Intel claims Core i9 9900K is the “best gaming processor”

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Which mainstream graphics cards have more power than a GTX 1060?

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about PC games being in a poor state now - despite the overheads of a PC environment compared to console I think modern PC games look great and run great, even on old hardware. I have more games than I know what to do with, and not a single one of them makes me want for better hardware. The witcher 3 looks and plays great. So does divinity OS 2. So does Metro. So do any number of driving games.

What mainstream card can do 4K and VR like some of the consoles can?? BTW,the PS4 PRO is RX470 level. Oh,also with CPUs which are very weak. You talk about old hardware but again its still better than the average console.

Another thing is because you are probably not helping out people doing builds for certain games as much as I am,and I can see these trends. Mates are seeing these too. When you look at the hardware discrepencies between consoles and PCs you start to realise what the issue is and how much hardware is being wasted. Come on Kalniel,look at the whole API issue which I am sure you are aware off. Things like DX12 and Vulkan are hardly getting traction even though they will help mainstream gamers the most.

Even Witcher 3 is an example of that,especially since Nvidia pushed up tessellation so much,CDPR had to come in and help Kepler owners - I knew Kepler owners who had issues with the game and so on. Also the fact you need to understand that so many increasingly popular games are not even doing basic level mechanisms to cut down on draw calls,which is why they have CPU problems. Look at MMOs,again so many issues.

None of these people I helped were tech enthusiasts they were normal gamers and the way PC devs don't care is really elitist - all the games you mentioned are console first too,which is proving my point. A number of these other games have loads of concurrent players on Steam,or in the case of MMOs millions of players. They are basically using a single core to do tons of stuff,meaning that either players have to deal with utterly crap minimums or invest in an expensive overclockable CPU.

Early Access is a bloody scourge of PC gaming - so many of them are so utterly poorly optimised,so hardware needs to be thrown at them.

Heck I have hit the same issues with one or two PC only online games I play - its a joke that during a large battle I can see 20FPS. That was with even a GTX960,RX470 or GTX1080 as a test. Then I tested one lot of settings in that game,which a certain hardware company sponsored. BAHAHAHHAHAHA! Hardly any change but FPS tanked 15FPS. Never switched it on again.

Its a bloody joke that in 2018,that any large scale PC game shouldn't be able to use 4 threads effectively. We all know why DX12 and Vulkan never took off,since it was not in the interest of certain hardware companies.

My Xeon E3 was not that modern,and the only games where I saw good utilisation of it where cross platform titles,developed with newer engines.

The same goes with graphics cards - fad after fad is being pushed graphically. So many games are pushing stupid effects which add very little to the visuals but tank performance. Its a joke when modern PC games have less interactable environments than ancient games and as you pointed out even yourself when you said a console exclusive does it better than almost all modern PC games,so even you deep down agree to a partial level.

Destroying a building with a chicken is far more fun. I want to be able to ram TNT up the rear end of the chicken and then propel it into a person who then flies backwards into a building before detonating.

Being serious, I totally agree on the part about pushing stupid lighting effects way too far. It reminds me of the days of motherboards shoving a few million (okay, so not quite millions) phases onto their CPU power management just because that was the number where the current fad had landed.

I think the lighting effects from ray tracing when I see them side by side look impressive sometimes but mostly just different when I consider how much attention I'm going to pay to them in the heat of the gaming moment. Knowing someone could have spent the time ensuring that the wooden cart I'm currently using as hard cover against grenades and .50 BMG rounds behaved more realistically and in a way that actually affected gameplay is kind of annoying.

There's a level in COD WW2 with tanks and there are some buildings which are destructable and your rounds will completely deface the building with smoke, rubble, etc. Then you're against an enemy tank in a dragged out game of cat and mouse and you find that a small pile of 3 bricks totally stops your AP tank round and doesn't even move. No only that but you just need two shots into the "weakest" point of the tank (which was actually the strongest but hey, who cares) to destroy it. Don't think about immobilising it by hitting the tracks or bringing a building down on it and slowing it down so you can get the hits in whilst it's blind. Probably the most infuriating level I've ever played in a game.

Exactly,and then when you include some of the really popular PC exclusive and Early Access games,its LOLWTFBBQ.

OFC,as with microtransactions "its nothing wrong here".



The problem is PC gamers have become to defensive.

I have seen YouTube and industry commenters comment on the poor state of games,poor optimisation,and game fans have gone and attacked them massively in groups.

