3770 or 3930 for BF4?

Master_Pain

Supreme [H]ardness
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I was debating on whether or not to upgrade to a 3930 for BF4, but I don't really think there will be much performance benefit to it. I will be running it with crossfired 7970s or one of the new AMD cards.

What do you guys think?

*edit*
Going 6 core. 3930 or 4930? Will they overclock decently with a Corsair H100, close to 4.5? Or is there something a little beefier for them?
 
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Intel 6-core with HT off absolutely destroys the quads with HT in BF3, in a non-GPU limited environment you can see huge gains on the minimums and significant gains on the maximums. I'm not sure if BF4 will be exactly the same but the frostbite engine seems to respond well to real cores. I don't play BF3 much but I tried it out when I read this and came to the same conclusion.

Here is a review of this I found with a quick google search.
 
Frostbite scales very well so more cores is win, HT relies on splitting of info so will never be perfect, whereas the extra true cores can and will be paged, this can be seen with FX chips vs Phenom II as well, frostbite is one of the very few engines out there that scale very well with modern designs, so HT will scale but is better having more available cores that can just process the info rather then segregate it as need suits it :p
 
3930k or 4930k. BF3 scaled well with more (good) cores in multi, and that's a trend that should continue with bf4.
 
Check out the Anandtech Bench here of the 3770k vs 3930k

Both chips trade punches. "Scaling" or not, you would be throwing cash away going up to a 3930k. You would also need to upgrade your board as well.

I would keep the 3770k and put the extra you'd save toward a HD 9xxx card.
 
Being that this game is about to be heavily promoted by AMD and is one of the first games that is developed on AMD hardware consoles which drive 8 cores, it should do extremely well with high core CPU's. I expect a strong showing with AMD's 8 thread Bulldozers.
 
Ehh, fuck it. Now the questions is 3930 or 4930. Will they overclock decently with a Corsair H100, close to 4.5? Or is there something a little beefier for them?
 
however Jaguar like other FX is not a true 8 core chip, it is pseudo 8 core 4 logical 8 threads just like most of the higher end Intel chips just made differently, but yeh, wait a couple days and see what Radeon R200 will be bringing to the table if it scales as well as it did you already have a good chip, its your gpu that might see a massive boost from the new gen, judging by various graphs well, cpu wise 3770k vs 3930k in overclocked state may not show a huge difference, not enough to justify that much of an increase in cost anyways.

Is neat seeing the bench data though, so very close to each other in performance though the 3930 does scale better with high thread counts which BF4 more then likely will have so might be worth it, but the increase in power and heat is something to keep in mine, I seriously doubt the differences would be worth a few hundred in costs only time will tell once game is released huh, that would be my advise wait for game to release THEN do the upgrades based on that.

I have also read for Ivy and Haswell the H coolers and similar are not the best choices as the temperature is over a much smaller area it can be hard for these cooler to wick it away once clocked up, there is some high end aircoolers that will keep pace and exceed what they can do for Intels newest mightiest chips, unless you want to go custom liquid then that's different. H and similar coolers have a wicked amount of cooling potential BUT can only wick so much heat at a given time cause fluid only pumps so fast hence some of the top end aircoolers match and beat them out as they have a better ability to transfer the heat to the cooler vs the block to the rad in this case(so I have read on a few accounts) Zalman Reserator V3 or whatever their newest is called is in its own field as is the H110, though there still is a couple wicked aircoolers out there that just plain work even if they are huge or lean, design is everything.
 
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Both chips trade punches. "Scaling" or not, you would be throwing cash away going up to a 3930k.
Minimums are better with the 3930k (in multiplayer), which is ideal for 120hz users. "Throwing cash away," is subjective, as it could be worth it for the op.
Ehh, fuck it. Now the questions is 3930 or 4930. Will they overclock decently with a Corsair H100, close to 4.5? Or is there something a little beefier for them?
Silicon lottery, but it does seem like ivy-e is having troubles reaching the same clockspeeds as sandy-e on average.
 
Being that this game is about to be heavily promoted by AMD and is one of the first games that is developed on AMD hardware consoles which drive 8 cores, it should do extremely well with high core CPU's. I expect a strong showing with AMD's 8 thread Bulldozers.

I wouldn't.

Multithreading ain't easy, and developers as a rule do things cheaply and as lazily/easy as possible. Buying the most expensive gear now, in the hope of devs magically changing their modus operandii...is setting oneself up for disappointment.
 
