Asus believes Coffee Lake should work on Z270

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, MyName13 said:

Until we get new consoles we won't see any improvements, it's ridiculous how Destiny 2 and The evil within 2 recommend r5 1600 but still work on a dual core.Even though console GPUs don't change every 2 years, PC ports keep requiring more powerful GPUs.

And if new consoles come semi soon and follow the same trend using x86 based hardware and feature for example an 8 core Zen SoC dual core gaming will be dead and buried very very quickly.

 

Consoles also don't suffer from the heavy dependence on singular thread performance or pinning a ton of core important tasks to a single thread either, unlike in the PC world, which is why I say dual core in that future situation will not be an option.

 

Mind you it could have the opposite effect having an actually overall strong CPU in consoles where game developers and engine developers stop fully optimizing for true multi-threading. Having such a weak CPU in current consoles is forcing them to rather heavily.

 

Quote

The AMD APU inside the PlayStation 4 packs GCN class graphics hardware, which is great, but the CPU ain't anywhere near those standards. Based on the low-power Jaguar architecture, the AMD CPUs in the next-generation console from Sony is weak in single-threaded performance.

 

Multi-threaded performance is where the CPU truly shines, thanks to 8 CPU cores available to developers (plenty of resources to tap). Sadly, the game engine that runs PlanetSide 2 isn't well optimized for multi-threaded operation. As a result, developers are having a hard time optimizing the code to have it up and running smoothly on the PS4. Thankfully, once the engine is capable of splitting tasks into multiple threads instead of fewer, more resource hungry threads, the game should run like a breeze.

https://www.nextpowerup.com/news/2378/playstation-4-packs-weak-single-threaded-amd-apu-powerful-multi-threaded-performance/

 

Quote

Our engine sucks at that right now. We are multi-threaded, but the primary gameplay thread is very expensive. The biggest piece of engineering work that they're doing right now, and it's an enormous effort, is to go back through the engine and re-optimize it to be really, truly multi-threaded and break the gameplay thread up. That's a very challenging thing to do because we're doing a lot of stuff - tracking all these different players, all of their movements, all the projectiles, all the physics they're doing.
It's very challenging to split those really closely connected pieces of functionality across in multiple threads. So it's a big engineering task for them to do, but thankfully once they do it, AMD players who've been having sub-par performance on the PC will suddenly get a massive boost - just because of being able to take the engine and re-implement it as multi-threaded.
I'm very excited about that because I have a lot of friends, lots of people who are more budget minded, going for AMD processors because nine times out of ten they give a lot of bang for the buck. Where it really breaks down is on games with one really big thread. PlanetSide's probably a prime example of that.

https://www.nextpowerup.com/news/2378/playstation-4-packs-weak-single-threaded-amd-apu-powerful-multi-threaded-performance/

 

TL;DR Strong CPUs, especially strong single thread, historically have enabled/encouraged poor multi-threading and no innovation. 

[strat guy]

11 minutes ago, leadeater said:

..very challenging thing to do because we're doing a lot of stuff - tracking all these different players, all of their movements, all the projectiles, all the physics they're doing.

Some of us don't care about multiplayer, game and hardware devs need to be reminded of that.

 

 

Hardware, peripherals, gaming.. it's all going to shit

 

Day 1 RGB DLC loot boxes and armour are next.

 

[BubblyCharizard]

11 hours ago, leadeater said:

No thanks, I've been 6+ cores since i7-970. Bring on the threads revolution! 

Aaaahhhh good old x58

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, strat guy said:

Some of us don't care about multiplayer, game and hardware devs need to be reminded of that.

I don't care about that either but those issues talked about are more present in single player than multiplayer. Projectiles and physics applies to both however in single player you have more AI going on so more CPU demand.

 

Hardware getting dated and obsolete is just a thing, it needs to happen. It used to happen much faster, because CPU development was moving much faster and to be honest it's still moving quickly just not in the home market. I've been PC gaming since 486, I know the pain of having a PC that is no longer able to play games at all and it happened very quickly. This is something that people who entered the PC gaming market later haven't really experienced, if your first gaming PC was a Core 2 then you simply don't know.

