4770k or 3930k

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

I'd sure love to see you CPU utilization graph during the slowdowns you describe. Sounds like Far Cry 3 is not using the extra cores.

It's really weird, 'cause none of the cores are fully utilised. It's probably bad game coding. It's the consoles' fault...

 

[cytg111]

If you're looking down the road, I think that you have to consider how the PS4 and xbox one will influence the need of more cores. If the games made for those will benefit from hyper threading and more cores.

And thats a friggin long road to look down at .. how long does a build last? 2-3 years?
Same rule as always, build to play the games of today, building to play the games of tomorrow is a loosers game.
I see no reason to go beyond 4 cores at the moment, unless you are taxing a specific need, as in encode or otherwise parallel scientific tasks. Crysis 3 is NOT the rule, it is the exception. For now.

 

[moonbogg]

The problem here is that the 2 GPUs are not fully utilised and FPS is under 60.
So much power gone to waste.
How do 2 TITANs perform in Metro?

That will depend on the game. Only a couple games have the visuals to tax two titans @ 1080p. Do you have crysis 3?

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

That will depend on the game. Only a couple games have the visuals to tax two titans @ 1080p. Do you have crysis 3?

After playing Crysis 2 and seeing how bad it was I decided not to buy Crysis 3.
I buy the game I'm interested in. Currently Red Orchestra 2 and Assassin's Creed Revelations. Next ones will be Assassin's Creed 3 and Metro Last Light.
The problem with FC3 and Hitman is that they don't even tax the system. In intensive areas SLI doesn't work properly. In Hitman's benchmark i get a minimum of 43 FPS(!!!).

 

[crashtech]

It's really weird, 'cause none of the cores are fully utilised. It's probably bad game coding. It's the consoles' fault...

It would indicate that the games need more IPC instead of more cores, which unfortunately points to 4770K as a solution, or Ivy-E in the fall.

 

[RussianSensation]

you really wanna compare a 3930 to a 4770? :X

For games though, 4770 OC won't be any slower than 3930 OC. 4770K is just $280 at MC with a solid board for $120 (MSI GD65). An X79 board is $200 + $500 for the 3930. You spend $690 and it can't beat 4770K OC in 99.999% of games. Sounds like a waste unless you absolutely use the CPU for video encoding, rendering, other tasks (or doing that while gaming).

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-4770k_8.html#sect0

Now you can have a situation like this:

4770K + Z87 + GTX780 3GB SLI = $1,700 USD
3930K + X79 + GTX770 4GB SLI = $1,600 USD

By the time games use 6-8 cores, we'll be rocking Skylake with another 10-15% increase in IPC over Haswell, or have the option of waiting it out another 12 months for HW-E. By that point a 14nm Skylake would mop the floor in CPU limited games over a 4930K IVB-E 22nm. LGA2011 and early LGA2011-3 will also be stuck without SATA Express.

In CPU limited games today, the lowly $200 i5-4670K OC is matching $500 i7 3930K OC:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/12/intel-core-i5-4670k-haswell-cpu-review/5

Here is the punchline,

i5-4670K and i7-4770K OC + Z87 platform is not any slower in games than i7 3930/3960 OC + X79 platform but:
- uses 100W less at idle
- uses 260-275W less at load!
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2013/06/12/intel-core-i5-4670k-haswell-cpu-review/6

Why would a gamer do this to themselves when PCIe 3.0 8x/8x is not a bottleneck for modern GPUs by more than 2-3%?

And that's not all, the amount of cool features on new Z87 motherboards blows what comes stock on X79 at $200 level out of the water. A $120 MSI-GD65 board at MC is stacked with upgraded Sound Blaster audio, Integrated 600Ω Headphone amplifier, 8xSATA3 ports, 1 x Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN, mSATA slot. Good luck finding an X79 board for $200 with these features.
http://jp.msi.com/product/mb/Z87-GD65-GAMING.html

and

In CPU limited games, i7 4770K OC would clean up 3930K OC all day while using 260W less.

 

[Carfax83]

Why would a gamer do this to themselves when PCIe 3.0 8x/8x is not a bottleneck for modern GPUs by more than 2-3%?

Well, speaking for myself, I have three GPUs in my rig. Therefore I would be running 8x/4x/4x if I had gone Haswell. That just doesn't cut it for me..

In CPU limited games, i7 4770K OC would clean up 3930K OC all day while using 260W less.

That's assuming the game does not scale to six cores. All the major next gen engines will be able to use more than 4 cores, including CryEngine 3, Frostbite 3 and Unreal Engine 4 and the engine Ubisoft is using for Watch dogs and The Division.

In the end, LGA 2011 will be the better gaming platform..

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

It would indicate that the games need more IPC instead of more cores, which unfortunately points to 4770K as a solution, or Ivy-E in the fall.

I don't even think that 4770K will change things much. I'm sure that if FC3 was actually developed for PC we wouldn't experience this sloppy performance.

 

[Carfax83]

I don't even think that 4770K will change things much. I'm sure that if FC3 was actually developed for PC we wouldn't experience this sloppy performance.

Far Cry 3 engine is terrible for PC, particularly from a memory management standpoint. I excoriated it in this thread I made a few days ago.

It uses 4 cores pretty well, but anything past that is overkill so a 3930K probably won't give you too much benefit in that game.. Perhaps a little due to NVidia's multithreaded drivers, but that's it.

Out of curiosity though, why on Earth are you running 1080p with two Titans? I didn't read the entire thread so I must have missed that..

 

[RUN4Y0URL1F3]

Far Cry 3 engine is terrible for PC, particularly from a memory management standpoint. I excoriated it in this thread I made a few days ago.

It uses 4 cores pretty well, but anything past that is overkill so a 3930K probably won't give you too much benefit in that game.. Perhaps a little due to NVidia's multithreaded drivers, but that's it.

Out of curiosity though, why on Earth are you running 1080p with two Titans? I didn't read the entire thread so I must have missed that..

I thought I could run all games at 60 FPS minimum with Ultra quality settings, but this seems impossible. Also, I quite like playing with 4x or 8x SGSSAA...

 

[khg5293]

If It's for gaming go for 4770k. But 3930k is better almost always, just not in games the ipc is slightly better for haswell.