Choosing a Gaming CPU October 2013: i7-4960X, i5-4670K, Nehalem and Intel Update
by Ian Cutress on October 3, 2013 10:05 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
Civ5 seems to love IPC, with our Haswell and Ivy-E CPUs all near the top. All our PCIe 3.0 combinations hit 80 FPS or above.
Two 7970s
On multiple AMD GPUs the PCIe 3.0 combiantions get the biggest boost, along with anything using a PLX or NF200 chip to boost lane allocations. There seems to be a barrier around 100-108 FPS that only Haswell and Ivy Bridge CPUs are moving over, except the one 990X result. The i7-4960X takes top spot, and the i7-920 is 45 FPS behind - almost 1/3. The i5-4430 is lower than expected, showing little scaling after the first GPU.
Three 7970s
Civ5 has terrible scaling behond one GPU let alone two, meaning most of our tri-GPU results are similar to dual GPU. Again, anything purely PCIe 3.0 seems to get the biggest boost, with the 4670K still fighting alongside the 4770K.
One 580
For a single GTX 580 the top spots above 80 FPS are all on the side of Sandy Bridge and above, with Nehalem scoring below this marker. It seems that dual core CPUs take a bashing, suggesting a quad core minimum.
Two 580s
More NVIDIA GPUs for Civ5 means more cores and more lanes where possible, with the i7-4960X taking the top spot. This is almost 40 FPS higher than the i5-4430 and the Nehalem CPUs. The 4670K doesn't miss a beat against the i7-4770K.
Civilization V Conclusion
We see some of our biggest variations in CPU performance in Civilization V, where it is clear that a modern Intel processor (Ivy/Haswell), at least quad core, is needed to get the job done for the higher frame rates. Arguably any high-end AMD processor will perform >60 FPS in our testing here as well, perhaps making the point moot. For single CPU, the i5-4430 performs well in Civ5, though in dual GPU the i5-4670K might be a better investment.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
137 Comments
View All Comments
warezme - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
I to invested in the venerable (speak only in awe hushed whispers), i7 920 which I promptly overclocked to 3.6Ghz. This little jewel has been going strong for Goodness almost half a decade? and stable as a rock and I notice holding it's own very well even up against the latest and greatest. This is a testament to competition and engineering when competition in the CPU arena existed. I have long switched from dual GPU's to single but dual core cards on a single fat 16x pci-e bus even though my Evga X58SLI board supports higher. I'll ride the wave one more year and see what new gear crashes in next year. Hopefully a new Nvidia architecture that will inspire me to upgrade everything.Hrel - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
"our next update will focus solely on the AMD midrange."Please don't do that. PLEASE include at least 3 Intel CPU's for comparison. It doesn't matter if the FX8320 does well in benchmarks if for another $40 bucks I can get a i54670 that runs 50% faster. These are hypothetical numbers, obviously, but then Intel will be faster. By how much matters, once you factor in price and energy draw especially.
A5 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
The old numbers will still be there for comparison. The next update is just *adding* more AMD data.just4U - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
It's hard making sense of AMD data in comparison to Intel. As near as I can tell their sitting at just beyond i7920 performance these days but /w all the new features. It gets confusing when you look at the X4 X6 older stuff though since some of that is actually faster... yet somehow only compares favorably to Intel's 9X Core2 stuff.just4U - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Why 3? The i5 entry level 4430 beats out every AMD chip on the market in most instances. Adding in more simply confuses people and adds more fodder for fanboys to fight over.. and I think it taxes the patience of most of us that already know what's what in the cpu arena.Simple rule of thumb. If your on a budget you may want to go AMD to get all the "other" bells and whistles your looking to buy or.. if you have a more to spend your starting point will be the i54430.
just4U - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Excellent article Ian, I really like the inclusion of older CPU's. It's a good basis in which to decide if it's "time" to upgrade on that front. Most of the people I know are not on the bleeding edge of technology. Many sit back in 2009 with minor updates to video and Hard Drives. Anyway.. Well done lots to sift thru.Jackie60 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
At last Anandtech is doing some meaningful second decade of 21st century testing. Well done and keep it up ffs!SolMiester - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Can someone please tell me why we are using 2+ yr old GPUs?A5 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
You could read the article.OrphanageExplosion - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link
Amazing data. I do wonder whether the testing at max settings is a good idea though. The variation in performance can be extreme. Just watch the Metro 2033 benchmark play out. Does that look like the kind of experience you'd want to play?Perhaps more importantly though, the arrival of next-gen console changes everything.
Did you see the news that Watch Dogs is x64 only? That's just the tip of the iceberg. Developers need to go wide to make the most out of six available Jaguar cores. Jobs-based scheduling over up to eight cores will become the norm rather than the exception. The gap between i5 vs. i7 will widen. AMD FX will suddenly become a lot more interesting.
In short order, I'd expect to see dual core CPUs and less capable quads start to look much less capable very quickly. i5 vs. i7 will see a much larger gulf in performance.
Check out the CPU data here for the Battlefield 4 beta:
http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-4...
The dual cores are being maxed out, FX-8350 is up there with the 3930K (!)