RichardC (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on May 14, 2013 5:54 pm wrote:
> Mark Roulo (nothanks.delete@this.xxx.com) on May 14, 2013 5:37 pm wrote:
> > RichardC (tich.delete@this.pobox.com) on May 14, 2013 12:09 pm wrote:
> > > Ricardo B (ricardo.b.delete@this.xxxxx.xx) on May 14, 2013 11:18 am wrote:
> > > > Actually, this question should be different.
> > > > If you're going to use FPS as the benchmark for games, does high end CPU
> > > > performance even matter or should you just go and get a faster GPU?
> > >
> > > The benchmarks I saw showed that 4C/4T vs 4C/8T at 3.8GHz was
> > > pretty equal; but 4C/4T 4.0GHz was significantly faster than 4C/4T 3.8GHz.
> > > That's quite strong evidence that cpu performance does make a difference,
> > > but that hyperthreading is not particularly helpful for current game engines.
> >
> > Can you provide a link? Naively, I would expect a ~5% increase in clock speed to result in a ~5% increase
> > in measured performance (frames per second, whatever). Maybe a bit less. And I wouldn't describe a 5%
> > increase in performance as "significantly faster." It would be useful to see the actual numbers.
>
> Here's one: http://www.overclock.net/t/671977/hyperthreading-in-games
>
> I wouldn't expect 5% core clock increase to give a 5% overall speedup.
> Too much stuff depends on DRAM. And of course for gaming the GPU is very
> much involved as well.
>
> However, by "significant increase" I didn't mean to imply as much as 5%.
> Just that HT vs non-HT was a nothingburger, and 3.8GHz vs 4.0GHz was a
> detectable and consistent speedup ("significant" more in the statistical
> sense of being outside the range of random variation).

Thanks!

Actually, without error bars on these things, I'd eyeball it and say that 3.8 vs 4.0 GHz is noise and so is SMT.

Averages:

Battlefield: 136, 135.6, 135.5
Crysis: 122.6, 121.9, 117.1
Crysis Warhead: 74.8, 74.8, 74.7

etc.
The Dragon Age origins looks like it has a real benefit to 4 GHz :-)