By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - PC Discussion - Why you really don't need to buy in i7 CPU for gaming (or even an i5).

jlrx on 19 September 2012
disolitude said:

After some recent benchamarks I've come to the conclusion that people really don't need to buy expensive CPUs or i5s and i7s to get the most out of their gaming.

Below are the 3 scenarios I tested.

 

Scenario 1 - budget gamer gaming on 720p-1080p on lower settings with a 100 dollar GPU

Test -  AMD Phenom X3 8850 with a Radeon 7750 VS i5 2500k and 7750

Result - CPU bottleneck exists on low settings and 720p resolution but GPU is the main bottleneck when we go to 1080p. Furthermore, CPU bottleneck that I saw happens over 60 fps. COD4 for example at 720p was running 70 fps on Phenom and 120 fps on i5. Considering that 99.9% of the population use 60 hz monitors, you are not able to see framerate over 60 fps. So essentially its just a waste to disable VSYNC and game over 60 fps (unless you have a true 120 hz monitor)

 

Scenario 2 - mainstream gamer looking to run games at 1080p with a 200-300 dollar GPU.

Test - Overclocked Phenom X4 940 (3.6 GHZ) with a GTX 670 VS i5 2500k with a GTX 670

Phenom X4 cpu will bottleneck some games, compared to an i5 2500k. However it will do so well over 60 fps. You will get 90 fps + with a Phenom vs 150 fps with an i5 for example. But again...60hz monitor is holding your frame rate back to 60 and when VSYNC is enabled there is no CPU bottleneck.

 

Scenario 3 - Power gamer looking to run eyefinity, nvidia surround, 3D vision or resolutions of 2560x1440+. Price is not the issue.

Test - Overclocked Phenom X4 940 (3.6 GHZ) with a GTX 670 SLI VS i5 2500k with a GTX 670 SLI and 3 1080p monitors

No matter what game benchmark I tried, CPU was never the bottleneck. It is always the GPU. The moment you start rendering 2 or 3X 1080p resolution, the GPU starts to tap out before the CPU ever will.

 

Conclusion - For the most part you really don't need to shell out 250-300 dollars on the latest CPU if you want to have an exnjoyable gaming experience. You are much better off spending $100 on the CPU and $300 on the GPU than $200 and $200. 

The old Phenom X4 CPUs are going really cheap these days and are excellent gaming CPUs.

Something like this in a gaming PC will last you for many years to come.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2375447&SRCCODE=LSCAN&cm_mmc_o=-ddCjC1bELltzywCjC-d2CjCdwwp&AffiliateID=CAqD7bLWUPI-kQ4bk9A21bLEKC76p.XN_g

I have an i7-3930k

and I have 2 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130790 GPU's in my gaming PC

I realized I had too much disposable money and decided to switch out my 1920x1200 monitors for 1920x1080 (cant find 1920x1200 in 3D monitors) (btw it is the 3DS which provoked my desire to switch to 3D gaming on the PC, which I had never really been interested in and now enjoy quite a bit)

So I am gaming on a system with an i7-3930k asus p9x79 deluxe, 2x GTX 690's with 2x SSD drives on the boot and for games, 32GB DDR3 2133

It is doubtful any conceivable game in the next 5 years or more will tax this system, but who knows.

Anyway, I say all that to say, yeah, you don't need it, but you want it, I certainly did.



Around the Network
disolitude on 19 September 2012
rubido said:

Guild Wars 2 is CPU bound at the moment. You need an i5 to get good performance.


I never tested this game but I just checked on the internetz and you are absolutely right.

I do admit that there are special circumstances which will require a better CPU. But my CPU test was more of a mainstream/general gaming test.



disolitude on 19 September 2012
crissindahouse said:
disolitude said:
crissindahouse said:
so, is this affiliate id a real affiliate id in the link?

Probably... I got it from here - http://forums.redflagdeals.com/td-amd-phenom-ii-x4-955-black-edition-quad-core-processor-69-97-40-off-1231160/ 

ahh ok i see. sry for the question, i don't even have something against people posting links as affiliate in most threads but in a thread like this it could have been the whole reason for the thread, that's why i asked.

All good, a totally fair question in this case.  I wasn't thinking about that when I posted it... I've revised the link.



disolitude on 19 September 2012
VGhippy said:
I have an i5 2500k, though I chose that one specifically so I had the option to run PS2/Wii emulators with a good framerate no matter the game. If wasn't bothered about emulators I probably would have bought a cheaper CPU and put the money into a better graphics card.


