Nvidia dismisses Intel's claims about Core i7's gaming performance as "disingenuous" as they're only based on the 3DMark Vantage CPU test.
Intel’s
Nehalem architecture might have generated a lot of excitement and rave reviews, but it turns out that Nvidia isn’t that impressed with its impact on gaming performance. In fact, yesterday the company described Intel’s claims about Core i7's gaming performance as
“disingenuous” in a presentation to introduce Nvidia’s concept of an optimised gaming PC.
In the presentation, Nvidia’s technical marketing director Tom Petersen said
“I have a copy of Intel’s latest deck that they share with press and customers, and on there they have a slide that is called The Intel Core i7 920 Processor, where they claim that gaming performance goes up by 80 percent when you use a Core i7. Now, I was impressed by that claim, and I was trying to figure out how they could possibly say such a thing, and it turns out that Intel is basing that claim on only 3DMark Vantage’s CPU test.”
As Petersen points out, this test
“is designed to show CPU difference, it doesn’t actually measure gameplay, it doesn’t actually measure anything about game performance. Sure enough, if you do that test you will see Core i7 running faster, but I think it’s a little disingenuous to call that game performance.”
To prove his point, Petersen outlined two types of PC, which he likened to cars - the Hummer and the Beamer. Petersen described the Hummer, saying that it
“has got to be big, and it’s got to be expensive and of course it’s infused with Hafnium, which is kind of a dig at Intel. It has a Core i7, which is Intel’s latest, greatest CPU that they claim is the best for gaming.” The Hummer features a Core i7, 4GB of RAM, an X58 motherboard and a single GeForce GTS 250. Meanwhile, the Beamer swaps out the Core i7 CPU for a basic Core 2 Duo E8400, an nForce 750i motherboard and a pair of GeForce GTS 250 cards in SLI.
The cost difference between the two is massive, with a Core i7 965-based Hummer costing $1,501 US based on pricing from US etailer Newegg, and the Beamer costing just $715 US. Petersen also noted that even a Core i7 920 setup with a single GeForce GTS 250 would still cost more than the Beamer SLI rig at around $790 US. The prices were based on the core components only, and didn’t include features such as the case or PSU.
“You’re paying a pretty dear price to follow the Intel story of how to build the fastest PC for gaming”, said Petersen, as he showed a graph of how gaming performance scales with CPU upgrades. Petersen got his test results by adding together the frame rates from
Crysis Warhead,
Fallout 3,
Call of Duty: World at War and
Far Cry 2 at 1,920 x 1,200 (no AA or AF) and taking an average. With a Core 2 Duo E8400 and a GeForce GTS 250, the average was 41.6fps.
He then showed how this increased as you upgraded the CPU (the blue line in the graph above), and compared it to how the frame rate increased when you added another graphics card in SLI. The frame rate only increased to 42.4fps after upgrading to a Core i7 965, but jumped all the way up to 59.4fps after upgrading to a GeForce GTX 260 (216 stream processors) SLI setup.
This might seem obvious to those of us who know about how 3D acceleration works, but Petersen claims that the result is still
“surprising to most people”. Petersen says that
“it is a fact, that when you’re gaming and you’re running at resolutions of 1,920 x 1,200 or better, the Core 2 Duo is perfect for running all of today’s games. In real gaming, there’s no difference between a Core i7 and a Core 2 Duo.”
Petersen accepts that some gamers want the very best of everything, and likens the combination of a Core i7 and SLI graphics to a Ferrari.
“If you’ve got money to burn, and you want to get the latest Core i7, and you want to get great graphics cards, then sure you can get the best of everything. There is some small benefit to having a Core i7 965 over a Core 2 Duo when you’re buying the best graphics cards and running at the highest resolutions, so a Core i7 has a place and it does have a benefit in what I’m going to call the Ferrari configuration. But the truth is that when you’re trading off money, there’s nothing like the Beamer configuration.”
“Particularly in today’s economic climate, people are concerned about getting the most value for their money,” says Petersen. As such, Petersen advises PC gamers to ignore Core i7 and instead set up a Core 2 Duo system using an nForce SLI motherboard.
