The AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive: The 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600 Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 19, 2018 9:00 AM ESTCivilization 6
First up in our CPU gaming tests is Civilization 6. Originally penned by Sid Meier and his team, the Civ series of turn-based strategy games are a cult classic, and many an excuse for an all-nighter trying to get Gandhi to declare war on you due to an integer overflow. Truth be told I never actually played the first version, but every edition from the second to the sixth, including the fourth as voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy, it a game that is easy to pick up, but hard to master.
Benchmarking Civilization has always been somewhat of an oxymoron – for a turn based strategy game, the frame rate is not necessarily the important thing here and even in the right mood, something as low as 5 frames per second can be enough. With Civilization 6 however, Firaxis went hardcore on visual fidelity, trying to pull you into the game. As a result, Civilization can taxing on graphics and CPUs as we crank up the details, especially in DirectX 12.
Perhaps a more poignant benchmark would be during the late game, when in the older versions of Civilization it could take 20 minutes to cycle around the AI players before the human regained control. The new version of Civilization has an integrated ‘AI Benchmark’, although it is not currently part of our benchmark portfolio yet, due to technical reasons which we are trying to solve. Instead, we run the graphics test, which provides an example of a mid-game setup at our settings.
At both 1920x1080 and 4K resolutions, we run the same settings. Civilization 6 has sliders for MSAA, Performance Impact and Memory Impact. The latter two refer to detail and texture size respectively, and are rated between 0 (lowest) to 5 (extreme). We run our Civ6 benchmark in position four for performance (ultra) and 0 on memory, with MSAA set to 2x.
For reviews where we include 8K and 16K benchmarks (Civ6 allows us to benchmark extreme resolutions on any monitor) on our GTX 1080, we run the 8K tests similar to the 4K tests, but the 16K tests are set to the lowest option for Performance.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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danjw - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
They Anandtech used the rated speeds that the processors were stated to support by the manufactures. Anandtech, is using everything at stock. Anandtech ran all the processors through fully patched systems (both bios and OS). Not every website other tests to these same methodology. So, there will be differences in their results. None the less, Anandtech, is auditing their results to double check them. I really don't think they are going to see anything wrong. Toms, ran their Intel parts without the latest bios updates. Others overclocked their systems.Most users do not overclock their systems. Sure, a lot of us readers do, but not everyone. I overclock my systems, but, my two brothers who are both just as technical as I am, do not. It is a choice some make and others do not. The majority of users do not overclock. So, Anandtech does not overclock in their most reviews. They have at times in the past and may in the future include overclocking results in reviews, but they have are always broken out the overclocking results in a separate section and/or labeled the overclocked results to differentiate them from the standard clocked results. These are editorial choices that Anandtech makes, I don't see any problem with that.
Luckz - Monday, April 23, 2018 - link
Intel for some reason have 4 memory sticks. Weird idea.werpu - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
Well the main difference is they tested against fully meltdown and specte patched systems, which in fact is the norm, while all other reviewers simply tested against bare metal. It is known that Intel took a pretty serious hit especially with Meltdown and a more serious hit with Spectre compared to AMD which did not have meltdown at all and to a lesser degree Spectre than Intel did.I would say Anandtechs tests are spot on.
And this reflects the sad state of nowadays performance testing which seems to be done to 99.9% by incompetent idiots or fanboys (especially the youtubers are the worst)
However in extreme situations Intel again wins since the 8700k can be oced by decapping and good cooling to 5GHz while the OC capabilities of the 2700x are basically non existent. It really depends, which is better. But the performance gap is closing and in non OCed system it is not existent anymore. It will be interesting next year when AMD has moved to 7nm while Intel still will be stuck at 10nm which they currently try to pull it but not have yet managed. Then the game might be entirely reversed.
Alphasoldier - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
Unfortunatelly, you are the only idiot and fanboy here. Pretty much everyone stated in their reviews, the system were fully patched, all cpus were reused and everything was retested, because AMD fanboys were screaming Meltdown here, Spectre there.Now, the internet is full of this garbage review, it spreads like cancer, because AMD fanboys have nothing better to do, once again they are disappointed that 6 cores from Intel outperformed 8 cores from AMD and they are now like the Liverpool fans repeating "The next year will be ours"
But at least they got some fancy RBG cooler.
Fallen Kell - Friday, April 20, 2018 - link
Alphasoldier, I've been reading the reviews, and while many have stated they have applied the software (OS) patches, very few have stated they applied both the software and BIOS patches for the Spectre variant 2. Thew few places that I have seen which have stated both the software and BIOS patches were applied all seem to be showing much more similar results as the AT article.In anycase, Ryan stated they are looking into it, and I am certain we will see an update within the next few days. And don't come saying that I am a AMD fanboi, I havn't purchased a AMD CPU since the Thunderbird (i.e. a slot A CPU).
mapesdhs - Saturday, April 21, 2018 - link
werpu, oc an 8700K to 5GHz? Makes me laugh that a 300MHz bump over a CPU's max single core turbo is even called an oc these days. Sheesh, it's a far cry from the days of SB, oc hardly seems worth bothering with now.mkaibear - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
It's here, it's here!Dr. Swag - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
What is with the gaming benchmarks? On your tests the whole ryzen 2 series is a step above everything else, but all other reviews show it between ryzen and coffee lake...fallaha56 - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
This is the Spectre2 patch effectNot looking great for Intel and HFR gaming
Ryan Smith - Thursday, April 19, 2018 - link
"What is with the gaming benchmarks?"We're looking into it right now. Some of these results weren't in until very recently, so we're going back and doing some additional validation and logging to see if we can get to the bottom of this.