1. #1

    Choosing a CPU- Superfical CPU reviews and how to avoid them.

    You must make sure when looking at performance reviews for new cpus they are being tested fairly. I'm going to try and sum this up quickly and easly and try and bury the hatchet in why everyone is tricked into believing that the i-7 2600k gives more gaming performance than a i-7 3960k at the same GHZ clock rate.

    for example

    world of warcraft can only run on 2 cores

    Heres an illistration on what hyperthreading does to a core.

    [1][2]
    [3][4] <--- is a quad core with hyper threading disabled

    [1A][1B][2A][2B]
    [3A][3B][4A][4B] <------- is a quad core with hyper threading enabled

    Since wow is only ABLE to run on two cores in the first picture it would run on cores 1,2
    Since wow is only ABLE to run on two cores in the second picture it would run on cores 1A,1B

    This leads to a decrease and bottle necking in performance due to basically only being ran on 1 core instead of 2.

    so here is the next illustration

    Please review this review http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...k,3090-10.html

    Crysis 2 - engine was built so that it could run on up to 8 cores (yay for hyper threading)

    Diagram 3

    [1A][1B][2A][2B]
    [3A][3B][4A][4B]
    <---- the game crysis using all cores efficiently there's no easy way to put this and this does not reflect the 100% accuracy of what is happening here but it is the best way to simply explain it using words.

    If each core is running at 4ghz that means [1A] = 2ghz and [1B] = 2ghz making core [1] = 4ghz so crysis is using 4 cores at 4ghz basic level.

    now heres a diagram for i-7 3930k with hyper threading on running crysis

    [1A][1B][2A][2B]
    [3A][3B][4A][4B]

    [5A][5B][6A][6B] <--- so basicly its still only using 4 cores at 4ghz which will result in the same or slightly lower performance as the 4 core chip leading to superficial results in gaming benchmarks.

    Now here is the i-7 3930k with hyperthreading disabled

    [1][2]
    [3][4]
    [5][6]
    <---- now instead of just running on 4 cores at 4ghz your running 6 full cores at 4ghz

    This is how you will actually test if a cpu is better in the game performance and why that crysis review was superficial.

    If crysis was patched to be able to run efficiently on up to 12 cores then you'd see alot of benchmarks with the i-7 3960k way ahead, but since that's not likely to happen then you have to tweak your cpu settings to match the software thats running on it for a fair test.

    EDIT
    Testimony
    http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2412081539
    http://elitistjerks.com/f15/t40955-w...weaks_etc/p27/
    http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/ar.../t-145737.html
    Last edited by slipshade; 2011-12-19 at 05:45 PM.
    "Because of all the days that have passed, We are who we are."

  2. #2
    Above post is totally wrong and should be ignored.


    1) WoW was split into two threads in patch 2.0, and up to about 70 threads in patch 3.0 making your two core theory flawed.

    2) WoW has supported HT processors correctly without any core affinity tweaking since patch 3.something, not totally sure about that but I think 3.2 making the bullshit about HT benchmarking flawed.
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
    Trolling should be.

  3. #3
    go ahead and try some real world testing on your own.

    Point is i have a i-7 3930k

    with that and gtx 580 i was pulling 40fps in orgrimmar on a server with 32k horde players logged in at any given time.

    Disable hyper threading

    Constant 60fps with no dips at all even while flying around in orgrimmar 40fps cap was achieve'd by standing still.

    Real world application
    try it

    I've also tested this extensively with the following games

    Just Cause 2
    Skyrim (with over 189 hi res texture mods and supersampling x8 enabled)
    Diablo 3 beta
    World of Warcraft
    SWTOR
    League of Legends

    all hold true that disabling hyper threading leads to a significant increase in FPS because they are not supported for 12 threads

    CPUS i have owned within the last 3 years and have personally tested on.


    i7-920
    i7-960
    i7-2600k
    i7-3930k
    Last edited by slipshade; 2011-12-19 at 05:16 PM.
    "Because of all the days that have passed, We are who we are."

  4. #4
    Your problem is 100% certainly not hyperthreading since it works perfectly with i7-900 series, but it might be an issue with Windows not recognizing the SB-E processors correctly which caused Bulldozer problems too.
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
    Trolling should be.

  5. #5
    All fps Testing was done with ZERO other changes and performed within about 5-10mins of each other.

    Windows, Bios, Drivers, etc all fully updated and unchanged between tests

    Still holds true.

    The gains hold true across multiple hyper threaded cpus it cannot be a glitch. There are even guides to disabling hyper threading to increase performance in wow esp for the lower clocked cpu's such as the i7-920 without overclocking.
    Last edited by slipshade; 2011-12-19 at 05:29 PM.
    "Because of all the days that have passed, We are who we are."

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by slipshade View Post
    The gains hold true across multiple hyper threaded cpus it cannot be a glitch. There are even guides to disabling hyper threading to increase performance in wow esp for the lower clocked cpu's such as the i7-920 without overclocking.
    All of those guides were written long ago. The game will correctly use HT cores since patch 3.something and it's no longer a problem.
    Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
    Trolling should be.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by vesseblah View Post
    All of those guides were written long ago. The game will correctly use HT cores since patch 3.something and it's no longer a problem.
    See added testimony section in the first post please.

    Post by a wow player in april 2011

    pretty sure that was in 4.1 or 4.2

    Wow still sucks at hyperthreading and more than 2 cores its pretty well known issue really
    "Because of all the days that have passed, We are who we are."

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