“With the leftover $800 I can go out and buy 16 games,” says Petersen,
“it’s not even close.”
Is Nvidia just stating the obvious here, or do you think the general PC gamer thinks that they’ll get a big boost in gaming performance from a Core i7 CPU? Would you rather have a Core i7 system with one GPU, or a Core 2 Duo system with an SLI setup? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
50 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplynVidia have said something that makes SENSE! :D
(Might also be because nvidia don't have an i7 chipset, but, meh, they can 'win' this time :p )
I'll just grab an Intel mainboard and a single powerful GPU instead of a pair of crappy ones, a slower CPU as the Intel mobo can actually clock, and a smaller PSU, and get even more games. Take that, Nvidia.
Ha yes exactly :) - new GPU bought and intel mainboard on the way. Funny isn't it that this Mr Petersen slags off Intel for this, then himself suggest going nVidia mobo + SLI! All as bad as each other....
haha 'Pentium D-1000', and twice the cost
But it is quite lame from Intel to claim gaming improvements when they are not even using a game but a synthetic benchmark.
If I build an 3x Sli or 4x Crossfire rig I would only use an i7 and nothing else!
Errr... wrong!
"enthusiasts"? What are those?... Imaginary rich people?
[/sarcasm]
Don't get me wrong... being an enthusiast is great but it's not ultimately about them.
If you remember, there was a shortage of GTX 295... and probably still is... and on part of AMD's side, they don't plan a reference 4890 X2... that'll be up to Sapphire or someone bold enough to do that. Why?... there's no interest.
it's all nice and well... but it's not something they can actually make money of.
And Dick here has a point... the i7 is currently to overpriced for all of us... and we, all of us, is what it's all about!
We like midrange... and if possible... overclock-monster midrange is a plus! Some... and do notice... it's SOME... will go for high end... and if possible... overclock-monster highend is a plus... but stop here.
However, outside of high res gaming I7 rules the world of computing.
Anyways, of course it's overkill for gaming and we all know the absolute max you need for gaming at the moment is a nicely overclocked Core 2 Quad. And let's face it, even that is overkill. As long as there are no games really using multiple cores and lots of CPU power for an AI that actually deserves that name or some unheard-of physics effects no gamer needs i7.
I am more than happy with the gaming performance of my C2D E6600 @ 3.6 GHz. ;)
And I agree with not going the SLI way... yet. Buy a single card, go SLI when that isn't enough anymore.
For all the talk of "CPU Bottlenecks", unless you are running a seriously underpowered chip, the same money spent on a CPU upgrade almost always results in a better performance boost if you instead put it into a better GPU.
I had the E6600 clocked at 3GHz, matched with a 680i and 4GB of DDR2.
The i7 is clocked at 4GHz and matched with an X58 and 3GB of DDR3.
I'm using the same GPU with the i7 as I was with the C2D, an 8800GTS512.
It's probably quite safe to assume that the difference in performance in my case is attributable to the 1GHz difference in clock speed and maybe also somewhat to the increase in memory bandwidth, but the important thing for me is that the difference is there and noticable.
The thing is, I also use my PC for music/audio production and experimental audio programming, not just for gaming.
If I were using the system solely for gaming, that upgrade probably wouldn't have been justified.
They didn't mention the I5, the I5 has not even been released, if you are not careful, you will end up, screaming about I5s in a padded cell:)
therefore, following their logic of need to upgrade CPU every year. getting i7 now, and then only upgrade GPU makes more sense money-wise.
could i make a request to bittech staff?
clickable to make big pictures in your articles? the graph is pretty small... and hard to make out.
*goes to read article*
ME! FOREVER! EVEN IF IT'S CRAP! YAY!
Granted that is a specific benchmark, but what it shows is that as new game engines get released with more multi-threading there is a big gaming benefit to be had. It all depends upon whether you are looking at what is out now vs. what is coming.
