Spending extra on cpu (for gaming)?

[Dayfly]

Hey guys, 

 

Quick CPU question, besides better rendering power and such, what other reasons would compel someone into buying a CPU which could cost more? (at least for someone who games)
Maybe a quick example, why would someone buy an i5-4690, when they can buy maybe an i5-3450 (not considering the different socket if you have a motherboard already which means you'd need to narrow down your possible choices)

I can clearly see the benefits of over-clocking an i7-4790k for uses other than gaming, and why an enthusiast would be interesting in overclocking something. But for a standpoint of max FPS, is there any clear or 'important' advantage of maybe spending an extra 80 or 100 on a better CPU?

 

Thanks.

[cheeze_tartz]

is there any clear or 'important' advantage of maybe spending an extra 80 or 100 on a better CPU?

 

 

 

in terms of gaming, nope. Unless you want some future-proofness.

[Dayfly]

 

 

in terms of gaming, nope. Unless you want some future-proofness.

 

yea I guess so, thanks, might aswell wait some time and see what my needs are in the future

[Speaker1264]

yea I guess so, thanks, might aswell wait some time and see what my needs are in the future

 

The 4690k has a higher clock speed than the 3450 and can overclock to ridiculously higher speeds, 5 ghz possibly under water cooling.  That is a 43% improvement.  You only see maybe a 10% improvement each generation of new cpus.  Being able to get 4x that improvement just by overclocking is insane.  People do it because they want their computer to be faster, not just in games, but in everything else that they do.  And yes, a higher clock speed helps a lot in many games.  If you want I can give you some benchmarks.

[Mattrixx]

 

 

in terms of gaming, nope. Unless you want some future-proofness.

 

^^^ this. And when it comes to futureproof, you can really only go for unlocked and HT to try and make it last longer. Keep in mind, even 4 year old Intel quad cores perform just fine in games today, especially when overclocked. As long as you're getting an i5 now, there's very little reason to get anything better for just gaming unless you want to OC.

[Mattrixx]

The 4690k has a higher clock speed than the 3450 and can overclock to ridiculously higher speeds, 5 ghz possibly under water cooling.  That is a 43% improvement.  You only see maybe a 10% improvement each generation of new cpus.  Being able to get 4x that improvement just by overclocking is insane.  People do it because they want their computer to be faster, not just in games, but in everything else that they do.  And yes, a higher clock speed helps a lot in many games.  If you want I can give you some benchmarks.

The 4690k really isn't bottlenecking any single current card, so you don't see more than a few fps improvement with OCing. Also, only a small amount of them can reach 5Ghz even under water.  With that said, yeah, overclocking can yield some free performance, a couple more fps in many games, and will only help. 

[Dayfly]

The 4690k has a higher clock speed than the 3450 and can overclock to ridiculously higher speeds, 5 ghz possibly under water cooling.  That is a 43% improvement.  You only see maybe a 10% improvement each generation of new cpus.  Being able to get 4x that improvement just by overclocking is insane.  People do it because they want their computer to be faster, not just in games, but in everything else that they do.  And yes, a higher clock speed helps a lot in many games.  If you want I can give you some benchmarks.

Ive seen in many places that its only maybe specific games that utilise the extra clock spead for high framerates and not all games benefit a lot from better cpus, something that might not be beneficial if id have to get a new cpu, especially if i wanted to overclock where id need to get a new cooling unit and probably a better motherboard. but yea sure go ahead any link you might have ?

[Dayfly]

^^^ this. And when it comes to futureproof, you can really only go for unlocked and HT to try and make it last longer. Keep in mind, even 4 year old Intel quad cores perform just fine in games today, especially when overclocked. As long as you're getting an i5 now, there's very little reason to get anything better for just gaming unless you want to OC.

Yea, thanks. And for just a few fps, theres no need, at least for me, on buying a new cpu then

[Speaker1264]

Yea, thanks. And for just a few fps, theres no need, at least for me, on buying a new cpu then

 

The 4690k really isn't bottlenecking any single current card, so you don't see more than a few fps improvement with OCing. Also, only a small amount of them can reach 5Ghz even under water.  With that said, yeah, overclocking can yield some free performance, a couple more fps in many games, and will only help. 

