Skylake vs Zen for A3 Thread

[fabio_chavez 103]

I think this deserves an own thread!

Everyone who is planning to upgrade his system within the next 12 Month or so has to decide at one point if Skylake i7-6700K/i5-6600K is a preferable option (over i7 4790k and i7-5820K??) or even to wait to see if AMD might even pull a rabbit out of its hat with the Zen that could be the optimum in terms of absolute performance or performance per money.

Lets monitor and track the infos that are now appearing more and more reliable (for Skylake at least).

So for now the most interessting Question would be the performance i7-4970k vs i7-6700k which we might get to know during the imminent Gamescon where the new skylakes are supposed to be presented.

Any guesses?

[clawhammer 10]

As i heard, AMD plan's to bring the ZEN CPUs with 12 cores. So i could be that AMDs cpu's will be good at multi-core games. Maybe they will be weaker with single core performance. Currently ArmA dont profit much from multi-core CPU's, maybe it will change with the addon and DX12 support. If not you drive better with high clocked single core CPUs.

But that is an big maybe, we dont know much yet about the ZEN CPUs. I really hope they will be good, INTEL needs someone to fight with. The last INTEL CPUs had big prices, but no big perfomance jump between their own last gen cpu's. I dont expect a big jump from the 4790k to the 6700k, maybe the jump will be higher in the next generation if AMD pushes INTEL with good ZEN CPU's.

Additionally iam intrested how ArmA will be better with high clocked DDR4 RAM.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Clawhammer

[PuFu 4600]

i would sit on it until more information is made public regarding enfusion engine.

Just a note, there is little to no gain between difference Intel CPUs for the RV (i own 2PCs @home i7 2600k(4c8t), one i7 970(6c/12t) , and one i7 3830k(6c/12t) my office workstation - everything clocked @4ghz). I have even tried a dual xenon setup with arma, with even worse performance. Sit on it unless it is urgently needed.

[jumpinghubert 49]

Or waiting for arma4 and look how the current/older cpu´s handle it :p

[brightcandle 114]

There was a small improvement from the Sandbridge 2600k to the Haswell processors but hardly enough to make it worthwhile. Skylake is another big increase in GPU performance and no movement in CPU performance from Intel so I would hazard a guess its not going to bring much improvement again unless something amazing happens that we haven't yet heard about.

As to Zen based on the fact its a 12 cores (probably stretching that definition like the 8350 did with 8 cores) it may or may not help Arma 3. If they get single thread performance to be roughly the same as Intel's (unlikely considering the vast difference in resources of the two companies) then the extra cores will help the rendering process go a little faster and give the Zen an advantage. But just a 10% drop in single threaded performance will hand the advantage to the Intel CPU again.

Fact is the game just isn't written with todays or future processors in mind, thus it doesn't care much about the architecture changes coming and the general trend towards more cores. Its extremely unlikely we'll see a big change to that basic fact in Arma 3's cycle, DX12 is only going to reduce the rendering time in the API which right now is pretty minimal but it wont fix the serial thread issue over the rest of the games processing. I know people want hope but its more honest to just accept the reality that it'll always perform this way and no magic CPU is coming to save the day. The only time to show any hope is once BI themselves freely admit that the client has severe performance problems due to its design and commit to fixing that, until they do that (they haven't done yet) we aren't going to see any improvement.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Hmmmm:

http://wccftech.com/intel-launches-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k-unlocked-skylake-cpus-5th-august-skylakes-platform-roadmap-detailed/

The first two processors that include the Core i7-6700K and Core i5-6600K were leaked a few days ago and are labeled as “Enthusiast†95W processors. Starting off with the flagship Core i7-6700K CPU, we are looking at a quad core design with eight threads which shows a multi-threaded design. The chip features 8 MB of L3 cache and has clock speeds maintained at 4.0 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost clock. The chip can support DDR4 2133 MHz memory and DDR3L 1600 MHz memory.

Similarly, the Core i5-6600K is the more cost conservative enthusiast offering and being a quad core, it stays away from a multi-threaded path. The clock speeds are maintained at 3.5 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost and has a total of 6 MB of L3 cache with similar DDR4/DDR3L memory support as the top offering.

