The Intel Core i9-9980XE CPU Review: Refresh Until it Hertz
by Ian Cutress on November 13, 2018 9:00 AM ESTGaming: Grand Theft Auto V
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).
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | Open World | Apr 2015 |
DX11 | 720p Low |
1080p High |
1440p Very High |
4K Ultra |
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All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| Game | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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coder543 - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
I think you mean that Inte's 1 or 2 cores often beat AMD's 1 or 2 cores. In benchmarks that are highly multithreaded, AMD beats Intel. Intel currently has a frequency advantage, so they win in the lightly threaded tests.coder543 - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
Intel's*AnandTech and Twitter both need an edit button.
HStewart - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
But my question in real life do you need this many core - I still think it better to have single thread core speed. I say that even as developer that uses multiple threads.GreenReaper - Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - link
Depends on what your real life is, doesn't it? That's why reviews don't have one benchmark and the final paragraph of the conclusion here emphasizes that the right processor for you depends on your workload, even *without* considering the relative prices. For many workloads none of the CPUs tested here are appropriate; a 2400G would be the most efficient, cost-effective option.twtech - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
Yes. I could use about twice this many. I also need good single-core clockspeed as well. That's why I'm eagerly anticipating the 3175x launch.bji - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
Windows is garbage. Put these chips onto a real operating system (Linux) and you will see the actual performance they are capable of without Windows holding them back. See Phoronix.twtech - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
It's nice if you have that option. Most of the time the software you run only works on certain operating systems and you don't have much choice.Lolimaster - Thursday, November 15, 2018 - link
In benchmarks where the 2950X at 1K will score similar too? What's the point?AMD top dogs are on another whole level, if you got the workload for them, take them, else 2950X.
Arbie - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
Typo - you wrote "Intel will need to up its game here to remain competitive". Should have been "Intel will need to up its marketing here to remain competitive".eva02langley - Tuesday, November 13, 2018 - link
Unfortunately, they are selling everything. I would be happy if they were not selling anything.