Quad Core vs Dual Core: Q9550S vs. E8600, Part III – CPU Scaling with CrossFire
Conclusion
From our previous single-GPU testing with Q9550S compared with E8600, we noted that the Core 2 Quad does not as yet have a huge advantage in the games that we explored over Core 2 Duo – especially if you can get a nice overclock. However, we did see that there are several games where the quad core has a definite advantage and we expect devs to program for more cores as newer games are released. We can see that quad core will become much more important for single GPUs in future – especially as they get faster. However, things are quite different if you are using multi-GPU right now. Although some games get a nice boost from overclocking the CPU whereas others are far more GPU-dependent, we definitely see the Q9550S offering solid advantages over E8600 – especially when both are overclocked to their maximums. It does not appear to matter that we have completely maxed out the details at relatively high resolutions. We also see that “stock” 2.83 Ghz at times does hold back performance and it can make the difference between playable, or not. We find that at least a modest overclock to 3.40 Ghz does make some practical difference in the framerates. However, if you can push your CPU even further, we also see that some games continue to benefit from the very highest overclock you can manage.
We are definitely going to recommend quad core over dual core today if you want the very most out of your PC gaming and have a fast multi-GPU setup. We still want to see if an even faster CPU benefits fast graphics and we expect to compare the maturing Intel Core i-7 CPU platform with our currently maxed out Penryn system. Eventually, we expect to also explore Nvidia GTX280/285 SLi on an X58 motherboard. And we will prepare for it by upgrading to Vista 64-bit from Vista 32 next week to give you a gaming comparison between the two operating systems. However, next up is another article on CPU scaling – this time, comparing Athlon’s 6000+ against Phenom II using GTX280 SLi for the graphics.
Our “Shoot-out Series” has been a steady progression examining Intel’s Penryn platform and we have been upgrading it as necessary, to maximize our PC’s gaming performance and to chart those improvements for you. Part IV, The Summary, showed this by comparing drivers all the way back to August when we first began benchmarking, even before ABT launched on October 1st, 2008. And we focused on the progress the vendors have made since then, right on through the beginning of 2009, bringing us up to date with this current CPU shootout.
In our installment of Part III, Big GPU Shootout, PCIe 1.0 vs. PCIe 2.0, we especially focused on the motherboard’s effects on video card performance. We used the extremes – P35 PCIe 1.0 vs. X48 PCIe 2.0 with double the bandwidth and a full 16x + 16x PCIe crossfire lanes – verses the much more bandwidth-constricted 16x + 4x crossfire lanes used in the older motherboard. We saw how limiting the older motherboard’s PCIe bandwidth can be in certain situations and so we upgraded to X48.
Part II – The Big GPU Shoot-Out – Setting New Benches – demonstrated the need for overclocking our E8600 CPU from its stock 3.33 Ghz to 4.0 Ghz to take full advantage of our new video cards.
Part I, The Big GPU Shootout: Upgrade Now or Wait? we examined the performance of five video cards. In our conclusion, we realized that the last generation’s video cards are not sufficient for today’s DX10 maxed-out gaming – even at 1650 x 1080 resolution. We even started by comparing Core 2 Duo E4300 at it its overclock of 3.33 Ghz to E8600 at its stock 3.33 GHz and found the older CPU rather lacking in comparison. We then continued on for the rest of our series with our E8600. We now use Core 2 Quad Q9550S and recommend it highly! We also started to bench with CrossFireX-3 in Part I which ran on fairly immature Catalyst 8-8 drivers and we have continued to chart its progress until now.
Stay tuned. We think we will have some very interesting articles for you to read very shortly as you plan your own coming upgrades. Well, we are done with our benches and this part of our “Shootout” Series and we are already working on our next articles for you. In the meantime, feel free to comment below, ask questions or have a detailed discussion in our ABT forums. We also want to let you know we are running a brand new promotion with nice prizes and a contest shortly in our forums. Look for an announcement this weekend on the main ABT page. There are many good articles to be published here shortly. We want you eventually to join us and Live in Our World. It is going to expand and we think you will like what you progressively discover here.
Mark Poppin
ABT editor
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Great article. Here’s what I found most interesting
If we just look at the minimum framerates for the chips are similar clockspeeds (Q9550s @ 3.4 vs E8600 @ 3.33 and Q9550s @ 4.0 vs E8600 @ 4.0) the quad core comes out on top the majority of the time.
For the two-way Xfire tests, the Q9550 (at similar clockspeed to) beats the E8600’s minimum framerates in COD4, UT3, Lost Planet, HL2: LC, FEAR, ET: QW, WiC, FC2, and PT Boats. The two chips, for the most part, tie in the games Stalker, Crysis, and X3. The only game where the quad loses is Call of Juarez.
When we look at the three-way XFire tests, the results are basically the same except Lost Planet and PT Boats moves from the “win” category to the “tie” category for the quad core.
I wonder what’s up with the Call of Juarez results. Even with the chips at the same clock speed, the quad core loses fairly significantly. At 4.00 GHz, the quad’s minimum framerate is 31 while the dual’s is 42.
I wondered about CoJ as i was testing and repeated those benchmarks many, many times; far more than with any other of my tests. I would say that some of it is probably partly because of the Cat 9-2 drivers. If you look back on this benchmark to our September testing with Cat 8-1 all the way through Cat 8-12hotfix, there is definitely some variance with multi-GPU performance.
So let me theorize that there appears to be a ‘hitch’ in CoJ – you can actually watch it “stutter” in a couple of places – that the slower clocked Quad simply cannot overcome that appear to really skew the bottom [and thus average and max] framerates. It exaggerates what happens when you actually play CoJ, similar to my old STALKER benches that had way too high of a maximum as they panned the sky. The CoJ benchmark was also never updated, although the game was. That makes it somewhat flawed in my opinion, as the vendors are continuing to optimize for the game, not for the old benchmark. In the future, it will not be so important – as for example, in my current benching, “Vista 64 vs. Vista32-bit”, my Q9550s is at 4.0Ghz where this is not observed quite so much.
It also means that I am considering making a custom timedemo from the latest patched CoJ. I wish Techland would update theirs. Or maybe I will wait for “CoJ 2, Bound in Blood” and use that new benchmark instead. I am looking forward to its release, soon.
http://www.nugadgets.com/products/ProductDetails/68514Call_of_Juarez_2_PC.1496901.1.html
they say 1-3 weeks, but that is not official. The trailer says, “Summer”.
Here is a trailer on You.Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CZi_FKsyPE
You also need to realize that CrossFireX-3 is still imperfect; you can see it’s scaling is still not “bang-for-buck”. Clearly there has been drastic improvements overall in the CFX-3 Catalyst drivers over the last 6 months, but there is plenty of room for more.
Yep, I can’t wait to see how multi-core CPUs and GPUs take off this year. Check out the following results for the new Tom Clancy game:
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,679029/Tom-Clancys-HAWX-Benchmark-review-with-15-CPUs/Practice/
Those were some of the most striking results I’ve come across yet – even more striking than GTA4.
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