2500K Or 2600K for gaming ?

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by Brandon_34

disable cpu core parking in windows 7 then you will

You'll still see no more cores being utilized than the number of threads the app was designed to use...

[BlackZero]

Badcompany 2 can use all 8 threads and does make good use of the 2600k.



http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/3...0731143233.jpg
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Though having said that, if it's just gaming then the 2500k is more than sufficient currently, though who news what'll happen in a year or 2, really depends on how long you want to keep the processor for.

[shimyns]

Originally Posted by sykozis

You'll still see no more cores being utilized than the number of threads the app was designed to use...

Yeah, I think this is true.

@BlackZero it appears that all 8 threads are indeed used in that game. (I haven't played it since I got my 950, so I wouldn't know). So now I could say that besides BC2, no game I know of uses more than 8 threads simultaneously. ;-)

[Anarion]

Well, obviously 2600K is better but if it's worth it, that's another thing and in that case no. If you do video editing, encoding or other stuff that benefits from HT, get 2600K instead.

[Stormyandcold]

Really depends on how games will utilize the cpu in the coming 1-2yrs. Doom4 could be a game changer...

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by shimyns

Dude, I said I haven't seen a game use more than 4 threads. When you say BFBC2 uses all 4 cores, do you mean 8 threads?

Seeing that I only have 4 cores, I have absolutely no clue if it can scale for more than 4. However, applications tend to avoid HyperThreading whenever possible because for some applications there's actually a performance degradation when you use HyperThreading.

Personally, I can't test it because I won't spend cash on HyperThreading since the price difference is too much for the little to no return.

deltatux

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by deltatux

Seeing that I only have 4 cores, I have absolutely no clue if it can scale for more than 4. However, applications tend to avoid HyperThreading whenever possible because for some applications there's actually a performance degradation when you use HyperThreading.

Personally, I can't test it because I won't spend cash on HyperThreading since the price difference is too much for the little to no return.

deltatux

WoW can use more than 4 threads, but Blizzard advises against this due to performance loss caused by HT.

[flow]

Certain 2600k's need less voltage to reach x speed in comparison with certain 2500k's to reach the same speed.
They reach the same speed though. Act similar.

We will have to see what impact HT is gonna have in near future, intel is focussed on 12 threads, all new intel cpu's support multiple threads, chances are games are gonna use them.
But not just yet.
As said many times already, 2500k on a budget, 2600k if you can afford it.

[Stormyandcold]

I doubt it, the way HT works makes it unsuitable for gaming.

[shimyns]

Even if games utilize multiple (8) threads in the future, that'll be in a long time and no one with either of these SB CPUs will have them anymore.

[Veteran]

2600k with HT.

[Xtreme1979]

Originally Posted by Stormyandcold

I doubt it, the way HT works makes it unsuitable for gaming.

Totally unsuitable I don't know why intel developed it.

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-PxaP0Mckc



Gameplay while recording FRAPS RGB capture.

[nicugoalkeper]

Core i7 2600K for the year's to come ! Longer time investment !

[Exodite]

Originally Posted by Xtreme1979

Totally unsuitable I don't know why intel developed it.

All virtual cores being loaded doesn't necessarily mean you're getting any performance advantage however.

HT is quite useful in the right applications, I got a 30% reduction in compilation times myself, but I've to see any game that actually benefits from it. With SNB it doesn't seem to be detrimental in any way though.

[flow]

Not now, no. But there will come a time it's gonna be usefull. Cpu's are definitely going hexa and octa cores, multithreading in most of them also.
For sure games are gonna utilize this potential.
But as said, not at present, yet.

The op has to decide for himself, if he can afford it, go for the best, if on a budget, the second best is just behind, by a small margin.

[ElementalDragon]

yea.... wouldn't exactly call "utilizing" all 8 threads to be having only two hovering around the 80% usage mark... and the other six hovering around 50% usage.

[BlackZero]

Originally Posted by shimyns

Even if games utilize multiple (8) threads in the future, that'll be in a long time and no one with either of these SB CPUs will have them anymore.

That's what everyone said when I bought a q6600 in early 2008, by early 2011 when I finally needed to upgrade to the 2600k the same people had gone through multiple cpus.

Originally Posted by Exodite

All virtual cores being loaded doesn't necessarily mean you're getting any performance advantage however.

