Performance difference between AMD and Intel

[Echo179]

Currently, I am weighing options. On one hand, I am waiting for DCSW2 to release to see how DX11 support works out for my current FX8350. I currently drop into the teens for FPS when I am landing, which causes problems, and often, crashes of my aircraft. This alone has kept me from continuing to fly as often as I'd like.

My other option, is to dump the AMD hardware and pick up an i5 or i7 processor and supporting motherboard. Even with selling my AMD hardware to recoup some of the cost, it won't be all that cheap. However, considering my other love is Arma, which is also plagued by lack of AMD love, I am heavily considering dumping AMD, at least for my CPU, and possibly going to a GTX 980 in the not too distant future as well

 

My question then, is how much of a performance jump can I expect to see in DCS just from swapping Intel for AMD? I know on mainstream games, it really isn't that much, but Arma 3 sees almost 20fps gains from the videos I've been able to find.

 

Thanks

[rcjonessnp175]

Big jump I'd say avg 20 to 30 frames from my past amd ati build and that was back in black shark days. Ya you can wait for dcs 2.0 but that could be a long wait. You can't go wrong with your option 2.

[Art-J]

Don't know the performance figures answer, cause I've never tested DCS on i5 vs. contemporary AMD unit, but If You intend to spend much time playing two favourite titles You've mentioned then I'd say You're going to have to switch to Intel, sooner or later. Especially considering the fact that both titles rely much more on raw single core performance rather than number of cores and sadly, it's not going to change anytime soon.

 

Even when EDGE is going to take some load off the CPU and move it to GPU, there will still be crazy amounts of stuff to compute on new maps, as recent NTTR preview vids show (and these were recorded by guys sporting i7s, mind You). I would also hazard a guess combining a hefty GTX980 with AMD CPU which seems to be Your bottleneck now, ain't going to give expected results.

 

I guess the best thing is wait and see, saving money in the meantime.

[BitMaster]

If you can get a hold of an used SandyBridge i7 like I or others have you could be fine off...and cheap.

 

They still overclock better than any other i7 released with ease.

 

 

You can still use DDR3 and the P67 Sata-3 chip is the best one they built yet, superior in SSD speed to any other intel controller to date.

 

Older is not always slower or inferior.

 

 

i got mine for free, the cpu and board ( plus tons of other stuff ) just look around.

 

Bit

[Echo179]

I'm thinking f going with a 4690k and then maybe trading up to a Broadwell chip if it is worth it. It looks like the new Broadwell chips will be clocked a bit lower than Haswell, but will be 14nm. I know Skylake is supposed to launch later this year as well though, but prices and availability may make that less of an option.

As far as I can tell, I'll get good performance out of a 4th gen i5 chip for quite a while, since the Ivybridge (2 years old), and even Sandybridge (4 years old) are still relevant and capable for today's games.

[blkspade]

Having just made the switch to an i7 4790k, it did help to stay around the 30s-40s around the airfield most of the time. I too wanted to wait for Edge and happen to play ARMA, plus personally objecting to supporting Intel. It didn't fix all performance issues at stock settings, but I haven't overclocked yet. That said if your current AMD board has support for the FX-9590, then it should mean your VRM's can stand the load for a 4.7-4.8ghz overclock on the 8350 with better CPU cooling. An decent aftermarket cooler would cost $80-$120, and could transfer to an eventual future upgrade. I did this for a while, but the pump failed on my closed loop cooler and I had to switch back to my older aftermarket air cooler. I also had to disable a module while on water because my board couldn't handle the load of 8 cores @ 4.7 on water. Something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018 will likely carry you a long way on air though.

[Echo179]

Well, I just pulled the trigger on the i5 4670k and an MSI Z97 board. I've got a Cooler Master Seidon 240M that I'll be transferring over. My FX8350 wouldn't OC past 4.4ghz without being unstable, so I think I just had a weaker bin. I'm really excited to swap everything out on Friday now! Aside from the actually swapping everything out, as that is going to be a pain in the ass.

[msalama]

SandyBridge i7

 

Any ideas for a drop-in replacement for an i7-2600K running on a Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 mobo? Or is it worth it? Uses an LGA1155 socket IIRC.

[Bucic]

The question is too vague.

 

In any case the answer would be - the gain will be as high as the difference in single-core performance minus few percent. You've mentioned ArmA. It sucks royally as far as multicore goes so it's an excellent environment for testing this. Long story short - find ArmA 3 comparison benchmarks and you're home.

 

Also, intel wins with single-core performance hands-down but don't fall for arbitrary AMD X vs Intel Y comparisons. Always confirm the comparison is buck-for-buck e.g. with similarly priced CPU's.

 

Fact: most games don't benefit much from additional cores.

[Loaded_Dice]

Regarding this topic, I can just say that what matters the most for DCS performance (aside the GPU) is single thread CPU performance. It doesn't matter how many cores you have it only matters how fast is each one of them. For example, I'm still running DCS on a vintage Core2Duo E8400 system overclocked @4-4,2GHz which at those speeds is actually comparable in single thread performance with contemporary middle class CPU's. This in combination with a decent GPU (R9 270x) gives me respectable framerates even of 1080p. I'm waiting for DCS 2.0 to see if it still support only a single core, in that case I will go for a OC'd Pentium E3248 which gives comparable single core performance even with i7 4670k at stock. Of course if you have extra money to spend (or also play other games) you can always go for an i7, but for now it is not a worthwhile investment :-)

 

P.S. As for AMD I have only tried DCS at a friends of mine who has FX 6700 which gives much lower performance than E8400

Edited May 7, 2015 by Loaded_Dice

[Echo179]

So, now that I have installed my new hardware and run DCS on my shiny new Intel i5 4690k, I can say without a doubt, that it was worth it!

