only in awe hushed whispers), i7 920 which I promptly overclocked to 3.6Ghz. This little jewel has been going strong for Goodness almost half a decade? and stable as a rock and I notice holding it's own very well even up against the latest and greatest. This is a testament to competition and engineering when competition in the CPU arena existed. I have long switched from dual GPU's to single but dual core cards on a single fat 16x pci-e bus even though my Evga X58SLI board supports higher. I'll ride the wave one more year and see what new gear crashes in next year. Hopefully a new Nvidia architecture that will inspire me to upgrade everything.Hrel - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
"our next update will focus solely on the AMD midrange."Please don't do that. PLEASE include at least 3 Intel CPU's for comparison. It doesn't matter if the FX8320 does well in benchmarks if for another $40 bucks I can get a i54670 that runs 50% faster. These are hypothetical numbers, obviously, but then Intel will be faster. By how much matters, once you factor in price and energy draw especially.
A5 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
The old numbers will still be there for comparison. The next update is just *adding* more AMD data.just4U - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
It's hard making sense of AMD data in comparison to Intel. As near as I can tell their sitting at just beyond i7920 performance these days but /w all the new features. It gets confusing when you look at the X4 X6 older stuff though since some of that is actually faster... yet somehow only compares favorably to Intel's 9X Core2 stuff.just4U - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Why 3? The i5 entry level 4430 beats out every AMD chip on the market in most instances. Adding in more simply confuses people and adds more fodder for fanboys to fight over.. and I think it taxes the patience of most of us that already know what's what in the cpu arena.Simple rule of thumb. If your on a budget you may want to go AMD to get all the "other" bells and whistles your looking to buy or.. if you have a more to spend your starting point will be the i54430.
just4U - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Excellent article Ian, I really like the inclusion of older CPU's. It's a good basis in which to decide if it's "time" to upgrade on that front. Most of the people I know are not on the bleeding edge of technology. Many sit back in 2009 with minor updates to video and Hard Drives. Anyway.. Well done lots to sift thru.Jackie60 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
At last Anandtech is doing some meaningful second decade of 21st century testing. Well done and keep it up ffs!SolMiester - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Can someone please tell me why we are using 2+ yr old GPUs?A5 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
You could read the article.OrphanageExplosion - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Amazing data. I do wonder whether the testing at max settings is a good idea though. The variation in performance can be extreme. Just watch the Metro 2033 benchmark play out. Does that look like the kind of experience you'd want to play?Perhaps more importantly though, the arrival of next-gen console changes everything.
Did you see the news that Watch Dogs is x64 only? That's just the tip of the iceberg. Developers need to go wide to make the most out of six available Jaguar cores. Jobs-based scheduling over up to eight cores will become the norm rather than the exception. The gap between i5 vs. i7 will widen. AMD FX will suddenly become a lot more interesting.
In short order, I'd expect to see dual core CPUs and less capable quads start to look much less capable very quickly. i5 vs. i7 will see a much larger gulf in performance.
Check out the CPU data here for the Battlefield 4 beta:
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4...
The dual cores are being maxed out, FX-8350 is up there with the 3930K (!)