Please explain, do you mean because the cores are not fully loaded or are you saying even if they were fully loaded there would be no performance differencial?

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

yea.... wouldn't exactly call "utilizing" all 8 threads to be having only two hovering around the 80% usage mark... and the other six hovering around 50% usage.

Add another gpu for sli/cf or when more powerful gpus come out I'm sure that'll change.

[Xtreme1979]

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

yea.... wouldn't exactly call "utilizing" all 8 threads to be having only two hovering around the 80% usage mark... and the other six hovering around 50% usage.

What would you call it then? Sitting idle?

Utilize: put into service; make work or employ for a particular purpose or for its inherent or natural purpose

[ElementalDragon]

Originally Posted by BlackZero

Please explain, do you mean because the cores are not fully loaded or are you saying even if they were fully loaded there would be no performance differencial?



Add another gpu for sli/cf or when more powerful gpus come out I'm sure that'll change.

For the first part.... i think what he's saying is that just because the cores are being "used", doesn't necessarily mean they're making the idea of having them worthwhile. Which also ties into your second comment on what i posted. Hyperthreading is hardly worth it in a gaming stance. Even with games that DO make SOME use of all 8 cores... why try to justify it's purchase by adding more or buying a more powerful GPU? You seem to have done the same thing i did in terms of upgrading. Stuck with a CPU until it seemed worthwhile to upgrade. The CPU i had prior to my 2500K was a Q9450. other than a fair performance boost and a bit lighter power usage and heat generated, i upgraded for SATA3, USB3, DDR3.... and because i absolutely couldn't stand the Abit board i was using with my Q9450. I also tend to wait to upgrade my video card just the same. Went from an 8800GTX, to a GTX 295, now to a GTX 570. The video card was almost more of a side-grade than an upgrade... but again... less power, less heat.... same or more performance, plus DX11.

Xtreme: Yea... if you're going to quote definitions... at least make sure you find ALL possible definitions. You kinda missed another key one.

to make practical or worthwhile use of

Do you consider a touch over 50% of overall CPU usage to be "worthwhile" use of the CPU? Would you consider averaging 24mpg in a car that's said to average 40mpg to be worthwhile?

the 2500K over the 2600K is roughly a $100 bump on average.... and there's basically nothing so far that makes the jump from 4 physical cores, to 4 physical/4 theoretical cores seem worth that money. Just like there wasn't really much of a point in going for a Core 2 Extreme when the Core 2 Quads could match or outperform them on occasion.... and that was MUCH more of a difference in price than just $100.

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by sykozis

WoW can use more than 4 threads, but Blizzard advises against this due to performance loss caused by HT.

Basically what I said, but didn't know that WoW is even multithreaded, the engine looks ancient, even older than Source at times lol.

Originally Posted by Stormyandcold

I doubt it, the way HT works makes it unsuitable for gaming.

That's because HT was just tacked on to the x86. x86 was never meant to have SMT, Intel forced it on. It doesn't work as well as Intel wants it to. In theory, SMT works wonders, it totally does on IBM's POWER and Oracle's SPARC families, but it's horrible on x86.

SMT on x86 is overhyped and really work.

Originally Posted by Xtreme1979

Totally unsuitable I don't know why intel developed it.

Intel developed it mainly for professional applications and server workloads. Those are the only times when SMT can really be advantageous on x86. Other than that you'll see little to no returns with SMT on x86 (or "HyperThreading" as Intel likes to call it).

deltatux

[Xtreme1979]

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

Xtreme: Yea... if you're going to quote definitions... at least make sure you find ALL possible definitions. You kinda missed another key one.

Didn't miss it it also applies here. Your incorrect use of utilize is what you're trying to defend. Or is it your choice to purchase a 2500K?

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

Do you consider a touch over 50% of overall CPU usage to be "worthwhile" use of the CPU?

As opposed to running all four cores at 100% with nothing left to give?

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

Would you consider averaging 24mpg in a car that's said to average 40mpg to be worthwhile?

Huh? What? Question makes no sense since we're talking about the same family of processors...