An example is Jim Sterling and his comments on microtransactions,and the poor state of certain games.

One reviewer commented on certain flaws of the Witcher 3 and he had legions of fans causing him so much aggro he took the video down.

[kalniel]

What mainstream card can do 4K and VR like some of the consoles can?? BTW,the PS4 PRO is RX470 level. Oh,also with CPUs which are very weak. You talk about old hardware but again its still better than the average console.

My question was, which mainstream card is faster than a GTX 1060? You said mainstream PCs are faster than console GPUs, which are around the 1060 level.

Another things is because you are probably not helping out people doing builds for certain games as much as I am,and I can see these trends.

That would be a false assumption on your part.

all the games you mentioned are console first too,which is proving my point.

I mentioned W3, which is PC first (red engine). D:OS2, which is PC first (console ports of Divinity games came out much later than PC engine), and Metro, which I'm not sure about, but I think was using the 4A engine which was developed for STALKER which was a PC only game. So which of the games I mention are console first?

Its a bloody joke that in 2018,that any large scale PC game shouldn't be able to use 4 threads effectively.

I'm not sure I agree - a lot of people have laptops rather than gaming PCs, and low-power mobile chips have only just gone quad core in any decent fashion, and that's still at the high and expensive end in many ways.

Its a joke when modern PC games have less interactable environments than ancient games and as you pointed out even yourself when you said a console exclusive does it better than almost all modern PC games,so even you deep down agree to a partial level.

Which console exclusive was that? I was talking about forza horizon 4 - not exclusive at all - equally PC developed and runs great on PC.

[Corky34]

My question was, which mainstream card is faster than a GTX 1060?

A GTX 1070. Facetiousness aside current gen consoles are no where near a GTX 1060, they're closer to a R7 260X or a GTX 750.

[DanceswithUnix]

Horizon 4 does have a more interactive world - it's even more so than 3. I don't think it's wasted potential if you can make something look and play amazing on the majority of systems out there - whether that's PC or console. Yes, PCs are more powerful, and correspondingly you do get a better experience. But you don't need to buy a take the piss CPU and GPU to have that experience.

It ends up sounding elitist if you say that developers should take features away from the majority (by diverting dev time) in order to appease a wealthy minority. To then complain about gaming increasing in cost or hardware being more expensive in order to access that 'extra potential' would be almost hypocritical.

My son bought Horizon 4 on digital download so he could try it on both PC and his Xbox One-S. With an old but very high end 6 core 3 channel ram Xeon cpu and an R9 285 he needed a lot of faffing with video settings to get the PC to play smoothly, and I think he has gone back to the Xbox because he felt it played better.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

My question was, which mainstream card is faster than a GTX 1060? You said mainstream PCs are faster than console GPUs, which are around the 1060 level.

So what mainstream systems have Atom class CPUs,really?? Or are you just on purpose ignoring that one. So yes they are since consoles have less RAM,less CPU power,etc.

You then say how well your old Core i7 runs the game,yet that old Core i7 utterly destroys the Jaguar cores used in the consoles. A modern Apple A12 probably makes the Jaguar look like a potato!

Even you agreed that that HZD did more stuff than FC3,and that modern PC games don't even do that. All on a tablet chip from years ago.

That would be a false assumption on your part.

Actually I name dropped certain things to see,and looking at the response,yeah.........................!

Maybe I was being unfair!

I mentioned W3, which is PC first (red engine). D:OS2, which is PC first (console ports of Divinity games came out much later than PC engine), and Metro, which I'm not sure about, but I think was using the 4A engine which was developed for STALKER which was a PC only game. So which of the games I mention are console first?

You do realise engines evolve over time,or did you just forget about how CryENGINE changed significantly once Crytek rejigged it for consoles. It went from hammering one to two cores,to scaling really well with more cores.

Witcher 3 was developed realistically for consoles in the end,hence why they dropped down the graphics over initial demos,and made sure the engine scaled reasonably well with more threads and so was the last few Metro games,as the engines were optimised better to run on consoles. You can even see it in certain designs choices in these games,and these make more sense to get over console limitations.

Even the control system and combat system in the Witcher 3 is more orientated towards a controller. Compare it to Chilvalry for example. Look at all the moaning at launch with the graphics being downgraded.

I think you really seem to be not taking into consideration how much money companies like Microsoft and Sony are pushing.