Minimums are better with the 3930k (in multiplayer), which is ideal for 120hz users. "Throwing cash away," is subjective, as it could be worth it for the op.

Silicon lottery, but it does seem like ivy-e is having troubles reaching the same clockspeeds as sandy-e on average.

So, probably just snag the 3930 and guarantee a decent OC?
 
So, probably just snag the 3930 and guarantee a decent OC?

I wouldn't say guarantee, but that's just from early samples. Who knows, you might get lucky and get a reasonably clocking 4930k.

If you can buy a 3930k, around the $450-500 range, I would settle with that. Otherwise since prices are basically the same, 4930k is probably the more ideal option.
 
however Jaguar like other FX is not a true 8 core chip, it is pseudo 8 core 4 logical 8 threads just like most of the higher end Intel chips just made differently
*facepalm*
Not this shit again. Just because it shares some resources doesn't mean it isn't a true core.
I have also read for Ivy and Haswell the H coolers and similar are not the best choices as the temperature is over a much smaller area it can be hard for these cooler to wick it away once clocked up, there is some high end aircoolers that will keep pace and exceed what they can do for Intels newest mightiest chips, unless you want to go custom liquid then that's different. H and similar coolers have a wicked amount of cooling potential BUT can only wick so much heat at a given time cause fluid only pumps so fast hence some of the top end aircoolers match and beat them out as they have a better ability to transfer the heat to the cooler vs the block to the rad in this case(so I have read on a few accounts) Zalman Reserator V3 or whatever their newest is called is in its own field as is the H110, though there still is a couple wicked aircoolers out there that just plain work even if they are huge or lean, design is everything.
You really don't know what you are talking about. If the temperature on the chip was concentrated over a smaller area it would affect all coolers designed to cover the heatspreader of the Ivy and Haswell chips. It wouldn't just affect the Corsair H series.
 
as with other 'what do i need to run BF4" why not wait a day until it is out, wait for the [H] reviews and then buy so you know what you need.
 
My 4930k OC'ed pretty easy to 4.5 @ 1.35v on a x79 deluxe and scored 16000+ on passmark with temps slightly north of 70C. I got it to OC to 4.6 via AIsuite @1.4V but not comfortable with 80C+ temps not to mention the occasional BSODs. The only problem I have experienced is the ram will not OC to 2133 no matter what I do.
 
Not an option, I am giving my current rig to a friend.

I would go with a 4770k and save the difference for the GPU's. Ivy-E isn't what Haswell-E will be with 8 cores next year and spending a lot on a 2 year old platform isn't worth it unless your going to run quad SLI or use the rig for heavy rendering or encoding work.
 
I would go with a 4770k and save the difference for the GPU's. Ivy-E isn't what Haswell-E will be with 8 cores next year and spending a lot on a 2 year old platform isn't worth it unless your going to run quad SLI or use the rig for heavy rendering or encoding work.

Planning on running 2 - 7970s pushing eyefinity(3600x1920) + streaming on twitch.

My 4930k OC'ed pretty easy to 4.5 @ 1.35v on a x79 deluxe and scored 16000+ on passmark with temps slightly north of 70C. I got it to OC to 4.6 via AIsuite @1.4V but not comfortable with 80C+ temps not to mention the occasional BSODs. The only problem I have experienced is the ram will not OC to 2133 no matter what I do.

What were you using for cooling?
 
Ah, I have heard good things about that cooler, seems to do well in reviews. I was planning on using a h110. I can't find out much about what I should expect for temps on it though...
 
I think the H110 is pretty good for this chip. I'm running it @ 4.5 with 1.360v. I have not really had a chance to test it out fully yet other then some stability testing with prime 95 and a 3d mark11 run. I think I may still be able to lower the voltage slightly or try to go for 4.6 and add some more but I am undecided on that. I feel like I would need a real water cooler to really get a good OC with this chip but I'm planning on adding two more 140mm fans to the cooler and possibly changing the AS5 for the time being. I'm going to re-run a prime95 (29.7 large fft max heat) so I can give you better idea of the temps with this setup. I have two 120s (w/stock 140s) doing a push/pull on it at the moment but they are kind of crappy. This is after three runs so far, so the temperatures may increase a bit. Idle temperatures are pretty good, sits between the high 20s and low 30s ( http://i.imgur.com/WdjbnQ6l.png ).