Read more: http://wccftech.com/intel-launches-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k-unlocked-skylake-cpus-5th-august-skylakes-platform-roadmap-detailed/#ixzz3fDsQAMom

Also DDR4 has worse latency than DDR3 so that makes me think is the DDR4 actually slower? And got to wonder when the DDR4 latency gets better?

Edited July 7, 2015 by St. Jimmy

[vran. 13]

I would hold off getting a AMD for ArmA because it does not support them well. It was proven on there with evidence that ArmA 3 only makes use of four cores from the total of eight cores the FX 8350 has. But for most other things more cores = better (if the program or game supports it).

[brightcandle 114]

I would hold off getting a AMD for ArmA because it does not support them well. It was proven on there with evidence that ArmA 3 only makes use of four cores from the total of eight cores the FX 8350 has. But for most other things more cores = better (if the program or game supports it).

The sentiment is correct but the "used core count" is just more complicated. The game can and will benefit from 12 cores, maybe more. However the performance is dominated by a single thread of execution and the little pieces that do run in parallel have only a marginal impact on performance in practice. Arma doesn't only use 4 cores, or 2 cores or whatever simplification there is out there, if anything its mostly single threaded but there is significant work done in parallel such that extra cores help but with ever diminishing returns due to Amdahl's law. Some like 20-30% of the frame can be run in parallel, which means with just a single core performance would be quite a bit worse, the second improves performance dramatically but the 4 cores help less and so on and so on. The ideal processor for Arma 3 is actually 1 super core that runs at 8Ghz like performance on a single threaded piece continuously and then also has at least 6 supporting cores that can do fast work but only in short bursts of 5 milliseconds or so before they overheat and they need to work for a total of about 20% of the time at most.

The situation is just more complicated but the problem with AMD's CPUs is just that any single core doesn't have the instruction throughput that Intel does on the Arma workload and hence the extra cores don't help it. But its not true to say the game only uses 4 cores, that isn't factually correct the situation is more complicated, not very complicated but more so.

[vran. 13]

Indeed, a super fast clocked single core CPU would be best solution for A3. The speeds you mention aren't far fetched, though, I highly doubt you could OC a processor to those levels and not burn it, even using liquid nitrogen. :p

edit: I correct myself, looks like Bulldozers could indeed be clocked to those speeds. Practical usage of such OCing is questionable however.

Edited July 7, 2015 by noob1

[clawhammer 10]

Indeed, a super fast clocked single core CPU would be best solution for A3. The speeds you mention aren't far fetched, though, I highly doubt you could OC a processor to those levels and not burn it, even using liquid nitrogen. :p

edit: I correct myself, looks like Bulldozers could indeed be clocked to those speeds. Practical usage of such OCing is questionable however.

I overlocked my old FX-8350 with around 300Mhz~700Mhz and i did not got a single fps more. You should better stay save with that and dont overlock.

I cannot recommendend this cpu for arma 3. Currently my FX-8350 is in my secound pc, i replaced it with the i7 4790k. I can play a lot of actual games with my secound rig, but Arma is NOT PLAYABLE during multiplayer with that cpu. I have around 1~20 fps with that cpu.

Edited July 8, 2015 by Clawhammer

[I give up 152]

Indeed, a super fast clocked single core CPU would be best solution for A3. The speeds you mention aren't far fetched, though, I highly doubt you could OC a processor to those levels and not burn it, even using liquid nitrogen. :p

edit: I correct myself, looks like Bulldozers could indeed be clocked to those speeds. Practical usage of such OCing is questionable however.

Not sure if you are correct.

I have tried with a Intel single core processor at 5.0 ghz and I can say that the game performs much better (client and server side) with a quad core at 2.0 ghz than with a single core at 5.0 ghz

People sometimes thinks that a multi core cpu is a multi cpu processor and that is not correct,

It is one cpu/processor with several cores, every specification of the cpu/processor is shared/divided between each core.

Thats why for gaming (in general) the eight cores performs bad, there is no game engine with support for eight core, I know a few with good support for 4 cores but that's it.

That's why, theoretically, a cpu with 4 cores at 4.0 ghz will perform better (for gaming) than a cpu with 8 cores at 4.0 ghz.

Exactly because the cpu/processor power is being spreaded by the 8 cores and only 4 are being used, while in a 4 core the power is being spreaded only by 4 making each core more powerful, theoretically.