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/5

 

Skyrim the 4690k had a min fps of 90, overclocked to 4.8 ghz it got an fps of 105.  Shogun 2, 30 fps improved to 35 fps.  In both those cases that is a 17% improvement in fps, which is pretty nice for just overclocking your cpu.

 

These benchmarks aren't even the best for showing what having a better cpu can do.  MMO's are where having a faster cpu really makes a difference though, especially in high populated areas/raids.  Unfortunately, there is not benchmark out there for testing that sort of thing.

 

Doing other tasks in the background, a virus scan starts running, watching a video on another monitor, live streaming your gameplay.  Most benchmarks are run on fresh installs, with as many background processes disabled.  Your computer probably isn't going to be that optimized, and your cpu is probably going to need to be doing other things while also processing things in the game itself.

[Mattrixx]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/5

 

Skyrim the 4690k had a min fps of 90, overclocked to 4.8 ghz it got an fps of 105.  Shogun 2, 30 fps improved to 35 fps.  In both those cases that is a 17% improvement in fps, which is pretty nice for just overclocking your cpu.

 

These benchmarks aren't even the best for showing what having a better cpu can do.  MMO's are where having a faster cpu really makes a difference though, especially in high populated areas/raids.  Unfortunately, there is not benchmark out there for testing that sort of thing.

 

Doing other tasks in the background, a virus scan starts running, watching a video on another monitor, live streaming your gameplay.  Most benchmarks are run on fresh installs, with as many background processes disabled.  Your computer probably isn't going to be that optimized, and your cpu is probably going to need to be doing other things while also processing things in the game itself.

 

Yea, thanks. And for just a few fps, theres no need, at least for me, on buying a new cpu then

 

Skyrim saw about a 4% difference going from 144 to 155. Negligible. Certainly not worth the cost of a high end cooler. On Shogun 2, they didn't just benchmark, but rather ran a built in CPU test according to them "We use the built-in CPU test." A synthetic test is hardly a gaming benchmark. It's worth noting that he min fps did see a fair increase, and that they searched out games that'd illustrate the difference in clockspeed. It was nowhere near an exhaustive list, as only 2 games were shown, and only one is extremely popular.

 

Most games won't see a huge difference, if any at all, and you'd be just fine saving your money and going with an unlocked CPU. MMOs would see the most benefit, but even there it's not a huge difference. Heck, Tomb raider will perform the same on a 4690k clocked at 2.5ghz and one clocked at 4.5. You really have to look up benchmarks for the particular games you plan on playing, as all games react differently.

 

EDIT: I've been drinking (weekend, woo!) and my head hurts. I hope some of this makes sense!

[Nena Trinity]

 

Hey guys, 

 

Quick CPU question, besides better rendering power and such, what other reasons would compel someone into buying a CPU which could cost more? (at least for someone who games)

Maybe a quick example, why would someone buy an i5-4690, when they can buy maybe an i5-3450 (not considering the different socket if you have a motherboard already which means you'd need to narrow down your possible choices)

I can clearly see the benefits of over-clocking an i7-4790k for uses other than gaming, and why an enthusiast would be interesting in overclocking something. But for a standpoint of max FPS, is there any clear or 'important' advantage of maybe spending an extra 80 or 100 on a better CPU?

 

Thanks.

 

For gaming? Not really unless the game is poorly optimized...

[Mattrixx]

For gaming? Not really unless the game is poorly optimized...

Yeah. Then you'd be better off with overclocking to get better single core power than spending more to get more threads. A 5960x won't help you at all compared to a 4790k if the game is poorly optimized.

[Opcode]

It boils down to what you're looking to spend. Right now the sweet spot for people tight on money is the i5-4460. Although if you're a enthusiast gamer then the 4690k is the clear target. People buy them to overclock not because it will give you significant FPS gains in games but because frame rate dips will be less significant at higher clocks. Frame rate will fluctuate up and down regardless of what CPU you own. Overclocking is just another way of mitigating that problem for higher, more consistent frame rates.

 

Just ran these numbers on my 6800k and HD 5870

 

Mafia 2 @ 1080p max settings (V-Sync + PhysX off).

• 6800k @ 4.1 GHz = Avg: 94.623 - Min: 62 - Max: 123
• 6800k @ 4.8 GHz = Avg: 99.618 - Min: 77 - Max: 128

 

As you can see my average and max frame rates only raised 4-5% but my minimum frame rate raised a whopping 25%.