Very good point however Dolphin isn't optimized to run on more than 2 cores (last time I checked 3 months ago). It only uses 2 so a 6 core monster may not run it any faster than a 2 core.

I have confirmed however that Dolphin runs very good on an overclocked Phenom x4 940. You essentially need a 3+ GHZ chip that has at least 2 cores to run Dolphin well. 



disolitude on 19 September 2012
jlrx said:

I have an i7-3930k

and I have 2 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130790 GPU's in my gaming PC

I realized I had too much disposable money and decided to switch out my 1920x1200 monitors for 1920x1080 (cant find 1920x1200 in 3D monitors) (btw it is the 3DS which provoked my desire to switch to 3D gaming on the PC, which I had never really been interested in and now enjoy quite a bit)

So I am gaming on a system with an i7-3930k asus p9x79 deluxe, 2x GTX 690's with 2x SSD drives on the boot and for games, 32GB DDR3 2133

It is doubtful any conceivable game in the next 5 years or more will tax this system, but who knows.

Anyway, I say all that to say, yeah, you don't need it, but you want it, I certainly did.

That is a very impressive setup for sure.  I don't have that urge to spend my money on something like that though.

The only thing that will push this setup in the next few years is 3 X 3D vision monitor setup..

For anything else you literally won't see any difference compared to a setup which would cost $1000+ less.

To me doing this is like bringing a tank to a knife fight...hella cool but kinda takes a thrill out of the fight. :)

 

I do think SSD's are a good spend. I have 4 120 GB SSDs and I've been playing with different configurations. Currently I am using a single 120 for boot drive and 3 in RAID 0 for gaming. Games load in like 3 seconds, its great...



Around the Network
dahuman on 19 September 2012

You only need i5 or i7 class CPU and OC'ed for same device live stream at HD resolutions, otherwise any other option would work fine.



dahuman on 19 September 2012
disolitude said:
dharh said:
Yes and no. Often the reason to having one the newer CPUs is memory speed supported. You're mostly right though. Being GPU bound is the usual suspect for poor performance.

You're right but most of us have some DDR2 memory around and older parts that could put together to make a solid gaming rig. One just needs to slap a current gen GPU and they should be good to go.

Look at my situation... I took a 3 way SLI AM2+ mobo (Asus M3NHT), 8 GB of DDR2 800 memory and Phenom X4 940 BE and overclocked the crap out of them. They are running Crysis 2 on 3 monitors as good as my friends newly built i5 2500k rig with DDR3 1600 Memory with same GPU hardware.

PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 also makes no difference.

you are right on the PCIe 3 makes no difference, for now, that will change in 2014 or 2015 though, which is still 1-2 years away lol



dahuman on 19 September 2012
jlrx said:
disolitude said:

After some recent benchamarks I've come to the conclusion that people really don't need to buy expensive CPUs or i5s and i7s to get the most out of their gaming.

Below are the 3 scenarios I tested.

 

Scenario 1 - budget gamer gaming on 720p-1080p on lower settings with a 100 dollar GPU

Test -  AMD Phenom X3 8850 with a Radeon 7750 VS i5 2500k and 7750

Result - CPU bottleneck exists on low settings and 720p resolution but GPU is the main bottleneck when we go to 1080p. Furthermore, CPU bottleneck that I saw happens over 60 fps. COD4 for example at 720p was running 70 fps on Phenom and 120 fps on i5. Considering that 99.9% of the population use 60 hz monitors, you are not able to see framerate over 60 fps. So essentially its just a waste to disable VSYNC and game over 60 fps (unless you have a true 120 hz monitor)

 

Scenario 2 - mainstream gamer looking to run games at 1080p with a 200-300 dollar GPU.

Test - Overclocked Phenom X4 940 (3.6 GHZ) with a GTX 670 VS i5 2500k with a GTX 670

Phenom X4 cpu will bottleneck some games, compared to an i5 2500k. However it will do so well over 60 fps. You will get 90 fps + with a Phenom vs 150 fps with an i5 for example. But again...60hz monitor is holding your frame rate back to 60 and when VSYNC is enabled there is no CPU bottleneck.

 

Scenario 3 - Power gamer looking to run eyefinity, nvidia surround, 3D vision or resolutions of 2560x1440+. Price is not the issue.