 

CPUs three generations old shouldn't be able to play current games, the fact that they can shows just how bad both CPU development has gotten but to a bigger extent how badly game developers are at innovating and utilizing hardware resources. Game developers right now are basically making extremely nice looking cakes but once you taste it you realize that it's terrible, food needs to taste good not just look good.

 

The ability to make new games work on old hardware shouldn't be held up as good example of optimization, it should serve as evidence of how things are not progressing. It's not like we accept this kind of stagnation on GPUs so why should we on CPUs.

[strat guy]

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I don't care about that either but those issues talked about are more present in single player than multiplayer. Projectiles and physics applies to both however in single player you have more AI going on so more CPU demand.

Correct me if I'm wrong but something like a 64 player MP session will generally tax the CPU a lot more than a single player situation (even if spawning enemies etc are randomized)

 

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Hardware getting dated and obsolete is just a thing, it needs to happen. It used to happen much faster, because CPU development was moving much faster and to be honest it's still moving quickly just not in the home market. I've been PC gaming since 486, I know the pain of having a PC that is no longer able to play games at all and it happened very quickly. This is something that people who entered the PC gaming market later haven't really experienced, if your first gaming PC was a Core 2 then you simply don't know.

I remember my 486dx2 and the old Doom, Quake, Lara Croft, Wolfenstein 3d etc well

 

quit/lost interest in gaming for a good many years after till my late 2000s comeback with a q9650 but come on, why go back to the 90s upgrade cycle when you're obsolete every 6 months, no thank you.

 

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

CPUs three generations old shouldn't be able to play current games, the fact that they can shows just how bad both CPU development has gotten but to a bigger extent how badly game developers are at innovating and utilizing hardware resources. Game developers right now are basically making extremely nice looking cakes but once you taste it you realize that it's terrible, food needs to taste good not just look good.

 

yeah, no.

 

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The ability to make new games work on old hardware shouldn't be held up as good example of optimization, it should serve as evidence of how things are not progressing. It's not like we accept this kind of stagnation on GPUs so why should we on CPUs.

wtf man, it's bad enough people have to upgrade their graphics cards at least twice in the 'normal' lifespan of a computer if they want decent performance.

 

You'd have us buy whole new rigs every year lol.

 

What's your personal rig upgrade cycle like ? 5-6 years cpu/2-3 years gfx card here.

 

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, strat guy said:

yeah, no.

Try playing a game designed for a P4 on a P1 

 

15 minutes ago, strat guy said:

You'd have us buy whole new rigs every year lol.

No not every year since CPU generations don't happen that quickly anymore, but yes after 3 years it should be impossible to play a new game on anything other than low/medium settings no matter what you purchased 3 years ago.

 

15 minutes ago, strat guy said:

What's your personal rig upgrade cycle like ? 5-6 years cpu/2-3 years gfx card here.

4930k and dual 290X. The sole reason I haven't upgraded is because I haven't been forced to and as a tech enthusiast that makes me sad. Before that i7-960, before that E8400, before that a mix of different P4s and AMD FX, before that some forgotten P3, then P2, then P1 Pro, then 486sx (I think I had the crap one).

 

Edit:

Oh and I had a Cyrix processor at one point, those were garbage lol.

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, Dabombinable said:

Considering I had my Pentium 4 540J used for years inside a reference 3 phase Intel motherboard (the kind with the mosfets sticking up+without a heatsink-the combo is from an ex office reception PC), there really is no reason for the majority of Z170 and Z270 boards to not be allowed to run CL CPU. Then again, Intel really are assholes when it comes to being even remotely consumer friendly-even when their market share is in jeopardy.

It's actually quite funny how closely this is mimicking the reaction to the P4 with 800FSB in 2003.

 

quote from a forum post in 2003:

 

Quote

somehow I have the feeling they are happy to tell us we need new boards. The PE will do the job, sure, but maybe many of the exitsting PE boards will not meet the power requirements? At least not when you want to do some serious overclocking. I just spent almost 1000 $$ for 2 new GB boards

Replace PE with Z and we have the same conversation.

 

 

[MyName13]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Cut. 

