Fx8120 and 7870Hawk

[Eraovius]

Hi guys, yesterday finally my new 7870Hawk has arrived... But i fell some strange in some games, about frames, little less than benchmark done with i7-2600K and same graphic card...

I got an FX8120 cpu overclocked at 4,3GHz wuith 1,37v on vcore; do you think that am I bottlenecked because of my cpu?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It depends on the game,but more important are the framerates playable?? I would only change the CPU if games became unplayable due to the CPU.

[Eraovius]

games are always full playable unless i put ALL filters (AA8x, anisotropic 16x, extreme tassellation) in some games that make an intense use of cpu (shogun2), but if i put ultra setting in 95%games, i'm over 45-50 fps...
hoping in a better fx with piledriver
this is not enough, some games as BF3 use only 4 cores, but oh well...

thanks for the answer

[dacads]

Games are still using two cores let alone quad. The only improvement you will see with 8 is in muli threaded apps

[Eraovius]

Games are still using two cores let alone quad. The only improvement you will see with 8 is in muli threaded apps

yup, i see that in many, many games i got 4 cores used and 4 cores at 0/1%... maybe in future it will be more efficient in your opinion?

I was thinking about piledriver, after its benchmark

[Oswald]

The benchmarks you see on the internet sites are usually with an Intel gpu that is also overcloced. So that alone makes a difference in fps. And they usually set up the computer specifically for benchmarking. So no background apps running and a reboot between every benchmark run.
I wouldn't be too concerned. If it's playable, then who cares about the numbers?

[scaryjim]

Games are still using two cores let alone quad.

Misinformation. It's well worth having a read of this Techreport review - the discrete GPU tests show that whilst some games are still very happy with two reasonably quick cores, some die horribly; in Skyrim and Batman: AC a Pentium G2120 beats out pretty much every AMD CPU, but in BF3 and Crysis2 it really tanks, due to only handling 2 threads. It's no longer the case that a fast dual-core will do for gaming - you really need to be speccing a minimum of 4 threads (be that quad core, dual PD module, or dual-core qwith Hyper-threading). And games will only continue to get more heavily threaded...

[Eraovius]

Misinformation. It's well worth having a read of this Techreport review - the discrete GPU tests show that whilst some games are still very happy with two reasonably quick cores, some die horribly; in Skyrim and Batman: AC a Pentium G2120 beats out pretty much every AMD CPU, but in BF3 and Crysis2 it really tanks, due to only handling 2 threads. It's no longer the case that a fast dual-core will do for gaming - you really need to be speccing a minimum of 4 threads (be that quad core, dual PD module, or dual-core qwith Hyper-threading). And games will only continue to get more heavily threaded...

That's great...it means that the more threading games get, the more bulldozer-like architecture become strong... But i readed anywhere that Skyrim optimization sucks, that's the reason why it keep an very high load on cpu instead of gpu..

[scaryjim]

But i readed anywhere that Skyrim optimization sucks, that's the reason why it keep an very high load on cpu instead of gpu..

Interesting, since Skyrim is one of the games that *doesn't* benefit from extra cores. In fact, Skyrim is almost entirely IPC constrained - TechReport have the G2120 beating *every* AMD CPU ever produced, including the Phenom II X4 980 - not bad for a 3.1GHz dual core with reduced cache and no turbo. Kind of suggests that Skyrim has some kind of intel optimisation, too, IMNSHO. But yeah, currently it looks like there a bit of a mix of lightly- and well-threaded games out there, which sadly means an Intel processor is still a safer bet for gaming until AMD get their IPC and clock speeds up...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Interesting, since Skyrim is one of the games that *doesn't* benefit from extra cores. In fact, Skyrim is almost entirely IPC constrained - TechReport have the G2120 beating *every* AMD CPU ever produced, including the Phenom II X4 980 - not bad for a 3.1GHz dual core with reduced cache and no turbo. Kind of suggests that Skyrim has some kind of intel optimisation, too, IMNSHO. But yeah, currently it looks like there a bit of a mix of lightly- and well-threaded games out there, which sadly means an Intel processor is still a safer bet for gaming until AMD get their IPC and clock speeds up...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...9&postcount=39

[Eraovius]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...9&postcount=39

"There used to be a program called Skyboost that implemented these optimisations but it was made redundant with that patch. I got interested in this because the performance of my PII x4 @ 3.7GHz seemed unusually low relative to an i3 2100 in Skyrim."


that means that it isn't so well optimized with the patch and it's -the same- dependent on CPU's IPC (and intel is better than AMD, i think this is reason because a PH2 x4 go less than an i3-2100 in this kind of game)... am I right or i miss anything?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

"There used to be a program called Skyboost that implemented these optimisations but it was made redundant with that patch. I got interested in this because the performance of my PII x4 @ 3.7GHz seemed unusually low relative to an i3 2100 in Skyrim."


that means that it isn't so well optimized with the patch and it's -the same- dependent on CPU's IPC (and intel is better than AMD, i think this is reason because a PH2 x4 go less than an i3-2100 in this kind of game)... am I right or i miss anything?

?? It means with the patch game performance is more optimised - look at the numerous threads with Skyboost and that forum member most likely got better performance with it installed. The patch is an official one from Bethesda.

You are talking about single thread performance which is dependent on:
1.)Core IPC
2.)Uncore(parts outside the core like the caches and memory controller)
3.)Clockspeed
4.)Extension support and Compiler optimisations
5.)OS support

There are some other factors which might contribute,but those are what I can remember of the top of my head.

An example of how performance can be affected is say with video transcoding software. It might lack AVX or XOP support meaning older CPUs look better in comparison,whereas another application might do so,and the newer CPUs show a much bigger improvement.

Graphics cards need optimisations via driver releases,and CPUs too need optimisations too for almost every generation via a combination of the OS and software used.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BTW,in this thread people have reported decent improvements with their AMD CPUs using Skyboost:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1188555/t...ce-by-up-to-40

It is probably worth trying the new patch to see what happens.