The Game Rundown: Finding CPU/GPU Bottlenecks, Part 2
Table of contents
- 1. 20 Games To Help Uncover Bottlenecks And Test Settings
- 2. Just Cause 2
- 3. Kane & Lynch 2
- 4. Left 4 Dead 2
- 5. Mass Effect 2
- 6. Metro 2033
- 7. Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
- 8. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat
We're back with Part 2 of our bottleneck exploration in a mainstream gaming PC equipped with a Core i5 and GeForce GTX 460, ready to dive into test results from ten additional games. All of the results are summarized and analyzed in our conclusion.
Let’s reiterate a few background points for this two-piece article. We decided to analyze many popular PC games across a range of hardware and settings in an effort to identify key bottlenecks you might encounter on a fairly mainstream gaming PC. Do you need more than two processor cores for immersive gaming? Will a powerful graphics card work well, even if the CPU is weak? How much CPU and GPU performance do you really need?
In Part 1 of this article, we looked at Alien vs. Predator, Alpha Protocol, Anno 1404, Avatar, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Bioshock 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Divinity 2: Ego Draconics, Dragon Age: Origins, and GTA IV EFLC. All were tested on an LGA 1156-based system. The Core i5-750 processor was configured with one, two, and four active cores and a 3 GHz clock speed. Additionally, we tried out four cores overclocked to 4 GHz. For graphics, we used a GeForce GTX 460 card, which provides sufficient performance for a solid gaming experience, but we also added a AMD Radeon HD 5870 here and there to look at potential benefits when pursuing high-end graphics.
So far, the results make clear that two cores are usually enough for gaming, but many games have specific requirements and performance characteristics. Let’s now look at ten more games and summarize the findings.
| Nvidia and ATI Graphic Cards | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-750 @ 4 GHz (21 x 190 MHz), Lynnfield design, 1.26875 V core voltage, 45 nm, LGA 1156 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte P55A-UD7, PCIe 2.0, 3-Way SLI |
| Chipset | Intel P55 Express |
| Memory | OCZ3G2000LV4GK, PC3-16000 Golden Series, 2 x 2 GB DDR3, 2 x 570 MHz 7-7-7-19 Timings |
| Audio | Realtek ALC889 |
| LAN | 2 x RTL8111D |
| HDDs | SATA 3Gb/s, Western Digital Raptor WD300HLFS |
| DVD | Gigabyte GO-D1600C |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master RS-850-EMBA 850 W |
| Drivers & Configuration | |
| Graphics | ATI Catalyst 10.7, Geforce 258.96 |
| OS | Windows 7 Ultimate 32-Bit |
| DirectX | 9, 10, and 11 |
| Chipset | Intel 9.1.1 |
- Gaming,
- game ,
- performance ,
- bottleneck
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Surprisingly, you still don't need anything more than a dual core to play new titles and actually will be bottlenecked by mainstream GPU.
I enjoyed reading this article but I don't think saying: "the DirectX 11-class Metro 2033 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. titles are unplayable without a good graphics card." is entirely fair because you could play them with weaker graphics cards at a medium/high level rather than ultra.
It would be interesting to see what the impact of AMD Phenom II X6 (Six Cores) is. How much do the 2 extra cores add over the quad.
You tested 20games and not crysis... what a shame.
It would be interesting to see what the impact of AMD Phenom II X6 (Six Cores) is. How much do the 2 extra cores add over the quad.
There are benchmarks floating around the net, and they all point to the same thing: there's no benefit. None at all. Not a bit. Not even statistically.
Few games are programmed to use more than 2-3 and even fewer are programmed to use as many as possible. Even those that can will get bottlenecked by the graphics card before the CPU can really show off.
For gaming, core for core performance is far more important and the Phenom II X6 has no benefit on that - it's as fast an X4 and slower than an i5/i7 quad core clock for clock and a such not better.
A hexacore is good for productivity. For gaming, it's a waste of money and a waste of power consumption.
To make matters worse, the Phenom X6 did not get an increased cache size to compensate for the added cores, further reducing the benefit of 6 cores (AMD could not increase cache size without increasing TDP beyond that of a 965).
To make matters worse, the Phenom X6 did not get an increased cache size to compensate for the added cores, further reducing the benefit of 6 cores (AMD could not increase cache size without increasing TDP beyond that of a 965).
the x6 has a 9mb cache, which is more than the 965
It has an extra MB of L2 and 256KB of L1, sure, but exclusive to those cores. The L3 is still the same 6MB shared area.
Still need someone to write an article about bottlenecking on AMD CPUs as they do seem to have a large issue with multiple GPUs.
Important note: games like Supreme Commander respond to CPU OC only because of the AI. Each of the game's units must process in AI-mode, so that's where CPU is used. A large amount of units will require CPU high resources.
GTA4 is a bad example for anything and should not be included in any benchmark because it's the worst and most bugged game/engine in years.