Yeah sure, dual cores will become obsolete by then but when will that happen?Let's say new consoles come out in 2020, that means dual cores might become obsolete in 2021/2022.Developers don't need to multithread their video games if they can make them work on fewer stronger cores, they need to make their games more complex instead.Artificial intelligence is still not that great, additional cores could change this.

[strat guy]

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

after 3 years it should be impossible to play a new game on anything other than low/medium settings

 

no, but how about monitor resolution scaling, like where 3 year old hardware cant keep up with 4/8/16/24/32/64k or holographic resolution/projections but can still 60fps on their rickety old 1080 displays ?

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

they need to make their games more complex instead.Artificial intelligence is still not that great, additional cores could change this.

Yea this is where I mainly want to see progress. That's part of the reason it hasn't happened, there's nothing for those other cores to do.

[TidaLWaveZ]

On 10/21/2017 at 5:24 PM, dexT said:

If you only play video games and watch youtube then at worst you'll see no to little gain. If you do work, that's a different story.

What does it have a dramatic effect on? (I'm asking honestly, because I don't know)

 

Like in applications that actually benefit from high speed memory, would that really make that much of a difference?

[Princess Luna]

16 hours ago, leadeater said:

I haven't been forced to and as a tech enthusiast that makes me sad

Tell me about it, been wanting to ditch my i7 6700 but I can't justify it yet... hopefully when 10nm comes a long... even not needing will go for it out of pure hobbyist not even out of true need... haven't felt the skylake locked i7 limit the GTX 1080 Ti on what I do yet at all

[Azims]

Good guy Asus trying their best.

[Jito463]

On 10/21/2017 at 3:26 PM, mr moose said:

And that is not too mention that the platform life expectancy is still 1 year short of the 4-5 year average upgrade cycle.   Which means even if you buy right at the start of the platform, for 99% of enthusiasts they are still going  to be upgrading when AM4 is obsolete.

 

TL:DR it doesn't matter if you upgrade a little bit more often or a lot less often, you spend about the same in the end.  The sweet spot for upgrading is GPU every 3-4 years (2 years for hardcore enthusiasts with money) and CPU every 4-6 years (3 years for hardcore enthusiasts with money). 

On 10/21/2017 at 4:43 PM, mr moose said:

I based my numbers on forum polls and news articles.  My personal upgrade cycle is about 7-8 years, but I also personally know one person who upgrades closer to 3 years.

Have you ever considered that most people base their upgrade cycles on what Intel does?  If Intel chooses to only support 2 generations per chipset, then it only makes sense that people would upgrade on that same cycle.

On 10/22/2017 at 2:34 PM, leadeater said:

I've been PC gaming since 486, I know the pain of having a PC that is no longer able to play games at all and it happened very quickly. This is something that people who entered the PC gaming market later haven't really experienced, if your first gaming PC was a Core 2 then you simply don't know.

On 10/22/2017 at 2:54 PM, leadeater said:

4930k and dual 290X. The sole reason I haven't upgraded is because I haven't been forced to and as a tech enthusiast that makes me sad. Before that i7-960, before that E8400, before that a mix of different P4s and AMD FX, before that some forgotten P3, then P2, then P1 Pro, then 486sx (I think I had the crap one).

 

Edit:

Oh and I had a Cyrix processor at one point, those were garbage lol.

In regards to IBM compatible PCs, I started with the (AMD) 486 as well so I know what you mean.  I used to replace my CPU and GPU much more frequently, just to get that little bit more performance in my games (I'd sell off the old parts to compensate for the cost).  I actually started gaming prior to the 486 technically.  Started in the early-mid 90's on a Commodore Amiga 2000.  I still miss that computer in many ways.  I wonder if I can recall all the different CPUs I've owned over the years....

 

486 DX/2 66

K6-II 350

K6-II 500

Athlon 750 (Slot A)

Athlon 900 (Socket A)

Athlon 1000

Athlon 1333

Athlon XP 1600+

Athlon XP 1800+

Athlon XP 2000+

Athlon XP 2400+

Athlon XP 2800+

Athlon XP 3200+ (Yeah, I went through a LOT of different Athlon XPs,  )

Athlon 64 3500+ (Socket 754)

Athlon 64 4000+ (Socket 939)

Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (this one cost me $500!!!!!!!, and was the most expensive CPU I've bought until the Ryzen 1800.  It wasn't even the most expensive option, which would have been the 4800+ for $1,000!)

