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Intel: the GPU gives no benefit to non-gamers
Author: Tim SmalleyPublished: 13th May 2008
Intel bites back at Nvidia by saying that the GPU offers no benefit outside of gaming. Not surprisingly, you should all upgrade your CPU today.
Not surprisingly, Intel says that upgrading your CPU from a Core 2 Duo E6550 to a Core 2 Duo E8400 will deliver performance increases in 3D rendering, music, photo editing and video processing, while upgrading your GPU from a G33 integrated graphics chip to an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX will deliver no benefits in these tasks.
Of course that’s true, but Intel goes one step further to say that upgrading your CPU—as well as your GPU—will deliver higher frame rates in games too. “For mainstream gaming, the CPU and GPU work together to deliver a great experience. For high-end gaming, a CPU and CPU upgrade puts you in the winner’s seat,” claim the slides.
Without a doubt, this is something that Nvidia will disagree with – it says that upgrading the GPU first will give you more profound benefits. Many of its recent PowerPoint presentations have claimed that upgrading from a mid-range CPU to a high-end Core 2 Extreme processor delivers little to no performance improvement—in games. And if you go back through any of our recent CPU and graphics reviews, there are definite benefits to using a faster GPU in games, while the benefits of a faster CPU aren't quite so profound.
Right now, there are no real benefits to a fast GPU outside of gaming and video decoding—two scenarios that Intel conveniently decided to leave off its PowerPointery—but Nvidia is talking up GPU-accelerated tasks like video encoding, photo editing and it is already a strong performer in 3D modelling applications like AutoCAD. One has to wonder what benchmarks Intel is using in the 3D rendering benchmark – I’d imagine it’s something like Cinebench, although if that’s the case, Intel has only run the CPU benchmark to make the numbers fit its argument.
The other thing to consider is that Intel has admitted that it will be bringing a discrete GPU to the market with Larrabee, which is believed to be targeted at 3D graphics and other highly parallel computing tasks. Now, if that’s not evidence enough that the discrete GPU has a market for tasks beyond just gaming, I don’t know what is.
Is it just me that thinks this war of words is getting a little petty? Share your thoughts in the forums.
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Comments (36)Stats: 2.054 seconds
No, that's right, it's the situation where hardware newbies who listen to Intel's presentations upgrade their CPU because their 5900 won't play Crysis, and then upgrade the CPU again because it still doesn't work.
each time intel has a peace of hardware that surpasses its direct opponent, they tend to shake their wood in every direction to show the size of their e-pen...
Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, but I'm certainly not new at fps.
/rant
god you sound like such a consoletard, go hide in the shadows and suck your thumb for a bit, I got 5% health, 2 bullets 3 demons and a pair of balls the size of moons
no wonder you didn't enjoy playing it if you tried to take down helicopters with barrels you dumbass. you evidently missed the rocket launcher, or missed the helicopter while you still had rockets to shoot. Go and play halo, and save me of you idiocy.
and i don't know why nvidia should get bothered by this news, anyone who knows how to upgrade a CPU should know that it doesn't make f*** all difference in gaming in comparison to upgrading a GPU, so these customers who intel are trying to rope in will probably ignore this
And yes, Crysis left me very cold as well.
Wooaah! I've been entering this site since the first day and I never posted. But I had to register only to reply to your post, your post is that stupid!!
I dunno, I guess Crysis is for smart people, but I didn't tought it was to that extent...
First of all, F5 (or F6 can't remember, you can cahnge it anyway) is for quick saving (in almost every game BTW), if you are not smart enough to use it, take your computer and return it. Buy a lame console and enjoy it's games full of checkpoint saving. Anyway if you lose your tank, poor baby, go on foot until you find the next one and kill the tanks with the rocket launchers that enemies drop, just like real men do.
Second, you don't have to kill helis to advance if you don't want to, but there are rocket launchers everywhere, you just have to find where. And it's easy, since they are always close to where the helicopters appear, usually in huts. And there are plenty of them, just in case you miss lots of hits. Indeed that's one of the things I didn't like in the game. It's really open gameplay when you have the answer so close to you, whenever a problem appears? When an enemy helicopter attacks you TAKE COVER and then use cloack or maximum speed to go from cover to cover until you find the weapons, it's really easy.
Don't blame a game because of your incompetence...
As for act of going invisi to look for weapons, taking cover while it recharges, rinse repeat over and over because the area you play in is so large, I also don't find that fun. The fact is by the tank section I was incredibly tired of going on foot, the tanks were the most fun I'd had all game, I didn't want to let it end so quickly by going on foot Again. As for the checkpoint thing, if it's going to be implemented, it should be implemented properly. The reason I don't hit F5 all the time is because occasionally the checkpoints work, so I got used to not using it. I understand what I was supposed to be doing at each point, but it just seemed like the game was making me work for it unnecessarily. Whatever.
Obviously this gameplay style isn't for me, and my first rant (which was a half joke, the individual points not meant to be taken seriously, strange sense of humour?) was hasty since I had just stopped playing it and was feeling slightly bitter about my $100 lost, but I've had just as many people agree with me as I have had insult me. So I don't think I'm alone in my opinion.
Also don't be so quick to brand me as a console tard just because I have impatience when it comes to poor level design, years of playing games from valve has obviously spoiled me.
Oh and sorry about the derailment of the thread. In terms of Intel's random propoganda, they're kinda right... I mean, most people have absolutely no need for a gpu, and it just takes talking to someone at a local store to know that you need one to play games. I don't think Intel need to bother announcing it though, it just makes non news news items.
Oh my God, Intel really is scared if they feel they have to make a powerpoint only to point that out. (sorry for the pun :-P)
Anyway they should be scared, since GPGPUs can really take a lot of Intel's market share. And not only that, but most of high-end desktop CPU are bought by gamers. If Nvidia or AMD demostrate that a faster (or an extra) GPU can make games run a lot faster, while providing strong overall performance at the same time, thanks to GPGPUs, Intel will definately not sell any high-end CPU anymore.
EDIT: when I say "run games faster", I mean in other things besides rendering of course.
clearly saw you coming.
Also have to agree Crysis has absolutely **** gameplay. It's a graphics demo, nothing more.
I agree.
nVidia already has a substantial installed hardware base, with all the GeForce 8 series cards out there (on PCs and Macs....). Throw in some basic photoshop CUDA-based plugins - blur, rotate, noise, transform - and some encoders for Premiere, Final Cut and Quick Time, and let's see Intel scrambling to produce more Powerpoints!
or he is talking about using a skulltrail board.
Thanks for making me laugh... I thoroughly enjoyed that one. ;)
GPU and CPU are both very important, you cannot have 1 super powerful and 1 really weak. so you really need to upgrade both at the same time.
TechReport has made some comparisons:
Obviously, the other factor is the speed of the internet (or lack thereof).
Also, no **** having a powerful graphics card does nothing in "music performance." Who are they kidding? And what kind of "performance increase" does a powerful CPU give you? iTunes switches tracks faster?