The AMD 2nd Gen Ryzen Deep Dive: The 2700X, 2700, 2600X, and 2600 Tested
by Ian Cutress on April 19, 2018 9:00 AM ESTGrand Theft Auto
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data.
There are no presets for the graphics options on GTA, allowing the user to adjust options such as population density and distance scaling on sliders, but others such as texture/shadow/shader/water quality from Low to Very High. Other options include MSAA, soft shadows, post effects, shadow resolution and extended draw distance options. There is a handy option at the top which shows how much video memory the options are expected to consume, with obvious repercussions if a user requests more video memory than is present on the card (although there’s no obvious indication if you have a low end GPU with lots of GPU memory, like an R7 240 4GB).
To that end, we run the benchmark at 1920x1080 using an average of Very High on the settings, and also at 4K using High on most of them. We take the average results of four runs, reporting frame rate averages, 99th percentiles, and our time under analysis.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G Performance
1080p
4K
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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 :)