Phenom X4 9650 (Socket AM2+)

Phenom II X4 945/965 (Socket AM2+/AM3, grouping these CPUs together because I traded the 945 for the 965)

Phenom II X6 1090T (Socket AM3/AM3+)

FX-8370

And finally, my Ryzen 7 1800x

 

*whew*

That is a lot of processors.  No wonder I'm so broke, LOL.  I also had a couple of Athlon MP processors in that time in a dual CPU system, but that wasn't directly mine.  It was something a group of us made at the store I worked at, and while I ended up with it for a time, I eventually gave it to one of the other guys.

[mr moose]

8 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Have you ever considered that most people base their upgrade cycles on what Intel does?  If Intel chooses to only support 2 generations per chipset, then it only makes sense that people would upgrade on that same cycle.

 

 

I had thought of that, but the reasons most people where giving weren't related to generation releases. 

 

https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/916373-pc/75394783

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/776423-how-often-do-you-upgrade-your-pc-components-in-general/

 

Most people claim they upgrade only when their PC starts to have trouble playing the latest games or performance is weak (most claim >4years).  

 

Articles claims that on average upgrade cycles in business are driven more buy lease schemes than necessity and everyday users (facebook, general home pc's etc) are being replaced with laptops, tablets and phones more than desktops. When they are upgraded they tend to be just the next generic thing available and they are usually 6-7 year cycles. 

 

 

[thorhammerz]

9 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Have you ever considered that most people base their upgrade cycles on what Intel does?  If Intel chooses to only support 2 generations per chipset, then it only makes sense that people would upgrade on that same cycle.

Perhaps you do. However, not everyone has the means to do so (much less the interest or even the need) to upgrade/buy more than once every 4-5 years.

 

Many people have much more... immediate needs than pouring more cash into a computer: tuition (for those still in school) and bills (for those not living with mom & dad) need to be paid; kids need to be fed; mortgage/car payments need to be made, saving for the retirement/future, etc.

 

That's why pre-built systems featuring a mix of generic and bad components are sold: because they "only" cost a few hundred (regardless of whatever's actually in them): your average consumer doesn't care as long as "it works", with the occasional upgrade of a GPU.

[Jito463]

3 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

Perhaps you do.

If you look two posts above yours, you'll note that my upgrades are most assuredly not based around Intel's schedule.  

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

I had thought of that, but the reasons most people where giving weren't related to generation releases.

3 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

However, not everyone has the means to do so (much less the interest or even the need) to upgrade/buy more than once every 4-5 years.

 

Many people have much more... immediate needs than pouring more cash into a computer: tuition (for those still in school) and bills (for those not living with mom & dad) need to be paid; kids need to be fed; mortgage/car payments need to be made, saving for the retirement/future, etc.

Which I get.  However, my point I was trying to make was that Intel's actions tend to lead people towards a specific method of purchasing/upgrading, more so than people intentionally buying based around Intel's launches.

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

Most people claim they upgrade only when their PC starts to have trouble playing the latest games or performance is weak (most claim >4years).

3 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

That's why pre-built systems featuring a mix of generic and bad components are sold: because they "only" cost a few hundred (regardless of whatever's actually in them): your average consumer doesn't care as long as "it works", with the occasional upgrade of a GPU.

As someone who has worked for a small OEM system builder for many years, I get that more than you realize.  Our cheapest systems tend to be the most popular for those buying for basic office or home use.  Nevertheless, even those buying the cheapest systems may find themselves influenced by ads and pushy salesmen into believing that they need a new computer.

 

A lot of people have slow systems for one reason or another (viruses, OS corruption, hardware failure, etc), and rather than fix it they often believe they need to just chuck it and buy something new.  I hear it multiple times per week, someone coming in that believes their 2 year old system needs replaced because it's slow.

 

I'm not trying to claim that I'm right, merely making a case for why it could be a factor.

12 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Have you ever considered that perhaps most people base their upgrade cycles on what Intel does?

