The AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive: The 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600 Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 19, 2018 9:00 AM ESTRise of the Tomb Raider
One of the newest games in the gaming benchmark suite is Rise of the Tomb Raider (RoTR), developed by Crystal Dynamics, and the sequel to the popular Tomb Raider which was loved for its automated benchmark mode. But don’t let that fool you: the benchmark mode in RoTR is very much different this time around.
Visually, the previous Tomb Raider pushed realism to the limits with features such as TressFX, and the new RoTR goes one stage further when it comes to graphics fidelity. This leads to an interesting set of requirements in hardware: some sections of the game are typically GPU limited, whereas others with a lot of long-range physics can be CPU limited, depending on how the driver can translate the DirectX 12 workload.
Where the old game had one benchmark scene, the new game has three different scenes with different requirements: Geothermal Valley (1-Valley), Prophet’s Tomb (2-Prophet) and Spine of the Mountain (3-Mountain) - and we test all three. These are three scenes designed to be taken from the game, but it has been noted that scenes like 2-Prophet shown in the benchmark can be the most CPU limited elements of that entire level, and the scene shown is only a small portion of that level. Because of this, we report the results for each scene on each graphics card separately.
Graphics options for RoTR are similar to other games in this type, offering some presets or allowing the user to configure texture quality, anisotropic filter levels, shadow quality, soft shadows, occlusion, depth of field, tessellation, reflections, foliage, bloom, and features like PureHair which updates on TressFX in the previous game.
Again, we test at 1920x1080 and 4K using our native 4K displays. At 1080p we run the High preset, while at 4K we use the Medium preset which still takes a sizable hit in frame rate.
It is worth noting that RoTR is a little different to our other benchmarks in that it keeps its graphics settings in the registry rather than a standard ini file, and unlike the previous TR game the benchmark cannot be called from the command-line. Nonetheless we scripted around these issues to automate the benchmark four times and parse the results. From the frame time data, we report the averages, 99th percentiles, and our time under analysis.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
1080p
4K
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
545 Comments
View All Comments
FaultierSid - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
The question is if testing a CPU at 4K Gaming does make much sense. At 4K the bottleneck is the GPU, not the CPU, especially since they tested with a 1080 and not a 1080TI.It is not a coincidence that the cpus all are showing roundabout the same fps in the 4K tests. Civilization seems to be easier on the GPU and shows 8700K in the lead, all other games show almost same fps for all 4 tested CPUs. Thats because the fps is limited by GPU in that case, not by the CPU.
You might want to bring up the point that if you are Gaming in 4K and at highest settings, it doesn't make sense for you to look at 1080p benchmarks. And right now this might make sense, but not in a couple years when you upgrade your GPU to a faster model and the games are not GPU bottlenecked anymore. Then where you now see 60fps you might see 100 fps with an 8700K and only 80fps with the Ryzen 2600X.
Basically, testing CPUs in Gaming at a resolution that stresses out the GPU so much that the performance of the CPU becomes almost irrelevant is not the right way to judge the Gaming Performance of a CPU.
If your point is that at the time you purchase a new GPU you will also purchase a new CPU, then this might not affect you, and you decide to pick the 2700X over an 8700K because of all the advantages in other areas.
But in general, we have to admit, the crown of "best gaming CPU" is (sadly) still in Intel's Corner.
mapesdhs - Monday, May 14, 2018 - link
If all you're doing is gaming at 4K then yes, in most titles thebottleneck will be the GPU, but this is not always the case. These days live streaming on Twitch is becoming popular, and for that it really does help to have more cores; the load is pushed back onto the CPU, even when the player sees smooth updates (the viewer side experience can be bad instead). GN has done some good tests on this. Plus, some games are more reliant on CPU power for various reasons, especially the use of outdated threading mechanisms. And in time, newer games will take better advantage of more cores, especially due the compatibility with consoles.jjj - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
So what was wrong, was it HPET crippling Intel or does Intel have some kind of issue with 4 channels memory?Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
The former.risa2000 - Thursday, April 26, 2018 - link
Can you explain a bit HPET crippling? I was looking around Google, but did not find anything really conclusive.Uxot - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
So...i have 2666mhz RAM...RAM support for 2700X says 2933...what does that mean ? is 2933 the lowest ram compatibility ? FML if i cant go with 2700X bcz of ram.. -_-Maxiking - Thursday, April 26, 2018 - link
It refers to the highest OFFICIALLY supported frequency by the chipset on your mobo. You should be able to run RAM with higher clocks than 2933 but they might be issues. Because Ryzen memory support sucks. For higher clocked rams, I would check it they are on the QVL, so that way, you can be sure, they were tested with your mobo and no issues will arrise.2666mhz RAM will run without any issue on your system.
johnsmith222 - Thursday, April 26, 2018 - link
Make sure you have the newest bios update, AGESA 1.0.0.2a seems to improve memory compatibility too. My crappy kingston 2400 cl17 now works fine at 3000 cl15 1.36V. I'll try 3200 at 1.38V later.Uxot - Wednesday, April 25, 2018 - link
Ok...my comment got deleted for NO REASON...Gideon - Thursday, April 26, 2018 - link
Good work tracking down the timing issues! I know that this review is still WIP, but just noticed that the "Power Analysis" block has a "fsfasd" written right after it, that probably isn't needed :)