Choosing a Gaming CPU: Single + Multi-GPU at 1440p, April 2013
by Ian Cutress on May 8, 2013 10:00 AM ESTSleeping Dogs
While not necessarily a game on everybody’s lips, Sleeping Dogs is a strenuous game with a pretty hardcore benchmark that scales well with additional GPU power. The team over at Adrenaline.com.br are supreme for making an easy to use benchmark GUI, allowing a numpty like me to charge ahead with a set of four 1440p runs with maximum graphical settings.
One 7970
Sleeping Dogs seems to tax the CPU so little that the only CPU that falls behind by the smallest of margins is an E6400 (and the G465 which would not run the benchmark). Intel visually takes all the top spots, but AMD is all in the mix with less than 0.5 FPS splitting an X2-555 BE and an i7-3770K.
Two 7970s
A split starts to develop between Intel and AMD again, although you would be hard pressed to choose between the CPUs as everything above an i3-3225 scores 50-56 FPS. The X2-555 BE unfortunately drops off, suggesting that Sleeping Dogs is a fan of the cores and this little CPU is a lacking.
Three 7970s
At three GPUs the gap is there, with the best Intel processors over 10% ahead of the best AMD. Neither PCIe lane allocation or memory seems to be playing a part, just a case of threads then single thread performance.
Four 7970s
Despite our Beast machine having double the threads, an i7-3960X in PCIe 3.0 mode takes top spot.
It is worth noting the scaling in Sleeping Dogs. The i7-3960X moved from 28.2 -> 56.23 -> 80.85 -> 101.15 FPS, achieving +71% increase of a single card moving from 3 to 4. This speaks of a well written game more than anything.
One 580
There is almost nothing to separate every CPU when using a single GTX 580.
Two 580s
Same thing with two GTX 580s – even an X2-555 BE is within 1 FPS (3%) of an i7-3960X.
Sleeping Dogs Conclusion
Due to the successful scaling and GPU limited nature of Sleeping Dogs, almost any CPU you throw at it will get the same result. When you move into three GPUs or more territory, it seems that having the single thread CPU speed of an Intel processor gets a few more FPS at the end of the day.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
242 Comments
View All Comments
creed3020 - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Yeah I find it strange to go with GCN on the AMD side but then use Fermi on the NVIDIA side. Kepler would have been a better match.tedders - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
I would also like to see a AMD Phenom II X3 720BE. That processor was very popular back in the day but also has pretty good OC capability. I am getting ready to build a new machine and I'd like to see how my current setup would compare to newer Piledriver and Haswell chips. Great review BTW!aznchum - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
A reference Geforce GTX 580 should have 1.5 GB of RAM, not 2GB. Minor typo :P.kyuu - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
Seriously Anand, people like this are why we need an ignore/block function for the comment threads.calyth - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
Got a link for the core parking updates?Kogies - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Try these, I think they will be the ones!http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2646060
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645594
Stuka87 - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
Uhm, did you not just read this article? Unless you are running multi-GPU's AMD's CPU are fine. With the exception of Civ5 which is CPU bound. But outside of that one case, saving $150 by buying an AMD makes a lot of sense. Especially if it allows you to put that money into a better GPU.silverblue - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
It's sans2212. He popped up again the other day on Toms Hardware. Ignore it.Xistence - Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - link
You are wrong sir, there are WAY more cpu bound games than you think, almost any MMO will fall into this category, Skyrim is another one and most games that only use one or two cores, sadly this is alot of games. Trust me I love AMD and have used them for years but after upgrading everything I was still getting poor performance in most of the games I play. I broke down and bought a 2600k after a lot of research and wow was it an improvement over my 1100t (6 core amd)Its sites like this and slanted test like these that kept me with AMD for years, glad I finally figured it out and still hold out hope AMD will improve their IPC along with future games using more cores properly.
rpsgc - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - link
Can you please ban this 'Intellover' troll?