[brightcandle 114]

With an AMD it would need to be more like about 12Ghz based on the timings I saw, but its not just about overclocking its about literally getting 3x performance.

[rübe 127]

This isn't so much about the number of cores or how many bananas some cpu is clocked at. It's more about the supported instruction set (e.g. SIMD), the pipeline, branchprediction magic and all that fancy, secret juice. And clearly the intel folks are best at this wizardry (...and ways ahead of amd).

[I give up 152]

This isn't so much about the number of cores or how many bananas some cpu is clocked at. It's more about the supported instruction set (e.g. SIMD), the pipeline, branchprediction magic and all that fancy, secret juice. And clearly the intel folks are best at this wizardry (...and ways ahead of amd).

That too, in fact it was the reason why they popped the eight cores.

But the truth is, eight cores have no use for computer games. An Intel i3 performs better than a FX 8350.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i3-4160-vs-AMD-FX-8350/2816vs1489

Look at single core performance.

This is what we have to look when we get a cpu for gaming, single core performance.

[dcal 16]

I am waiting for Zen. Been an AMD guy since my first build and want to see what the new architecture can do. If it is a disappointment like Bulldozer I will go with Skylake.

[jumpinghubert 49]

I will go with a cpu with REAL facts not speculations. So we have to wait for first benchmarks

[brightcandle 114]

A simple leaked benchmark shows basically no single threaded benefit from Intel's upcoming Skylake in Cinebench. That probably means we are looking at zero progress on Arma performance as well.

[St. Jimmy 272]

Well good news is that there's no need to upgrade for some time then.

[fabio_chavez 103]

cmon skylake has at least to give an absolute 10% single thread increase?!

[jumpinghubert 49]

After seeing the leaked benchmark the best method is to simulate a massive cpu- and ram Update, reduce view and object distance and ignore all game modes with too much AI :p

[clawhammer 10]

Funniest think is, canonlake wich should come 2016 got delayed until 2017. So no new CPU performance jumps until 2017. Or maybe with the AMD ZEN CPUs if they are good.

[I give up 152]

Wait for DX12, AMD and Intel will be basically the same.

[fabio_chavez 103]

its the lamest period not to have a pc and waiting for the next generation to build a system, in history... PLUS Haswells are expensive as fuck in europe atm.... when skylake arrives i hope at least one of the CPU familys will be affordable...

[clawhammer 10]

its the lamest period not to have a pc and waiting for the next generation to build a system, in history... PLUS Haswells are expensive as fuck in europe atm.... when skylake arrives i hope at least one of the CPU familys will be affordable...

I dont think so, since the perfomance gain with the new intel generation is so thin, that the prices dont go much down. Look at the current gpu prices for the new AMD cards.

The 380 kost the same like the 280X. The 290 cost the same like the 390.

[vran. 13]

Not sure if you are correct.

I have tried with a Intel single core processor at 5.0 ghz and I can say that the game performs much better (client and server side) with a quad core at 2.0 ghz than with a single core at 5.0 ghz

People sometimes thinks that a multi core cpu is a multi cpu processor and that is not correct,

It is one cpu/processor with several cores, every specification of the cpu/processor is shared/divided between each core.

Thats why for gaming (in general) the eight cores performs bad, there is no game engine with support for eight core, I know a few with good support for 4 cores but that's it.

That's why, theoretically, a cpu with 4 cores at 4.0 ghz will perform better (for gaming) than a cpu with 8 cores at 4.0 ghz.

Exactly because the cpu/processor power is being spreaded by the 8 cores and only 4 are being used, while in a 4 core the power is being spreaded only by 4 making each core more powerful, theoretically.

Yes and this is the reason why CPU development somewhat slowed down in recent few years. First quad cores were already available a good ten years ago (remember Intel Q6600 and AMD Phenom line), what has been improved in the meanwhile were clock speeds, SIMD instructions and larger 3rd level cache memory. Not unimportant improvements but they can only go so far with the speeds on affordable/viable cooling solutions and large cache memory ups the production costs significantly. One would expect by now 8 or more cores would already be established and well supported but this is not so. As you say, majority of games only make use of quad cores, some even only dual cores. Maybe this will change when DX12 comes out and also due to many games these days being developed also for the consoles which have very slow but 8 core CPUs, effectively forcing developers to make better usage of multi threading.