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

the 2500K over the 2600K is roughly a $100 bump on average.... and there's basically nothing so far that makes the jump from 4 physical cores, to 4 physical/4 theoretical cores seem worth that money. Just like there wasn't really much of a point in going for a Core 2 Extreme when the Core 2 Quads could match or outperform them on occasion.... and that was MUCH more of a difference in price than just $100.

You're entitled to your opinion but don't preach it like its the word of god. Just sounds like your trying to justify you're own purchasing decisions.

[deltatux]

Even if you run all four cores at 100%, it's basically the same as 4C/4T running at 50% (if all the cores are taxed and not just some). Remember, you don't magically get more physical hardware out of nothing. 4C/4T basically splits a single physical core into 2 logical cores. If the 4 cores are maxed at 100%, that means it's also the same as 4C/4T maxed since the four physical cores are already maxed out. Even SMT cannot offer any more performance if the physical cores are maxed to their load limits.

The only thing SMT offers is to allow an extra "core" in the software level so that the operating system can schedule another thread down the same pipe while the other thread has stalled due to it waiting for resources or user input. So the core won't be idle when that's happening. In theory, it should make the CPU more efficient. However, resource contention usually occurs instead because the two threads are being crammed down the same pipe and usually both are active at the same time and may also be requesting the same resources at the same time which one has to wait for the other to finish off that request.

This is why SMT only works better in theory. In reality, the performance gain you get is little to nothing.

deltatux

[ElementalDragon]

Not sure what thread you're reading, Xtreme, but it's not only my opinion. Just about everyone here also says that the 2600K isn't all that worthwhile.

1) then you didn't post it cause it doesn't really help your arguement any.
2) i'd rather pay $250 for a processor and have it used to it's full potential then pay $350 to get the same result.
3) the same general idea still applies. Why get something just because of what it's possibly capable of rather than what it's actually capable of? Why pay for 8 threads when it's barely using 4?

[BlackZero]

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

For the first part.... i think what he's saying is that just because the cores are being "used", doesn't necessarily mean they're making the idea of having them worthwhile. Which also ties into your second comment on what i posted. Hyperthreading is hardly worth it in a gaming stance. Even with games that DO make SOME use of all 8 cores... why try to justify it's purchase by adding more or buying a more powerful GPU?

Strange comment, if a game makes use of all 8 threads then it clearly 'utilises' it, just because he's running a gtx 560 ti which doesn't fully make use of all the cpu's potential doesn't mean the game's not 'capable' of making good use of all the threads. That's like buying a gtx 580 to be used with a dual core processor and then blaming the gtx 580 for not being able to run any faster.

It's a well documented fact that ht cores when utilised add as much as 30% to performance, I also do a lot of video encoding so i don't need to justify my purchase from a gaming point of view but I don't see how you can deny the fact that ht on the 2600k when in full use does add upto 30% performance regardless of whether it's an application or game. It's also well known that the frostbite engine is etremely efficient at utilising ht cores.

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

You seem to have done the same thing i did in terms of upgrading. Stuck with a CPU until it seemed worthwhile to upgrade. The CPU i had prior to my 2500K was a Q9450. other than a fair performance boost and a bit lighter power usage and heat generated, i upgraded for SATA3, USB3, DDR3.... and because i absolutely couldn't stand the Abit board i was using with my Q9450. I also tend to wait to upgrade my video card just the same. Went from an 8800GTX, to a GTX 295, now to a GTX 570. The video card was almost more of a side-grade than an upgrade... but again... less power, less heat.... same or more performance, plus DX11.

The point I was trying to make with my original comment was that when I bought a quad core a lot of people on these very forums said it wasn't worth it for games and many even went on to buy the e8400 before realising their error and then they moved to q9xx processors, I, on the other hand, was sitting pretty on my q6600 for a good 3 years having bought the better processor at the time.

That same q6600 got me through an 8800 GTS/ 8800 GTX/ 8800 GTX Sli/ gtx 280/ gtx 295 and I even ran my HD 6950 on that processor for a couple of months before upgrading to the 2600k. All that because I bought the more powerful cpu to begin with. I do however enjoy changing my GPU quite often so a decent cpu is a must really as it would be harder to justify upgrading both as regularly.

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

Do you consider a touch over 50% of overall CPU usage to be "worthwhile" use of the CPU? Would you consider averaging 24mpg in a car that's said to average 40mpg to be worthwhile?

I think I answered that above in my gtx 580 analogy.

