Which CPU fpr Starcraft 2 and others

[ViRGE]

or see if AMD comes out with the newer cpu by end of summer.

AMD won't be introducing any new CPUs until the very end of the year (having just released Richland). So what you see now will still be your options in a few months' time.

 

[VirtualLarry]

FX 8350>i5 4670k

But not for StarCraft II, which tends to strongly favor Intel chips, and their single-threaded performance.

 

[ShintaiDK]

But not for StarCraft II, which tends to strongly favor Intel chips, and their single-threaded performance.

SC2 is dualthreaded.

 

[Dice144]

Well newegg had a $100 off the combo for a ATX+4770k. As much as I wanted itx saved money by keeping my Cooler Master HAF which in turn went toward the CPU.

 

[frozentundra123456]

But not for StarCraft II, which tends to strongly favor Intel chips, and their single-threaded performance.

Actually for the vast majority of games the 4670 will be considerably faster than the 8350, while in a few new highly threaded games they will be close, with the 8350 perhaps slightly ahead in a few cases.

Overall the i5 is much more well rounded for gaming than the 8350. Where it loses it is by a small margin, whereas the 8350 loses by a much larger margin in games that do not use more than 4 threads.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

FX 8350>i5 4670k

According to Anand's CPU bench the i5-4670k with a base clock of 3.4GHz is beating the 4GHz 8350 in 12 out of 19 tests.

:thumbsup:

 

[yottabit]

That is a possible explanation, I agree. I dont play much online because I am not that good.
In single player, surprisingly, I am strongly gpu limited even with a relatively weak card. I tried several skirmishes against the computer AI and actually it took a 10 player map to max out the cpu. So depending on the number of units, I suppose it is possible to be cpu limited even with a Titan.

You seem to be misinterpreting the process- with a weak GPU it is more likely your results could be GPU limited, while with a GPU like a Titan (and running at a low resolution) it is extremely unlikely the results are GPU limited, making them CPU limited

This can always be verified by lowering the resolution or decreasing graphics settings further, and seeing if there is any appreciable change in framerate. If there is not, then you can confirm the results are CPU limited. That's why CPU testing for video games is usually done with a monster video card, at fairly low graphics settings.

Starcraft's problem is it does all it's physics processing on CPU, along with all the AI for each unit, and it's only able to use 2 cores.

 

[yottabit]

Well newegg had a $100 off the combo for a ATX+4770k. As much as I wanted itx saved money by keeping my Cooler Master HAF which in turn went toward the CPU.

Sounds like a good choice though!

 

[VirtualLarry]

SC2 is dualthreaded.

but when we talk about CPU performance, we talk about single-threaded, and multi-threaded performance. I was referring to that, not how many threads the game engine utilizes.

 

[ShintaiDK]

but when we talk about CPU performance, we talk about single-threaded, and multi-threaded performance. I was referring to that, not how many threads the game engine utilizes.

When do you define what then? Multithreaded covers 2 threads or more. Hence SC2 is actually multithreaded.

 

[Maximilian]

AMD sucks for starcraft 2... or to be fair the engine sucks because it only uses two threads (way to go blizzard...) so Intel all the way for that game.

 

[chernobog]

When do you define what then? Multithreaded covers 2 threads or more. Hence SC2 is actually multithreaded.

2 cores are just not enough, Company of Heroes 2 is an RTS and it uses more than 2 cores. COH 2 engine walks all over SC2 engine, plain and simple.

 

[Dice144]

AMD sucks for starcraft 2... or to be fair the engine sucks because it only uses two threads (way to go blizzard...) so Intel all the way for that game.

Yes, really a shame how bad the game is coded.

 

[blackened23]

AMD sucks for starcraft 2... or to be fair the engine sucks because it only uses two threads (way to go blizzard...) so Intel all the way for that game.

Well, it *is* pretty tragic that so few games take advantage of HT and hexa-core CPUs. I don't know if the next-generation consoles will take steps to alleviate that, but I sure hope so. We have had hexa core CPUs for years now with little benefit to games.

 

[Concillian]

When do you define what then? Multithreaded covers 2 threads or more. Hence SC2 is actually multithreaded.

A better term would be single core performance or 'per core' performance. But I think you understand what he means... Because SCII can only efficiently utilize 2 cores, the performance of each core is critical. more critical than in applications where AMD can make up for worse per-core performance with more cores.

Yes, it's primarily a severe limitation of the game engine that results in the strong preference for Intel CPUs in Starcraft II...but if it's what the guy plays you can't really ignore that game engine limitation. Especially seeing as how he has noticed the performance issue specifically in this game (but not others) coming from his SB to 1090T. Presumably this means he feels his 1090T is adequate in every game except SCII.

OP, now that you know the issue is due to Starcraft IIs inability to efficiently handle more than 2 cores, one thing you can consider is to disable your three lowest OCing cores and use the three highest OCing cores. By disabling cores you free up some VRM margin and heat management / TDP margin for higher overclocks. This may bring 1090T single core performance up to a level where SCII performs adequately.

 

[KingFatty]

Also keep in mind that SCII uses Havok for physics. SCII CPU performance chokes when physics effects are turned up. Havok is owned by Intel. So if you turn down the physics effects, the Havok engine is not used as much, and performance gets way better.

 

[SlowSpyder]

If you had an AM3+ board the choice might be a harder one, but in this case I say crank that 1090T for all its worth until you can get the Haswell system later (or maybe AMD might have something more appealing by then). I bet you have another 300-400Mhz if you push it harder.

 

[yottabit]

OP already bought a 4770k, see above

The thing about SC2 is it was originally supposed to release something like 3-4 years before it actually did, hence only being optimized for dual cores haha

 

[guskline]

I have BOTH a 3770k and a 8350 ( see my sig below). I prefer the 3770k but the 8350 is not a bad chip at all. If you are near a MicroCenter the 3770k is $259 and the 4770k is $279. Since your present mb won't accept a 8350 I would go with a Haswell chip and mb.

 

[Dice144]

I just got my new water pump in. I was planning to put it on the AMD system to test if I can finally break the 4ghz without crashing.

I did some winter testing (live in cold buffalo) and the system still would not go stable at 4.1 ghz. However, can use some thermal paste and some free time to try the amd one last time under water before swapping the guts out for my 4770k

 

[guskline]

Dice144, keep us posted on how the 4770k performs under water!

 

[lopri]

What motherboard are you using and how high can it overclock HTT? You can easily extract ~20% more performance in SC2 if you know how to configure memory, the CPU-NB, and the HTT so that they all sync nicely at maximum efficiency. (Simply raising multipliers - both for the CPU and the CPU-NB - isn't as efficient)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3877/...investigation-of-thuban-performance-scaling/7

Of course an easier route is getting one of those xxxxK CPUs and cranking up multipliers.

 

[Dice144]

Will do

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Will do

Try to stay around 2000 on HTT, it doesn't do anything for you past that, lower might increase stability though but may cost performance.

 

[SPBHM]

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/899-5/performances-jeux-3d.html

Haswell I5 is great in this game compared to other CPUs, but as you can see, sub 15FPS is still a possibility, but overall it should be a good improvement.