Choosing a Gaming CPU at 1440p: Adding in Haswell
by Ian Cutress on June 4, 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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
116 Comments
View All Comments
TheJian - Sunday, June 9, 2013 - link
The comparison doesn't make sense. This is about making false claims and misrepresenting data. What does that have to do with linux? Come back when you have a decent argument about the data in question here.UltraTech79 - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
Thats a pretty shitty point.Jon Irenicus - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - link
who cares what most of the market has, 1440p monitors are in the 300 dollar range from the korean ebay sellers, just because a bunch of no nothings did not get the memo and get one of those better monitors and spent all their cash upgrading their cpu/gpus with their crap 1080p monitors does not mean reviews should not focus on where people SHOULD go.1080p is a garbage resolution for large displays when you have easy and CHEAP access to 1440p. I got one of those monitors, it's beautiful. The problem is not the 4% that are higher than 1080/1200p, is the rest of you who are too cpu focused to get a better monitor.
I mean jesus people, you sit and stare at that thing ALL DAMN DAY, and people actually spend HUNDREDS of dollars on multi gpu setups and high end cpus to game at 1080p... it's submental. YOU and others need to stop complaining about a lack of focus on 1080p, and get on board the 1440p train. You don't have that? well get it, stop lagging, you are choosing an inferior setup and complaining to anandtech because they chose not to focus on your crap resolution monitor?
It's almost as if you specifically cripple your gaming resolution just so you can feel more satisfied at how much faster the intel cpus beat out the amds. Well, you're right, they do, and you still chose an inferior gaming resolution, stop living in the ghetto of the pc gaming world and move higher.
UltraTech79 - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
I stopped reading at "no nothings". Lol what a ranting lunatic.metasyStratS - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
"This is another attempt at covering for AMD and trying to help them sell products... Anandtech is MISLEADING you at best by showing a resolution higher than 98.75% of us are using and tapping out the single gpu..."You could also easily argue that the article is helping to sell Intel's 4770K, providing data that misleadingly (though not falsely) indicates the superiority of the 4770K over the 2500K/3770K group.
For the majority gamers, it is indeed misleading to focus on 1440p only. For a good number, it is also misleading to focus only on stock clocks.
As you point out, at 1080p, overclocking does help (though the benefit has to be weighed against the cost of upgraded cooling). As as others in forums have pointed out, 2700K vs. 3770K is roughly equal: with any given aftermarket cooler, a 3770K at 'Maximum Stable Overclock' will have roughly the same performance as a 2700K at 'Maximum Stable Overclock', will run hotter than a 2700K, but will consume less energy, and so on...
On the other hand, preliminary indications are that for the majority of overclockers (those who do not want to spend as much for a custom water-cooling loop as for the CPU itself), a 4770K is a worse bet, as it apparently runs hotter than even the 3770K, and the gains in 'Instructions per Clock' likely do not make up for what would thus be a reduced 'Maximum Stable Overclock.' See here: http://forums.pureoverclock.com/cpu-overclocking/2...
In short: CPU overclocking yields a tangible benefit for 1080p gamers, and for the majority of CPU Overclockers (those who do not want to spend as much for a custom water-cooling loop as for the CPU itself), the 4770K appears to be something LESS than a 3770K or 2700K.
TheJian - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
I didn't say anything about overclocking. Maybe one of the quotes did? My statements are pure chip to chip, no overclocking discussed. Maybe you were replying to someone else?The article is isn't helping to sell 4770k's when he says single gpu owners (98% according to steampowered survey) can play fine on a A8-5600. Single GPU owners again, according to the survey are NOT running above 1920x1200. So AMD gets killed unless you pull a stunt like anandtech did here as the benchmarks in the links I pointed to show.
I did not point out overclocking at 1080p helps. I made no statement regarding overclocking, but Intel wins that anyway.
Obsoleet - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
DOWN WITH THE 1.25%!!Calinou__ - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
Fun fact: the A10-5800K's upside is its IGP, not the processor part.If you want to do gaming with an AMD CPU you better pick a FX-6xxx or a FX-8xxx.
leon park - Saturday, November 14, 2020 - link
<a href="https://getmecrack.com/simplify3d-torrent-license-... Simplify 3D Torrent </a>Have You Seen These Amazing Links Check it out Please
<a href="https://portabledownloads.com/autodesk-3ds-max-202... Auto Desk 3ds </a>
dishayu - Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - link
I'm sorry if i missed this info while reading but does Haswell come with dual link DVI support? You know, so that i can drive my 1440p displays for everyday usage, since i don't game all that much.