Choosing a Gaming CPU October 2013: i7-4960X, i5-4670K, Nehalem and Intel Update
by Ian Cutress on October 3, 2013 10:05 AM ESTSleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is a strenuous game with a pretty hardcore benchmark that scales well with additional GPU power when SSAO is enabled. The team at Adrenaline.com.br is 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
With one AMD GPU, Sleeping Dogs is similar across the board.
Two 7970s
On dual AMD GPUs, there seems to be a little kink with those running x16+x4 lane allocations, although this is a minor difference.
Three 7970s
Between an i7-920 and an i5-4430 we get a 7 FPS difference, almost 10%, showing the change over CPU generations. In fact at this level anything above that i7-920 gives 70 FPS+, but the hex-core Ivy-E takes top spot at ~81 FPS.
One 580
0.4 FPS between Core2Duo and Haswell. For one NVIDIA GPU, CPU does not seem to matter(!)
Two 580s
Similarly with dual NVIDIA GPUs, with less than ~3% between top and bottom results.
Sleeping Dogs Conclusion
While the NVIDIA results did not change much between different CPUs, any modern processor seems to hit the high notes when it comes to multi-GPU Sleeping Dogs.
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rygaroo - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
thanks for the info!Flunk - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
I upgraded from a Q6600 last year and it really did make a difference. If you're not looking to upgrade you CPU I'd get something like a Radeon 7850 and save the rest for a full rebuild in a year or two,rygaroo - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
That sounds a pretty decent plan. Thanks for the recommendation!Felix_Ram - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link
You mean overclock an i5-2500k and job done.Scarier - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
I'm surprised many people do not use Starcraft 2 or Heart of the Swarm to benchmark CPUs more often.I've noticed a much bigger increase in that particular game going from i7 920 to 3770k.
Jaguar36 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
I'd lvoe to see some more SC2 benchmarks. Single player may not be that demanding but 4v4 with big armies will crush any CPU.Dustin Sklavos - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
The problem is that StarCraft II is threaded HORRIBLY. It's single-threaded performance or bust, and that's really easy to quantify. HotS may have been released this year, but its architecture is from 2003.althaz - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
This is absolutely correct. It can murder any CPU, but the game engine runs entirely on one core, with part of another used for a few extra things (networking, AI, etc).Flunk - Friday, October 4, 2013 - link
This is why some people who are really in to Starcraft 2 are configuring their desktops with low turbo settings on 3 cores and one very-high setting on the fourth to get that extra tiny bit of performance. I'm not too sure how well it works but some people swear by it.cbrownx88 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Starcraft2 and BF3/4 pleeease