Choosing a Gaming CPU: Single + Multi-GPU at 1440p, April 2013
by Ian Cutress on May 8, 2013 10:00 AM ESTCivilization V
A game that has plagued my testing over the past twelve months is Civilization V. Being on the older 12.3 Catalyst drivers were somewhat of a nightmare, giving no scaling, and as a result I dropped it from my test suite after only a couple of reviews. With the later drivers used for this review, the situation has improved but only slightly, as you will see below. Civilization V seems to run into a scaling bottleneck very early on, and any additional GPU allocation only causes worse performance.
Our Civilization V testing uses Ryan’s GPU benchmark test all wrapped up in a neat batch file. We test at 1440p, and report the average frame rate of a 5 minute test.
One 7970
Civilization V is the first game where we see a gap when comparing processor families. A big part of what makes Civ5 perform at the best rates seems to be PCIe 3.0, followed by CPU performance – our PCIe 2.0 Intel processors are a little behind the PCIe 3.0 models. By virtue of not having a PCIe 3.0 AMD motherboard in for testing, the bad rap falls on AMD until PCIe 3.0 becomes part of their main game.
Two 7970s
The power of PCIe 3.0 is more apparent with two 7970 GPUs, however it is worth noting that only processors such as the i5-2500K and above have actually improved their performance with the second GPU. Everything else stays relatively similar.
Three 7970s
More cores and PCIe 3.0 are winners here, but no GPU configuration has scaled above two GPUs.
Four 7970s
Again, no scaling.
One 580
While the top end Intel processors again take the lead, an interesting point is that now we have all PCIe 2.0 values for comparison, the non-hyper threaded 2500K takes the top spot, 10% higher than the FX-8350.
Two 580s
We have another Intel/AMD split, by virtue of the fact that none of the AMD processors scaled above the first GPU. On the Intel side, you need at least an i5-2500K to see scaling, similar to what we saw with the 7970s.
Civilization V conclusion
Intel processors are the clear winner here, though not one stands out over the other. Having PCIe 3.0 seems to be the positive point for Civilization V, but in most cases scaling is still out of the window unless you have a monster machine under your belt.
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DigitalFreak - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Do people not read the article? He works with what he has on hand and what he can get access to.tackle70 - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Great article! The only gripe I would have (and yes I know the reasoning behind it is explained) is the decision not to include Crysis 3 in the testing.The reason I make that gripe is the even though it has no time demo functionality and adds more work is that it is the closest thing to a next-gen game we have right now, and it is also the *only* game I've seen that reliably eats up as much CPU power and as many cores as you give it. It would have been interesting to see it here.
SurrenderMonkey - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Core i7 860 overclocked at 3.6Ghz, GTX580 sli Pci2 x8/x8 = min 44, average 49. Final scene destroy the Ceph Alpha. No overclock on GPUs but plenty of headroom. Not scientific but would be useful to see same scene if someone has a more up to date processor.SurrenderMonkey - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
REs 1920 x 1080DigitalFreak - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Suckie suckie, two dolla?SurrenderMonkey - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Great review, the CPU has definitely become less important. I used to change my CPU around every 18 months or my system would show signs of struggling. I bought my i860 in 2009 and it is sitting alongside two GTX 580s (SLI x8/x8). Nearly four years seems like an eternity, got my first GTX580 in early 2011 is the longest I have kept with the same GPU. Shows you that games developers don't challenge the hardware like they used too.SurrenderMonkey - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
People who make comments like this do not understand that it is about making a properly balanced system so that you get maximum bang for your bucks. This takes skill and a proper understanding of hardware capabilities and technology. On a gaming system you can trade down on a processor and buy a better GPU (or an SSD or both). When you get it right you get more FPS for the same or less money, faster loading times, and have overclocking headroom to use at a later date.oSHINSAo - Thursday, May 9, 2013 - link
Well i thought my 2600k was old... but im looking is too near to 3rd gen i7 3770k ... will stick with it, and focus on getting CrossfireX config...T1K0L P0G1 - Friday, May 10, 2013 - link
EXCELLENT WORK!!!gnasen - Friday, May 10, 2013 - link
Nice article. Still missing few of the legends: Q9550, i7-920, i5-750.