In fact if you are a dev,not making an MMO or MOBA,it makes a ton of financial sense to target consoles first or at least target consoles especially for AAA games,as by extension it probably means PC optimisation is less of a problem.

Plus games likle ROTR launched on consoles first too.

I actually talked to one or two devs in my time,who said the focus of many of these PC first titles over times has moved more and more to consoles.

Most PC gaming revenue is based around MMOs and MOBAs. 60% from MMOs alone,and a lot from MOBAs. Many of those MMOs use crap engines.

I'm not sure I agree - a lot of people have laptops rather than gaming PCs, and low-power mobile chips have only just gone quad core in any decent fashion, and that's still at the high and expensive end in many ways.

LOL,I said 4 threads - that includes Core i3 which I actually have used for a few years before my Xeon E3 and that Llano based rig I still use. So basically you are saying that Core i3 should only use one thread during a game,meaning that person's system is even more CPU limited.

What do you think consoles and low power CPUs share - a lack of single core performance,so using more threads is actually beneficial.

Most PC gamers upgrading gaming CPUs do it due to a lack of single core performance not a lack of threads. Quad core CPUs have existed as low as £100,like the famous Q6600 or Athlon II X4 620. Core i3s were sub £100 for years.

Steam shows that 60% of gamers on Steam have quad core CPUs,29% have a dual core CPU(including Core i3s) and 8% six core CPUs. So nearly 70% have 4 to 6 cores,and most likely many of that remaining 29% who have dual cores have Core i3s. So at least 70% of Steam gamers have CPUs with 4 threads.

So I am uncertain what this particular point is meant to say??

Which console exclusive was that? I was talking about forza horizon 4 - not exclusive at all - equally PC developed and runs great on PC.

It was most likely developed more with consoles in mind,that is why it scales so well to so many threads,and has really amazing core loading according to reviews. You can't do the crap level multi-threading which a number of PC games do which is push one to two threads near to 100% as with a console it would crash performance.

If any games has very even core loading they have done it to get over the weak single core performance of a console.

Just because the devs say one thing,does not mean the reality is that,so when they say "developed" for PC you are just reading into PR bumpf,as they know PC gamers will get defensive if they don't say that. There are situations where PC gamers get so annoyed that a PC game has been "consolised" they start hate campaigns against devs.

Anyway,this discussion is all nice and all,but having had these "disagreements" in the past,I am not going to agree with you for the most part. So let it be and we can both think we are right!!

[DanceswithUnix]

I disagree with this. Games consoles which could even hope to rival a PC are a relatively new thing.

The Nintendo 64 was jaw-dropping performance when released.
The Sega Megadrive threw sprites around in a way that a 486 released about the same time couldn't come close to, specially when many PCs were on CGA or EGA graphics at that point though on a slow ISA bus it is kind of moot.
ISTR the PS3 had better Nvidia graphics than the top graphics card available at the moment of release.

The killer for the PC is the rate of change, all those systems were slower than PC's within a year. Apart from the Megadrive, it was '92 before VLB graphics took PC graphics beyond playing Civ and spawning the likes of the original Doom. The N64 being released just before the Voodoo graphics card was certainly unfortunate for it, but at the time (I had one) there weren't many games for the Voodoo.

Honorable mention to the Dreamcast. I had a good gaming PC for the day which I'm sure was faster, but Metropolis Street Racer made me stare in disbelief.

[kalniel]

So what mainstream systems have Atom class CPUs,really?? Or are you just on purpose ignoring that one.

We were talking about GPUs, Atoms are not a GPU.

Even you agreed that that HZD did more stuff than FC3

What is HZD? I said Horizon 4 does more interactive/destructability stuff. Horizon 4 is a modern PC game.

You do realise engines evolve over time,or did you just forget about how CryENGINE changed significantly once Crytek rejigged it for consoles. It went from hammering one to two cores,to scaling really well with more cores.

These are all good things, but not evidence that things are created for console first - quite the opposite - in each of the cases it's clear that PC was the first development of the engine and then they were adapted for console afterwards.

Even the control system and combat system in the Witcher 3 is more orientated towards a controller.

Which is evidence of what? PC gamers have been using peripherals for far longer than consoles.

I think you really seem to be not taking into consideration how much money companies like Microsoft and Sony are pushing.

In fact if you are a dev,not making an MMO or MOBA,it makes a ton of financial sense to target consoles first or at least target consoles especially for AAA games,as by extension it probably means PC optimisation is less of a problem.