 

In the exact same mission where on approach for landing I would run into a 10-12fps chug fest (Maple Flag Missions' BFT 04, I am now making the same approach at a much more manageable 30+fps! While it's not a buttery smooth 60+fps like I am getting most of the rest of my flight time, it is still easily manageable and playable. Also, that equates to a 66% improvement over what I was at, so I am extremely happy with it.

[SkateZilla]

AMD's AM4 Zen CPU will offer 40% IPC Increase over Excavator Architecture (Equiv. to haswell), DDR4, PCIe, New Low Latency Cache Subsystem, Larger FPU and of course no shared resources, 8 Core 16 Threads :).

 

 

So:

Excavator Module vs Zen x86 Core:

 

1 Master Fetch Per Core instead of Shared Among 2 Integer Cores

1 Master Decode Unit Per Core Instead of Shared over 2 Integer Cores

 

1 Large Integer Scheduler Instead of 2 Small Ones

1 Large FP Scheduler instead of A small FP Scheduler shared over 2 integer cores.

6 Pipelines w/ L1 cache Per Integer Core vs 4 Per Integer Core

2 FMAC Units @ 256-Bit each per Integer Core, vs 2 FMAC Units @ 128-Bit each shared over 2 Integer Cores

1 MMX Unit Per Integer Core Vs 1 MMX Unit shared over 2 Integer Cores.

L2 Cache Dedicated 512kb Per Integer Core vs 1MB L2 shared across 2 Integer cores.

 

Should be a significant improvement in FP and Scheduling alone.

[Bucic]

8 Core 16 Threads

Any features making it notable in terms of non-multicore applications?

[rcjonessnp175]

Any features making it notable in terms of non-multicore applications?

 

Exactly?

[blkspade]

Any features making it notable in terms of non-multicore applications?

 

Most significantly, the 40% IPC increase.

[SkateZilla]

Read the data I posted.

 

40% IPC increase on the core design alone,

Add in new low latency cache system, no more shared resources, beefed up FPU etc,

plus DDR4

[Bucic]

Read the data I posted.

 

40% IPC increase on the core design alone,

Add in new low latency cache system, no more shared resources, beefed up FPU etc,

plus DDR4

I meant a feature that make the additional cores useful in single-core programs. If there's even such a feature in existence.

[SkateZilla]

I meant a feature that make the additional cores useful in single-core programs. If there's even such a feature in existence.

 

Not in mainstream, theres some stuff in development by other companies, but it'll he a ways off.

[Davschall]

Ive been amd since I started building a few years ago, last monday I brought my 8350 (that Ive had for a year and a half) back to microcenter for a warranty return.

 

Same as you, the main two games I play are arma 3 and dcs world, (I too was getting sick of crashing because of 15 fps when landing). When they gave me a $180 gift card, I decided to get the 4690k considering I can upgrade on the socket. I had to give up my prized gigabyte 990fxa that I overclocked my 965 BE to 4.0 ghz and my 8350 to 4.9.

 

The biggest thing for me was one day when I was playing arma 3 with friends my bro was at work, I hosted the server on my comp and played on his, we both have the R9 290 he has a 4670k. I was getting 45-80 fps depending where I was in comparison to 15-45 fps. DCS world he hosted our server and we were both getting about 80 fps. With headtracking its fairly important to me to get good fps.

 

This is long winded considering you made your choice, but posterity and all that lol. I will never give up on amd and will always run their GPU's. I would definitely have stayed with them if their new cpu was still AM3+, but as time wore on, it became increasingly clear that wasnt going to happen. Now with intel making the switch to DDR4 its obviously not financially viable. Hopefully Ill have the money to build an AM4 system as well because I realize that AMD needs support, because no one likes a monopoly, and thats pretty much what intel already has.

 

Overall its been a good (though difficult) choice to switch to intel for sure but look forward to seeing if amd can become viable for single core gaming.

 

Anyway good luck with the new computer!

[SkateZilla]

Jim Keller's previous AMD Architectures spanked Intel, then he left. And AMD fell behind.

 

Now he's back, rejoice.

 

 

As for BullDozer/Piledriver abd FPS w/ the same GPU vs Intel.

 

Intel has the advantage as they have about 45% higher IPC than Piledriver,

 

Piledriver still uses the insanely high.latency cache, and the shared resourced for the integer cores are a bottleneck in single threaded processes. Ie DX9 Renderers.

 

I overclocked mine to the edge to match my buddies i5 @ 3 GHz, I stuck with my Fx8350 as I was able to fly through multi threaded rendering for projects.

 

Fixing the cach system abd removing shared resources will do more than people understand.

Edited May 11, 2015 by SkateZilla

[Echo179]

I may very well switch back to AMD if they come out with a competitive product in the future, but for right now, and the foreseeable future, I think the 4690k is going to handle most games at 60+ fps when paired with a current gen enthusiast GPU. My 290x works great right now, though unless AMD is able to do what nVidia is doing (more performance with lower TDP), or has some other great advantage over the competition, I may end up switching companies there as well. Right now it feels like AMD is constantly playing catch up, using pricing as their main argument.

[SkateZilla]

In 2-3 years we'll be sub 10nm CPUs,

 

Seems the smaller they get the lower the high frequency ceiling gets,

 

So the first one to figure out dynamic integer cores or hardware serial to parallel tasking will be the one with the best performance in single threaded applications.

[SkateZilla]

Russia MSCT is releasing a new chip :-)

 

800MHz VLIW ...