I agree with everything except the bolded part. I don't think anyone said that games won't be optimized better for multicore CPU's in the future, just that this fact alone isn't going to give the current line of AMD Cpu's an advantage. Even in the best multithreaded title today (crysis 3), the 8350 is only barely matching a stock 3550, and has a much lower minimum FPS. How does that bode well for future titles? Also, it's hardly fanboyism to bring up relevant and real world scenarios where an Intel platform is superior. Just because SC2 uses an older engine doesn't mean it's an outdated and irrelevant game. In fact, with the recent release of HotS, I'd wager a lot more people are playing it than BF3. After all, this thread is about the *current* situation. Giving AMD a crystal ball advantage is a bit silly. And before you get cross with me, i understand that the AMD CPU's offer 90% of the FPS (Often numbers well over 60) in most games and are more than capable. But that doesn't mean it's okay to just gloss over the areas where the CPU's are completely lacking.
Well I don't want to go tit-for tat with benchmark results, but have a look here; SC2 was relevant in 2010, and if we were having this discussion 3yrs ago I would agree with you, but then why not add HL2 or Battlefield BC2 as well? Surely people still play those games? We could also include CS:S which still has a decent following....and I'm a big Fallout NV fan so let's add that as well lol. If developers and engineers really thought like this we would never move forward. See my point? However the fact is it's not 2010 anymore it's 2013, and in the world of computer hardware that's a whole new generation, times change. BF3 and Crysis3 are evidence of these changes and offer a glimpse of the future....that's why I used them as examples. Maybe I've been on this forum too long but all these AMD vs Intel threads just make me facepalm nowdays....
The GameGPU one doesn't even show what level they tested And if I remember correctly, the "welcome to the jungle" level was the only one that actually had the 8350 ahead of the i5. The Tomshardware one is the one I like to reference, but I guess it really doesn't matter. My point is that in a highly multithreaded title, and with a 4 core + 700MHz advantage, it's not giving that much higher frames. So I suspect that future console ports will be quite similar.
I don't know about you guys but I'm quite excited to see how Steamroller performs against Haswell. Oh well, that's a completely different topic ... or is it? lol deltatux
True, which is why all I was saying was that the actual architectures out now, bulldozer and Vishera, aren't going to be magically leapfrogging. Future architectures will probably finally be the gamer's choice. I understand the frustration though, because all that's been said in this thread is "look at how bad Skyrim and SC2 perform! Don't buy AMD!". In my case, I ended up switching over because of Starcraft and...Minecraft. Minecraft heavily modded actually makes AMD setups cry because Java is terrible.
It's rare to see people on this forum actually consider budget. Needs to happen more often. I didn't accuse you of bashing AMD, but some people can't seem to discuss processors without doing so. The only consideration in these threads, should be the OP's usage, the OP's budget and the OP's preference. There's no reason to recommend components that the OP can't afford....or that the OP has already decided against.
As someone who plays sc2, modded minecraft, some CS1.6/S, occasional l4d2 mods with friends and not much else (newer games i just smash SP and get bored) I would say my i5 2500k still slaughters the 8320/50 for my needs. If the games you play are well multithreaded/get good fps on AMD (bf3/crysis3 etc) then AMD will no doubt give you better performance per $ but for older/poorly coded games Intel wins. Intel also has much better performance per watt. Performance is measurable so people can't have opinions on what is best (without being brand loyal uke2 and if they do they just need to do more research. It's just situational whats best for each person.
I wonder if people could really tell the difference without looking at a benchmark.... Not stuff like decompressing files or encoding which is measured it time....I mean fps. Personally I don't take any notice of fps, as long as the game isn't chugging (say over 60 fps) I don't even think about frame rate. Does it truly matter whether it's 70 or 90 fps?
True, personally, the first thing I consider is budget. Everything is useless if the OP cannot afford it. deltatux
Probably not in 98% of games, lol. Some games like GTA4 with lots of mods, Minecraft with lots of mods and SC2 with insane amount of stuff going on will make it obvious as they really want more per core performance. How many people care about that though?
It matters if you're barely cutting 60, does it not? Espeically with the movement towards higher Hz monitors. Also, you really can tell the difference in some poorly threaded games. Especially Minecraft.
As long as you're at or above 60fps, it'd be impossible to tell the difference without some sort of benchmark to show it. Which I believe is the point he was trying to make.
That's not true though. I have a 120Hz monitor and the difference between 60 and 100fps is quite pronounced. Now for the average user, yes, I agree. But we're not average users here
120Hz aren't exactly mainstream..... If the framerate is equal to or greater than the refresh rate, it's impossible to tell the difference in performance between 2 processors or graphics cards. Better?
Yes correct although it not strictly 60fps, I mean whatever the fps threshold is that looks smooth to the user. But yeah 60fps is a good number since most users will have 60hz monitors....... Honestly I can cap my frame rate at 45-50fps (half refresh rate) and be happy. I run my CRT at 1600x1200 100Hz and there is no difference whatsoever after about 60fps. You're experiencing placebo......