Absolutely agree. But that wasn't what happened with the games I mentioned. It's now possible to develop games through crowd-funders for example.

I actually talked to one or two devs in my time,who said the focus of many of these PC first titles over times has moved more and more to consoles.

Ditto, and vice versa - a lot of focus has moved back to PC.

Most PC gaming revenue is based around MMOs and MOBAs. 60% from MMOs alone,and a lot from MOBAs. Many of those MMOs use crap engines.

I realise I'm in the minority then, as I don't play MMOs. They do have to be designed for crappy internet cafe systems around the world I guess.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Nintendo 64 was jaw-dropping performance when released.
The Sega Megadrive threw sprites around in a way that a 486 released about the same time couldn't come close to, specially when many PCs were on CGA or EGA graphics at that point though on a slow ISA bus it is kind of moot.
ISTR the PS3 had better Nvidia graphics than the top graphics card available at the moment of release.

The killer for the PC is the rate of change, all those systems were slower than PC's within a year. Apart from the Megadrive, it was '92 before VLB graphics took PC graphics beyond playing Civ and spawning the likes of the original Doom.

I would say the release of cheap high performance 3D accelerator cards is what pushed PC past consoles eventually. I still remember seeing AvP on the Atari Jaguar and Virtua Fighter on the Sega Saturn.

Also PC games of the era were concentrating more on making decent improvements alround,instead of getting obsessed about using half the GPU and CPU power to make one effect look better,which means all of that extra processing power is wasted not doing lots of other things.

My personal opinion is the failure of Crytek is what started the change. They had always been pushing the cutting edge of what you could do with PC,etc,so when Crysis failed in sales(especially with the rampant piracy on PC in that era),I suspect a lot of devs realised,maybe putting all the eggs in the PC basket wasn't really a good idea. Hence as time progressed more and more devs,realised consoles were a good base for their games,and starting slowly moving on from there. TBH its a bit of a shame,but OTH it does mean hopefully PC games will get better and better optimised,although it does come with some downsides,as certain things are still more doable on PCs than say a modern console.

Its also why the new ones in the next few years,will probably a big jump,primarily since they will be moving to much faster CPUs. That alone should mean more complexity in games,so something like HZD but with even a more dynamic environment - I just hope the PC gets a game like that. All eyes on you CDPR,I hope Cyberpunk 2077 does us proud.

I suspect that is why CDPR was saying CB2077 was for next gen consoles,since having all that complexity with so many NPCs,etc is going to need decent CPU processing power,and much of it spread amongst more threads. Having said that I do wonder whether it will be released for current consoles with their Jaguar based chips - it might actually mean the PC version at launch might be functionally better(graphics I care a bit less about as long as it is good enough).

So yay,PCMR??

Take that console....!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

BT say the new CPUs have some hardware mitigations towards Spectre/Meltdown:

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/c...latest-cpus/1/

Intel has confirmed that its latest processors, the Coffee Lake-S and Basin Falls parts announced at an event last night, do not come with in-hardware protection against all currently-known Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities - though promises that they are protected through a combination of software and microcode patches.

The shadow cast by the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, announced back in January, has been long: From the performance impact of patches to crashes bad enough that Intel would recommend against their use, the company has had a tough year. In late January since-departed chief executive Brian Krzanich, who was criticised for having sold the maximum allowable amount of his shares in the company after it had been informed of the flaw but before the news was shared with the public, promised in-silicon fixes this year; by March those fixes had been downgraded to applying only to selected variants.

With new processors in the Xeon and Core-X families and a ninth-generation Core range, Intel is now delivering these fixes to the desktop - but only partially.

According to documentation released by Intel, only the Coffee Lake-S parts - known to consumers as Ninth Generation Intel Core Desktop Processors - come with in-silicon protection against Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, and at that only partial: Each chip in the range includes protection against the Meltdown Variant 3 and the more recently-discovered L1 Terminal Fault, or Variant 5, flaws. For other variants, including Spectre Variant 2 and Meltdown Variant 3a, the chips rely entirely on the same software and microcode patches as previous generations.

For those looking into the impressively-powerful 28-core Skylake-X Xeon W-3175X or the new high-end desktop (HEDT) Basin Falls-based Intel Core X-Series, there's worse news to come: Neither include any in-silicon protections against Spectre, Meltdown, or related vulnerabilities, relying wholly on software and microcode patches.

Intel has not commented on its work on securing its processors from the vulnerabilities since August.

