dual core or quad core!

[Slant6 21]

OK, well, I've got a Pentium G860 sandy bridge dual core @3.0 ghz, 8GB ram and a GTX 650 video card. The video card is more powerful than an HD 4850, uses less energy and (because it's Nvidia) doesn't lock you into vsync like AMD does. Cutting edge system? No, but far more powerful than my old socket 939 rig! Still chokes a bit when the game throws a s--tload of planes into the mix, or on some Vietnam missions (and let's face it, Thirdwire + Vietnam = poorly optimized). May pop in an i5 ivy bridge one of these days--maybe that'll help.

[+Brain32 265]

OK, well, I've got a Pentium G860 sandy bridge dual core @3.0 ghz, 8GB ram and a GTX 650 video card. The video card is more powerful than an HD 4850, uses less energy and (because it's Nvidia) doesn't lock you into vsync like AMD does. Cutting edge system? No, but far more powerful than my old socket 939 rig! Still chokes a bit when the game throws a s--tload of planes into the mix, or on some Vietnam missions (and let's face it, Thirdwire + Vietnam = poorly optimized). May pop in an i5 ivy bridge one of these days--maybe that'll help.

 

I have ATI HD4850 it does not lock me into vsync, never heard of it honestly...

[Slant6 21]

Maybe an older ATI Card with older drives might not do that but it is documented nonetheless. When I had an Ati card (an HD 6750 with DDR3 memory--kinda slow), if I was patched to November 2009 I didn't have trouble with vsync. Any newer patch than that I was locked in.

[+Brain32 265]

Maybe an older ATI Card with older drives might not do that but it is documented nonetheless. When I had an Ati card (an HD 6750 with DDR3 memory--kinda slow), if I was patched to November 2009 I didn't have trouble with vsync. Any newer patch than that I was locked in.

 

That's game related.

[+Brain32 265]

I'm bumping this thread because I need some info, what I need to decide is what is better for this game (and IL2, DCS etc.) between two solutions:

 

a) PentiumG 3420 (3,2GHz) s1150

Good points

-  really cool chip, single core performance goes beyond high end Athlons, it's powerful and extremely power efficient, on top of that it's cheap, very cheap, sub 100$ here

Bad points

- it's only dual core and no HT either, no OC

 

b) FX-6xxx or Athlon X4 750

Good points

- simply more cores, better multi-threading performance, OC possibility

Bad points

- more expensive, heat management, power demand, more cores but each core is much weaker than Intel cores

 

Ofcourse I'd like I5 or I7 but prices of those here are laughable for example I5 4670k is over 300$ here and since I saw the same CPU on US sites for as low as 190$ I consider 300$ to be a freakin robbery without a gun...heck they even sell the 3570K for about 300$

Here's the link for our US buddies that are perhaps interested: http://www.microcenter.com/product/413251/Core_i5_4670K_34GHz_Socket_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor

Although I'm sure you guys can find it easily and perhaps even better offers...

 

 

Arrhgh I'm babbling again, the point is this question: Are CPU's with more weaker cores better than CPU's with less but significantly stronger cores for sims, SF2 dominately?

Oh and the card it will power is GTX660, non TI, non OC model

Edited March 26, 2014 by Brain32

[+NeverEnough 78]

Hey Brain32, have you considered an Intel I3 processor?  Here's a link to TechReport's latest system building guide.  This might help you in your shopping list.

 

http://techreport.com/review/26082/tr-february-2014-system-guide

[KJakker 883]

I must agree with NeverEnough, TechReport's system guide is good and the System Builders Anonymous sub-forum in the Tech Report forum is also a great place to ask for advice on choosing parts.

 

http://techreport.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=33&sid=9813af7ae414b005217dd60ba105cd65 

[+Brain32 265]

Yup those guys are pretty much following my thoughts, I don't know about i3, I can afford it, I could even afford some "lower-grade" I5 but with prices here I wonder if it's worth it...

[+streakeagle 866]

I am sorry the I5 is too pricey for you, as it is the way to go. The 3750K proved to be a great choice for me. I am not an overclocker, but my ASUS motherboard/tuning software made it easy to safely squeeze additional performance out of it without aftermarket cooling or stability issues. The I3 isn't that much worse than the I5. I loved my old AMD Athlon 64, but Intel has been smoking AMD on performance since Core2Duo and even ties or wins on cost effectiveness for gaming with the "cheap" I3 rivaling the best of the AMD processors and the I5 outright beating them. The dilemma I faced was whether to get the I5 or I7, and from everything I read, the key difference was Hyperthreading, which needs to be turned off for gaming to avoid latency issues giving the I7 only a small advantage on memory cache and stock clock speeds. So I settled on the I5 as the best bang for the buck. Most games only use 1 or 2 cores, or at most 4 cores. So going for 6 or more cores isn't particularly cost effective for gaming.

Edited March 29, 2014 by streakeagle

[+Brain32 265]

Well I've been looking at some choices lately trying to find some better offers, technically I can afford an I5 but I wonder if it's worth 3-4 times the price of PentiumG, considering I don't do anything professionally on my PC, the highest performance demands come from games, so if I5 will give me 5% better framerate I have to ask myself if 5% more fps is worth 3-4 times the price...