Chad
http://linuxappfinder.com
http://feedsanywhere.com
i7 is still a waste of money IMHO. i'll wait till they drop the mobo price....
I bought my i7 to last a few years and if I have spare CPU cycles now, thatis what I wanted :)
Cost a Load But Is giving you more power :) specially at 1920x1200 / 2560x1600
but here is an issue that i see
there isnt a game that is on the market that uses all of the cores
so how can we expect to see a jump in performance while we are gaming
when all of the cores arent being used
Have you noticed that the quality settings are set to "medium" or "mainstream"? In that quality setting, the GPU isn't maxed out, that's why you can see the increased performance of the i7 920.
I have a C2D E6550 (2.33GHz), i recently got a GTX275 (replaced my 9800GTX), playing Crysis @2.33GHz my FPS is around 33, @3.57GHz, its just around 35FPS all quality settings maxed out, clearly, the GPU is the bottleneck.
At this point in time, or until the 2nd half of next year, CPU performance won't be that critical when it comes to gaming.
I want to call out right now and say that audio/music production generally isn't that CPU intensive especially when any good audio interface will be handling the sound processing
I do quite a bit of music production my self, 100% soft synths using a C2Duo 8400 4 gigs of ram and an e-mu 1820M Never once has my cpu usage crept past 50% in Ableton Live and that's going full out with 20+ tracks and a heavy amount of chaining and rewiring into Reason 4
I've heard of a few physics modelling synths take up some cpu power but please tell me what you are doing audio wise that justifies an i7?
Compared to video or image editing, audio editing is realitivley low powered when using a proper audio interface
Probably because they sell chipsets / MB that can take a Core 2 Duo/quad yet don't have anything to run with the i7.
After doing a little testing myself when I had a HD4870X2 I found there was a noticable difference in minimum framerates between running the card on my old Core 2 Duo (3ghz) vs my new i7 920 (2.66GHZ). Of course this difference would be minimal with the card I have now (downgraded to a HD4850 as I realised I didn't need the GPU HP).
Personally given how prices of DDR3 have dropped along with 'affordable' X58 motherboards and I wanted a decent quad core system I wouldn't bother with Core2's anymore and move straight to the i7. Of course if I wanted a pure gaming pc with a fast single gpu I would go for a mid range Core2 Duo and clock it.
So I upgraded my Core 2 e6750 chip to a quad Core 2 9550 and overclocked it to 3.8Ghz.... I then had money to spare to upgrade my old 8800GTX as well to a 260 216 XFX Black Edition. Now it eats games for breakfast.
Those upgrades cost me a fraction of the cost of having to build a new Core i7 machine... mainly due to the cost of new MB, new memory and a new CPU/Cooler (plus then a new GPU on top).
In this recession, people with Core2's could get much better bang for buck by upgrading.. not replacing.
If I had anything to say at either of the big companies I'd just fire half my marketing staff for being nothing but stupid kids.
Andy
well I wouldn't say anywhere near bang on.. he's trying to sell nvidia sli chipsets over intel- only reason he's even talking.. and nvidia chipsets are crap compared to intels imo- not to mention sli is a big pile of marketing.. the single slot x2 cards are a better way to go if you really need the push for a 30" monitor
reason I say this is, your drawing way to much power to justify what you get back with sli.. they would love everyone to fall for sli (and they do.. common sense tells you 2 is better than one).. twice the money- oh yeah let's throw in a 3rd card to run physx! :D and they laugh all the way to the bank
2xGPU does not equal 2xperformance and its completely varied across games. Some like SLI and boost frames a bit others hate it and can actually be worse.
Nvidia should not be commenting on a waste of money since they would also need to say dont buy SLI cause its also a waste of money.
at least with an i7 it does other things besides gaming in which its amazingly fast.
2xGPU are good for only 1 thing gaming thats it. well maybe a few other 3d apps but thats it.
i7 920 + single high end GPU = fast performance at everything.
slow/average CPU + 2XGPU = fast gaming, mediocre performance at everything else.
Now which one would you pick !!!!!!!!!!!!