[Status_Quote11]

Wait, the i9 exists????!?

[Tunnah]

BT say the new CPUs have some hardware mitigations towards Spectre/Meltdown:

https://www.bit-tech.net/news/tech/c...latest-cpus/1/

From what I understand, they can't mitigate it without doing massive redesigns, so it'll be 10nm before anything is done about it. And even then, because of the way CPUs work, mitigation would mean a loss of performance in exchange for security, and they're not exactly keen to lose the speed race. It seems much more likely they'll just run out the clock on people caring/making noise about it, and wait for people to just accept it as a thing we now put up with.

That being said, I know very little about the nittygritty of architecture.

[philehidiot]

From what I understand, they can't mitigate it without doing massive redesigns, so it'll be 10nm before anything is done about it. And even then, because of the way CPUs work, mitigation would mean a loss of performance in exchange for security, and they're not exactly keen to lose the speed race. It seems much more likely they'll just run out the clock on people caring/making noise about it, and wait for people to just accept it as a thing we now put up with.

That being said, I know very little about the nittygritty of architecture.

That's like a car company ditching safety for performance. It's marketing and sales first with the safety of the customer a distant third. The Ford GT did this where they removed certain safety features from the rear seats in certain regions as they (apparently) didn't think it would get tested in all regions and people would just go on the NCAP tests from the regions where these features were supplied. I wonder if Intel are working on the grounds that everyone is just going to assume they've fixed it because it was so serious and keep quiet to the extent possible.

[Tunnah]

That's like a car company ditching safety for performance. It's marketing and sales first with the safety of the customer a distant third. The Ford GT did this where they removed certain safety features from the rear seats in certain regions as they (apparently) didn't think it would get tested in all regions and people would just go on the NCAP tests from the regions where these features were supplied. I wonder if Intel are working on the grounds that everyone is just going to assume they've fixed it because it was so serious and keep quiet to the extent possible.

That's a perfect analogy mate. Look at how car companies do it; they measure up the cost of payouts from accidents vs a recall cost (thanks Fight Club!). Even if it works out to a penny gained they'd still leave it out in the wild. Not like it's their data getting nicked :/

[Corky34]

From what I understand, they can't mitigate it without doing massive redesigns, so it'll be 10nm before anything is done about it. And even then, because of the way CPUs work, mitigation would mean a loss of performance in exchange for security, and they're not exactly keen to lose the speed race. It seems much more likely they'll just run out the clock on people caring/making noise about it, and wait for people to just accept it as a thing we now put up with.

That being said, I know very little about the nittygritty of architecture.

You can mitigate anything as the word mitigate means to make something less bad. You're right in your implication (if I've understood correctly) that you can't stop side-channel attacks with out a massive redesigns though, the simple matter is you can't prevent all known and unknown side-channel attacks without reverting to CPUs designs from the 1990 (for Intel) as IIRC the 486's were the last non-out of order CPUs (out-of-order execution is the root of the vulnerability).

[Tunnah]

You can mitigate anything as the word mitigate means to make something less bad. You're right in your implication (if I've understood correctly) that you can't stop side-channel attacks with out a massive redesigns though, the simple matter is you can't prevent all known and unknown side-channel attacks without reverting to CPUs designs from the 1990 (for Intel) as IIRC the 486's were the last non-out of order CPUs (out-of-order execution is the root of the vulnerability).

Aye you're right mate, I meant mitigate in the sense of reduce the impact to a suitable level. The hardware changes they'll make will still be mitigation, it's just the performance impact will be within an acceptable level.

[scaryjim]

... IIRC the 486's were the last non-out of order CPUs (out-of-order execution is the root of the vulnerability).

Quick nit-pick. Speculative execution is the root of the vulnerability, not OoO. There are plenty of modern OoO designs that don't do spec ex and are not vulnerable (a lot of the lower-end ARMs, for instance). The original Pentium and Pentium MMX lacked spec ex, that came in with Pentium Pro/Pentium II and AMD's K6. So you can use mainstream x86 processors up to 1995, in fact

More recently there are, as I mentioned earlier, current gen ARM architectures that don't do speculative execution. Atoms up to Bay Trail were all in-order and therefore won't be vulnerable. Bay Trail & later were out-of-order, but I don't know if they do spec ex or not.

But basically, it's not as simple as "all processors made since X date are vulnerable", since there are widely deployed currently-manufactured CPU cores that aren't .