 

CPU market is in trouble because INTEL is just too much above the competition so they keep their prices up knowing they can get away with it in the start and when you add to that a gazzilion of taxes they throw at us here in Europe you get to the price point where you are asking the very same questions I ask myself now when buying...

[SFP1Ace 33]

Depending on how multi-threaded AND CPU dependant the game is, you can get anything between 10-100% more fps between Haswell Pentium G and "lower-grade" i5 4440 for example. Whether it justifies the 2-3x price increase is up to you ;)

[+Brain32 265]

Well not so sure the difference can be that bad, check this review: http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-pentium-g3220-processor-review_137016/6

...and that's the 3220, I plan to go for 3420 which is even a bit faster, on the games they tested the difference was in 0,X% region.

But they didn't test SF2 or DCS or IL2 that's why I'm asking you guys because I was wondering if somebody is perhaps running SF2 on such CPU...

[SFP1Ace 33]

Games in this review are extremely GPU limited hence the small difference  between different CPUs (Metro Last Light stands out however).

 

Brain how about I do this - I'll switch off 2 cores out of my i5 4670k and down-clock it to 3 Ghz which will place it roughly at that Pentium G level (minus the larger Cache of i5). Then we can run SF2, IL-2, DCS on my setup and compare? Whaddya say?

Edited March 29, 2014 by SFP1Ace

[+Brain32 265]

Well if you are really willing to mess with all that it would be absolutely awsome!

[SFP1Ace 33]

Sure, 2 issues though:

 

1. I don't have any of those games on  my hdd atm, so I'll need to DL/install them first.

 

2. We need to decide on a particular baseline game setup - SF2 vanilla or modded? Sf2:E or SF2:NA with the LOD engine? Specific pre created .msn mission file that you'll send me? Il-2 vanilla 4.12.2 or HSFX7? Which mission? DCS World or FC3 or A-10C?

Where do I measure FPS - in the cockpit as soon as the mission starts? Is FRAPS OK? Etc., etc. ;)

[+Brain32 265]

Well il2 is not multi-threaded so we can skip that one especially since you don't have it installed although it has pre-recorded tracks making testing easier, LOMAC also had such missions, one would just let it play and observe the fps I don't know if FC has those tracks too?

 

SF2 is going to be a pain because it does not have built-in tools so that will take me some thinking on how to do it, FPS in cockpit is most important IMO

Edited March 29, 2014 by Brain32

[SFP1Ace 33]

Perhaps it's best if I simplify this and just pick a built-in single missions in each game, and measure fps with FRAPS in DCS and SF2 after mission starts. In Il-2 I'll run the Black Death ;) I know the Il-2 is single threaded, but there's still 10-20% clock difference between Pentium G and i5 so I might as well measure it. I'll get back to you tomorrow with the results as it will take me some time to have all those game installed and set up.

[+Brain32 265]

I can't thank you enough buddy

[SFP1Ace 33]

Ok, I've finally managed to do some benchmarks. Get ready for a wall of text! ^_^

 

Test setup: Intel i5 4670k, 8GB of DDR 1600 RAM, MSI Z87-G43 mainboard, AMD 7870XT 2GB GPU (Catalyst 13.12 WHQL) drivers and Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit.

 

My i5 4670K has been tested in 2 configurations:

 

1 - downclocked to 3.2 GHz with 2 out of 4 cores & AES instructions switched off to simulate "basic" Intel Pentium G3420 CPU

2 - downclocked to 3.3 GHz to simulate "lower tier" Intel Core i5 4440 CPU

 

Each game has been run without mods (vanilla) except of CLoD which had TF patch 4.3 installed (obviously ;) ). Due to issues with my AMD card and latest iterations of SF2 games (FPS jumping between 30 and 60 thus making any benchmarking VERY unreliable) FE2 was used instead (FE2 are still VSYNC locked at 60 FPS, but at least FPS between 30 and 60 are possible!). Games were run at High or Maximum graphic settings with either x2 or x4 AntiAliasing applied. FPS measured with FRAPS benchmark.

 

Results:

 

First Eagles 2 Jul 2010 1vs2 dogfight single mission FPS (min/avg):

 

Pentium G3420 - 55/59.667

i5 4440 - 55/59.733

 

DCS World Su-25T 1.2.7 rampstart & navigation single mission (sitting in the cockpit & looking around in parked aircraft) FPS (min/avg)::

 

Pentium G3420 - 26/33.133

i5 4440 - 27/35.400

 

IL-2 1946 4.12.2 The Black Death track FPS (min/avg):

 

Pentium G3420 - 31/99.965

i5 4440 - 33/106.486

 

Rise Of Flight 1.032 Fokker E.III fly now autopilot mission FPS (min/avg)*:

 

Pentium G3420 - 50/71.736

i5 4440 - 57/77.971

 

*Flying the "Fly Now" mission on autopilot was the only way to get repeatable and reliable results. Any quick combat missions resulted in unpredictable furballs with FPS varying too much to be useful for scientific purposes.