I just re-read this portion, and realized I left out a word.  Edited part in bold.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Nicholatian said:

 

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, Nicholatian said:

While it's probably not the sort of thing that can be done for all games, I will say that many video games are nowhere near that 'theoretical maximum' where you get little to no returns for efforts in compute parallelisation.

Well I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who thinks throwing around Amdahl's Law is basically a giant cop out. Every time I see people use that in the context of game development I cringe. I mean the origin of that is pretty dam far from game development, for a lot of things it's not even applicable. Plus Gustafson's law is a thing too.

 

When people talk about that sort of thing they act like games are a fixed workloads doing a singular task which they very much are not.

 

Not that I'm a software development expert since I went in to a different field of IT after my degree but I know enough to spot bs when I see it .

[Prox1ma]

On 10/22/2017 at 10:55 AM, strat guy said:

Let's just hope games remain largely GPU dependant, and that developers don't start programming stuff that would make quad core CPUs unable to keep up. At least for the next 4 to 5 years.

Rest assured devs won't be optimizing for multiple cores for a long time. Those with 4 core cpus can keep using for a long time before they feel the pinch to get more cores just for gaming.

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, Jito463 said:

If you look two posts above yours, you'll note that my upgrades are most assuredly not based around Intel's schedule.  

Which I get.  However, my point I was trying to make was that Intel's actions tend to lead people towards a specific method of purchasing/upgrading, more so than people intentionally buying based around Intel's launches.

As someone who has worked for a small OEM system builder for many years, I get that more than you realize.  Our cheapest systems tend to be the most popular for those buying for basic office or home use.  Nevertheless, even those buying the cheapest systems may find themselves influenced by ads and pushy salesmen into believing that they need a new computer.

 

A lot of people have slow systems for one reason or another (viruses, OS corruption, hardware failure, etc), and rather than fix it they often believe they need to just chuck it and buy something new.  I hear it multiple times per week, someone coming in that believes their 2 year old system needs replaced because it's slow.

 

I'm not trying to claim that I'm right, merely making a case for why it could be a factor.

I just re-read this portion, and realized I left out a word.  Edited part in bold.

 

I don't disagree that advertising and marketing curb the average consumer into making purchases they don't necessarily need, however we are talking mostly about people on forums like this (most of "those" consumers don't know the difference between the case and the hard drive),  and though I would hazard a guess there are one or two here that will purchase simply becasue company X told them to, most of us have just enough nous not to pull the trigger on an upgrade until we are sure we need/want it.

[Skanky Sylveon]

On 10/18/2017 at 9:40 PM, NumLock21 said:

Wu then goes on to Intel's defense by saying, those who owns a Z270 probably won't upgrade anyway

Yeah, because two extra cores isn't worth an upgrade.

[ProjectBox153]

54 minutes ago, Ezilkannan said:

Rest assured devs won't be optimizing for multiple cores for a long time. Those with 4 core cpus can keep using for a long time before they feel the pinch to get more cores just for gaming.

I just upgraded to a quad core Sandy Bridge i5. Dual cores are still pretty capable (even my Core 2 Duos). 

[Prox1ma]

4 minutes ago, Jamiec1130 said:

I just upgraded to a quad core Sandy Bridge i5. Dual cores are still pretty capable (even my Core 2 Duos). 

I am still on a 2500K myself, its been like close to 7 years or more now. I do need to upgrade, but I realized that I have lots of unplayed titles on my steam library. So I figured, I would first complete all those and once I get to some that are demanding, I will upgrade, by which time I guess Cannon Lake or Ryzen 2 might be out which I see a better upgrade than CL or Ryzen now.
PS: I rushed my Ti, could have possibly waited for Volta. But I guess I will keep that for a long time before upgrading.

[NumLock21]

7 hours ago, Cinnabar Sonar said:

Yeah, because two extra cores isn't worth an upgrade.

X99 5820K introduced 6 cores, 3 years ago. If one needs a 6 core, they would have went with that, instead of a quad core 6700K or 7700K.  Z370 is for those that have like a 5+ year old machine. Those with z270, who have money to waste, no one is stopping them from getting one too.