Test - Overclocked Phenom X4 940 (3.6 GHZ) with a GTX 670 SLI VS i5 2500k with a GTX 670 SLI and 3 1080p monitors

No matter what game benchmark I tried, CPU was never the bottleneck. It is always the GPU. The moment you start rendering 2 or 3X 1080p resolution, the GPU starts to tap out before the CPU ever will.

 

Conclusion - For the most part you really don't need to shell out 250-300 dollars on the latest CPU if you want to have an exnjoyable gaming experience. You are much better off spending $100 on the CPU and $300 on the GPU than $200 and $200. 

The old Phenom X4 CPUs are going really cheap these days and are excellent gaming CPUs.

Something like this in a gaming PC will last you for many years to come.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2375447&SRCCODE=LSCAN&cm_mmc_o=-ddCjC1bELltzywCjC-d2CjCdwwp&AffiliateID=CAqD7bLWUPI-kQ4bk9A21bLEKC76p.XN_g

I have an i7-3930k

and I have 2 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130790 GPU's in my gaming PC

I realized I had too much disposable money and decided to switch out my 1920x1200 monitors for 1920x1080 (cant find 1920x1200 in 3D monitors) (btw it is the 3DS which provoked my desire to switch to 3D gaming on the PC, which I had never really been interested in and now enjoy quite a bit)

So I am gaming on a system with an i7-3930k asus p9x79 deluxe, 2x GTX 690's with 2x SSD drives on the boot and for games, 32GB DDR3 2133

It is doubtful any conceivable game in the next 5 years or more will tax this system, but who knows.

Anyway, I say all that to say, yeah, you don't need it, but you want it, I certainly did.

yar, the only thing you'd have to change in the next few years will prolly be video cards and that won't happen for prolly another 2 years for you which is the upgrade I'm waiting for, though my video cards might not last for more than 1 year lol.



disolitude on 19 September 2012
dahuman said:
disolitude said:
dharh said:
Yes and no. Often the reason to having one the newer CPUs is memory speed supported. You're mostly right though. Being GPU bound is the usual suspect for poor performance.

You're right but most of us have some DDR2 memory around and older parts that could put together to make a solid gaming rig. One just needs to slap a current gen GPU and they should be good to go.

Look at my situation... I took a 3 way SLI AM2+ mobo (Asus M3NHT), 8 GB of DDR2 800 memory and Phenom X4 940 BE and overclocked the crap out of them. They are running Crysis 2 on 3 monitors as good as my friends newly built i5 2500k rig with DDR3 1600 Memory with same GPU hardware.

PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 also makes no difference.

you are right on the PCIe 3 makes no difference, for now, that will change in 2014 or 2015 though, which is still 1-2 years away lol

You may be right but I can't see GPUs needing to push more than 8 GB/s in data in the near future.  I know they will be able to, but what will need them to push that much badwidth is still a mistery to me... 4K 3 screen gaming? lol



dahuman on 19 September 2012
disolitude said:
dahuman said:
disolitude said:
dharh said:
Yes and no. Often the reason to having one the newer CPUs is memory speed supported. You're mostly right though. Being GPU bound is the usual suspect for poor performance.

You're right but most of us have some DDR2 memory around and older parts that could put together to make a solid gaming rig. One just needs to slap a current gen GPU and they should be good to go.

Look at my situation... I took a 3 way SLI AM2+ mobo (Asus M3NHT), 8 GB of DDR2 800 memory and Phenom X4 940 BE and overclocked the crap out of them. They are running Crysis 2 on 3 monitors as good as my friends newly built i5 2500k rig with DDR3 1600 Memory with same GPU hardware.

PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0 also makes no difference.

you are right on the PCIe 3 makes no difference, for now, that will change in 2014 or 2015 though, which is still 1-2 years away lol

You may be right but I can't see GPUs needing to push more than 8 GB/s in data in the near future.  I know they will be able to, but what will need them to push that much badwidth is still a mistery to me... 4K 3 screen gaming? lol


even with 2 GB video cards in SLI or CF, super high res gaming still isn't that ideal at really good frame rates(even with dual GPU, some newer games still run like shit when it really taxes your hardware, my 2 unlocked 6950s is the only way to get 60+FPS at 1080p at highest settings with some newer games at a decent price, mind you they are actual PC games taxing my setup hard, not ports), more never hurts.