 

IL-2 Cliffs Of Dover TF 4.3 The Black Death Track FPS (min/avg):

 

Pentium G3420 - 19/51.395

i5 4440 - 26/56.023

 

Conclusion & notes:

 

Out of all games tested only CLoD & RoF showed FPS gains on i5 that definately exceeded the 100MHz (circa 3%) clock difference between the 2 CPUs. In best case (CLoD min FPS)  the FPS difference was 37% in favour of i5.

FE2, DCS & IL-2 1946 obviously don't  utilise more than 1 ( IL-2 1946) or 2 cores.

 

So, to be honest, in your case buddy (playing those sims mainly) there's no reason to spend 3x more on i5 - Pentium G 3420 looks like the best bang for the buck!

 

But, let me play the devil's  (i5 ^_^) advocate here:

 

1. In my test both CPUs were run on the same high-performing mainboard with Z87 chipset. But if you'll pair up your Pentium G with a cheap B87 chipset mainboard then the performance difference MIGHT be even larger with i5 and Z87.

2. Since games were run on high settings with AA applied, I'm not sure if my Graphic Cards wasn't the bottle neck in some cases. With more powerful card FPS MIGHT have been even higher on i5.

3. i5 is more "future proof" Sure you'll spend lots of money NOW, but you won't have to change the CPU in a year or two AGAIN - especially that the DCS series (and the future DCS:WW2) are getting the DX11 EDGE engine later THIS year that will surely utilise multi-threaded CPUs much better than current crappy LOMAC's one.

4. No overclocking! My i5 can run at 4.5 GHz on air, without issues (except for the noise from the fans XD ).

 

Anyways, I hope you'll be happy with your purchase!

Good luck!

Edited March 31, 2014 by SFP1Ace

[+Brain32 265]

Thx a lot again buddy this helped immensely I definitely plan to go for Z87 or atleast a better H87 chipset to get all the new bells and whistles, I am now on ancient AMD770 chipset so I need a good new base with new technology, I also still lurk around the web stores to check i5 deals but I also had a situation at job today(ofcourse the sh*t hits the fan when I plan a new rig lol) so if I take a pay cut it will be PentiumG country but I also found a great deal for 2x4GB DDR3 at 2400MHz that should give about 30GB/s data transfer to the system which might help this new texture-heavy games...

It's good to see the lil' PentiumG will be able to be to serve atleast as interim solution if things turn like that so with a good base I can always go for an upgrade later, Intel announced some nice new goodies last week...even unlocked pentiumG's...

[SFP1Ace 33]

No point getting 2400 MHz ram with Haswell! No performance increase compared to 1600MHz ones! Haswells memory controller is tailored to DDR3-1600! Save the money, get the DDR3-1600 most def!

 

Seriously, I was considering getting the faster RAM (1866 or 2133) as well, but after spending many hours on the net, reading tests, comparisons and benchmarks, there was a negligible performance increase past 1600MHz (as far as games are concerned, perhaps it could be useful for movie encoding or raytracing).

 

Btw, my RAM runs at CL9 and Aida-64 reports 23 GB/s read/write.

 

P.S> I really hope you won't have to suffer any pay cuts :(

Edited March 31, 2014 by SFP1Ace

[+Brain32 265]

Yup I know about that, however the cheapest 2x4GB kit here is the KingstonHyperX Beast at 2400MHz...even cheaper than buying two separate 1600MHz sticks...crazy, probably some super-sale or something...

I hope there will be no paycuts too, however it is suppose to be a temporary 3-month measure and only maybe but I really didn't want to hear that now while preparing an upgrade lol

[SFP1Ace 33]

Wow, in your case I'd go for the 2400Mhz ones as well  O_O. If only i5 was on sale too, you'd be set up for good...

[+Brain32 265]

So time to share what I ended up with in the end. Finally got around to squeeze all the stuff into my case which I found out is not exactly roomy with a full ATX board, cabling job is terrible as I just didn't have the room to put it away...arrgh that will have to wait lol

 

So the components are:

 

Pentium G3420 (3,2GHz, dual core) - lil' thing is a beast, I was skeptic till I fired it up but the thingy really showed me it's monster kick

MSI Z87-G43 - went for Z87 chipset so I can have some future with it...

2x4GB DDR HyperX Beast (XMP 2400MHz) like I said it was only 3-4$ more expensive than the absolute cheapest 1600MHz one available here, otherwise according to all tests there's no performance gain of going for faster memory

and in the end ASUS GeForce GTX660 DirectCU 2GB - really nice, massive cooler makes it quiet and cool

 

Anyway SF2 runs everything I throw at it on unlimited settings, I thought I'd have to reduce shadowsand horizon distance to normal but nope, no point as it constantly pumps out great fps(around 60)

Didn't try IL2 or DCS yet but I passed through Battlefield 3 singleplayer...at ULTRA setting, everything maxed, not even a hiccup.

 

So in the end for a budget machine this is freakin awesome...

[MigBuster 2,871]

Too right - didn't realise they still made Pentium and Celeron chips!

 

Thats a good result - I dont max mine out with mods - but am still on a P55 chipset and probably due for a new board