Originally Posted by ElementalDragon

the 2500K over the 2600K is roughly a $100 bump on average.... and there's basically nothing so far that makes the jump from 4 physical cores, to 4 physical/4 theoretical cores seem worth that money. Just like there wasn't really much of a point in going for a Core 2 Extreme when the Core 2 Quads could match or outperform them on occasion.... and that was MUCH more of a difference in price than just $100.

The 2500k can not match a 2600k no matter how much you overclock it as the 2600 has a larger cache. Even if you disable HT and overclock both to the same level the 2600k will still be faster. Here in the UK a 2500k costs £170 and a 2600k costs around £235, that's roughly a 30% difference and if you use the correct applications then that's well worth the money.

I can't predict which way games might be going but I do know that battlefield 3 will be taking advantage of the ht cores and don't see why other games will not be following suit soon enough, especially considering the amount of gamers with HT cores nowadays.

Originally Posted by deltatux

Even if you run all four cores at 100%, it's basically the same as 4C/4T running at 50% (if all the cores are taxed and not just some). Remember, you don't magically get more physical hardware out of nothing.

Really now, Deltatux. So I guess the 30% performance bump we see when video encoding with HT cores is due the magicians over at Intel?

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by BlackZero

It's a well documented fact that ht cores when utilised add as much as 30% to performance, I also do a lot of video encoding so i don't need to justify my purchase from a gaming point of view but I don't see how you can deny the fact that ht on the 2600k when in full use does add upto 30% performance regardless of whether it's an application or game. It's also well known that the frostbite engine is etremely efficient at utilising ht cores.

Let's talk solid numbers now, that "30% performance increase" is exactly how many FPS faster? If it isn't more than 10 fps, it really isn't much to justify a $100 increase in price to be honest. In addition, that's an up to statement, how many games can demonstrate that up to number. Many ISPs advertise up to speeds, but not many ISPs really go up to that speed especially for people using DSL.

Originally Posted by BlackZero

The 2500k can not match a 2600k no matter how much you overclock it as the 2600 has a larger cache. Even if you disable HT and overclock both to the same level the 2600k will still be faster. Here in the UK a 2500k costs £170 and a 2600k costs around £235, that's roughly a 30% difference and if you use the correct applications then that's well worth the money.

I can't predict which way games might be going but I do know that battlefield 3 will be taking advantage of the ht cores and don't see why other games will not be following suit soon enough, especially considering the amount of gamers with HT cores nowadays.

The extra 2 MB L3 cache hasn't really shown much of a performance difference even if you disable HT on the 2600K and compare it with the 2500K.

Originally Posted by BlackZero

Really now, Deltatux. So I guess the 30% performance bump we see when video encoding with HT cores is due the magicians over at Intel?

Like I said, SMT performance is really based on application used. Some threads that are part of an application may stall often to free up the cores. For other threads in other applications who use the cores more efficiently, do not often have to wait for resource or require constant user input will not see much of a performance increase because now that you have two threads that are working concurrently in the same core will now have to fight each other for core time and resources.

Remember, even with SMT, each core can only execute one thread at a single time. The only reason SMT works at all is that the scheduler has the capability to save a running thread's state while it's stalled and quickly switch to a thread that's ready to process on the processor. It constantly does this switching based on when both the thread and resource is ready for processing. If more than a single thread is ready to process, the scheduler then has to decide which one to process first. If it chooses one it thinks has a higher priority than say your game or video encoding process, you'll see a performance dip or no performance increase. When I mentioned that 4 physical cores and 4C/4T implementation really doesn't have any difference in the terms of processor load is that many people seem to think they suddenly can get 8 cores out of 4 which is impossible. If all 4 physical cores are completely loaded, all 8 of your SMT "thread cores" are technically taxed as well. Even the scheduler may not be able to help ease the load even if it has to constantly switch between threads. In most cases it can't. In some cases yes, I wouldn't be surprised to see there's that odd 30% increase, but it doesn't happen often. Even if it does, that 30% increase is like 5 fps extra or something.

At the end of the day, you're still using the same hardware, the difference is just how the scheduler handles the threads.

EDIT: Is it me that only 2600K owners are the ones that are backing the 2600K just solely based on the fact that it has SMT? lol.

deltatux