Gaming: Shadow of War

Next up is Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Developed by Monolith, whose last hit was arguably F.E.A.R., Shadow of Mordor returned them to the spotlight with an innovative NPC rival generation and interaction system called the Nemesis System, along with a storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, and making it work on a highly modified engine that originally powered F.E.A.R. in 2005.

Using the new LithTech Firebird engine, Shadow of War improves on the detail and complexity, and with free add-on high-resolution texture packs, offers itself as a good example of getting the most graphics out of an engine that may not be bleeding edge. Shadow of War also supports HDR (HDR10).

AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List
Game Genre Release API IGP Low Med High
Shadow of War Action / RPG Sep 2017 DX11 720p Ultra 1080p Ultra 4K High 8K High

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Shadow of War IGP Low Medium High
Average FPS

Shadow of War is another game where it’s hard to tease out CPU limitations under reasonable game settings. Even 1080p Ultra is a bunch of Intel CPUs seeing who can tip-toe over 100fps, with AMD right on their tail. The less reasonable 720p Ultra pushes this back slightly – the CPUs with the weakest per-thread performance start to fall behind – but it’s still a tight pack for all of the Coffee Lake CPUs. With the highest frequencies and tied for the most cores among the desktop processors here, it’s clear that the 9900K is going to be the strongest contender. But this isn’t a game that can benefit from that performance right now.

Gaming: Final Fantasy XV Gaming: Civilization 6 (DX12)
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  • DominionSeraph - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    The 8700k is also pulling 150W while the 8086k is 95W. Something's not right there.
  • _mat - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link

    There can be two reasons why that is the case:

    1) The mainboard settings for Power Limits were different.
    2) The 8086K ran into Power Limit 1 while the 8700K was not.

    Whatever is the case here, it is no doubt that the 8086K did run into Power Limit 1 after the "Time Above PL1" (= power budget) was depleted. The 95 Watts are exactly the specified TDP of the CPU and Intel recommends this as Power Limit 1 value.

    So the problem here is that the Power Limits and Current Limits of the mainboard are not properly documented and seem to differ between the test candidates. While the 8086K obviously had Power Limits in place, the 9th gen CPUs were benched with no limits at all (only temperature limit at 100 °C on a core).

    Also, the whole page on power consumption needs rework. The TDP does matter depending on the board and its default settings.
  • ballsystemlord - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    Ian! Many of your tests ( Y-Cruncher multithreaded, apptimer, FCAT - ROTR, WinRAR ), are taking too short of a time. You need some differentiation here! Please make them harder.
  • R0H1T - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    >In case the previous comment was missed.

    I see that the last few pages have included a note about Z390 used because the Z370 board was over-volting the chip? Yet on the Overclocking page we see the Z370 listed with max CPU package power at 168 Watts? Could you list the (default) auto voltage applied by the Asrock Z370 & if appropriate update the charts on OCing page with the Z390 as well?
  • mapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    "Intel has promised that its 10nm manufacturing process will ramp through 2019, ..."

    Ian, what promises did Intel make 2 years ago about what they would be supplying now?
  • eastcoast_pete - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    My guess is that Intel is now printing those promises in 10 nm font size (easily readable with a standard electron microscope). See, they moved to 10 nm by 2018!
  • ballsystemlord - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    Actually, fonts are measured in points. So, it's 10pt, and it's rather legible.
    But, as for products, I don't see any either.
  • darkos - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link

    nice review, but: please add a flight simulation such as x-plane and prepar3d or fsx. this is an area that is sadly, missing from your reviews.
  • kasboh - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link

    Do I see it correctly that there is little benefit of HyperThreading with 8 core CPUs?
  • eXterminuss - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link

    I am quiet shocked to see that Anandtech is using a vastly outdated and in parts plainly wrong description for World of tanks:
    1. The enCore engine ist being used in world of tanks for quiet a while now (10 month)
    2.World of tanks is a free to play game, no elements hiden behind a paywall, e. g. no more features for a paying customer than for a freelooter.
    3. Since the outadted EnCore benchmark was used, i would have at least expected to see the Results of that benchmark being posted aswell.
    Sincerly yours,
    eXterminuss a World of Tanks Player

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