nuxNQFll.png


Original img. http://i.imgur.com/nuxNQFl.png
I'm including the results for 3dmark to show the physics score difference between this and the 3770K. I also have results for a 8350 somewhere around here.
3dmark results http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/901758/fs/626321

Edit: after 8 hours. http://i.imgur.com/zyh1iBk.png
 
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Intel 6-core with HT off absolutely destroys the quads with HT in BF3, in a non-GPU limited environment you can see huge gains on the minimums and significant gains on the maximums. I'm not sure if BF4 will be exactly the same but the frostbite engine seems to respond well to real cores. I don't play BF3 much but I tried it out when I read this and came to the same conclusion.

Here is a review of this I found with a quick google search.

what is the GPU used in that comparison?
 
I think the H110 is pretty good for this chip. I'm running it @ 4.5 with 1.360v. I have not really had a chance to test it out fully yet other then some stability testing with prime 95 and a 3d mark11 run. I think I may still be able to lower the voltage slightly or try to go for 4.6 and add some more but I am undecided on that. I feel like I would need a real water cooler to really get a good OC with this chip but I'm planning on adding two more 140mm fans to the cooler and possibly changing the AS5 for the time being. I'm going to re-run a prime95 (29.7 large fft max heat) so I can give you better idea of the temps with this setup. I have two 120s (w/stock 140s) doing a push/pull on it at the moment but they are kind of crappy. This is after three runs so far, so the temperatures may increase a bit. Idle temperatures are pretty good, sits between the high 20s and low 30s ( http://i.imgur.com/WdjbnQ6l.png ).

nuxNQFll.png


Original img. http://i.imgur.com/nuxNQFl.png
I'm including the results for 3dmark to show the physics score difference between this and the 3770K. I also have results for a 8350 somewhere around here.
3dmark results http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/901758/fs/626321

Edit: after 8 hours. http://i.imgur.com/zyh1iBk.png

Very nice. How good are the stock fans on the cooler? I was planning on getting 2 more for push/pull, but should i just get 4? Also, I assume that I can still top mount on a Corsair 900d using push/pull?
 
The stock fans are pretty good, specs from newegg:
1500 +/-10% RPM 94 CFM
Fan Dim. 140 x 25mm
Fan Noise 35 dBA

yea that is how I mounted it in my other stormstryker case, the cooler screws in to your case from the top down. It comes with long screws so you would pass those through the stock fans into the radiator. That reminds me, I need to find 8 more long screws to attach the new fans with when I buy em. I'm not 100% sure if it came with extra screws or I lost them. My secondary fans are 120s so I just twist tied them on haha.
 
what is the GPU used in that comparison?

680 SLI, so very comparable to OP's 7970CF. I tried it myself with my 780 and I gained FPS in both BF3 (I don't really play it at all, only for testing since it seems to be a good unstable OC detector) and Skyrim as well with tons of mods and scripts running.
 
680 SLI, so very comparable to OP's 7970CF. I tried it myself with my 780 and I gained FPS in both BF3 (I don't really play it at all, only for testing since it seems to be a good unstable OC detector) and Skyrim as well with tons of mods and scripts running.

Did you experience noticeably smoother gameplay when you tried it or just a higher fps reading?
 
Did you experience noticeably smoother gameplay when you tried it or just a higher fps reading?

Both. Although BF3 is usually pretty smooth for me anyways, but my minimums improved by like 50% which helped a lot with some of the hitching that you get when on the bigger 64 man maps. I rarely ever play the game as I don't like it much. For Skyrim I can now maintain 60fps even in Whiterun looking at the stupid tree, where before it would drop to 46-50fps.
 
I really thought about going with the H110 myself but I have totally happy with the Noctua. It's fooking huge though!

Here's my temps @ 4.6

mll7.jpg
 
Well I'm running 4+2 fans in my HAF 932 with one on the chipset and the other blowing directly across the VRM heat sink.
 
Very nice. How good are the stock fans on the cooler? I was planning on getting 2 more for push/pull, but should i just get 4? Also, I assume that I can still top mount on a Corsair 900d using push/pull?

I think you might have a bad mount on the AIO WC unit you are using..The temperatures that kaigne reported are a good bit better(-11C for his hottest core vs yours), and he is using a good deal more Voltage then you..Ivy tends to heat up quickly with core voltages over 1.3~1.35V, yet he is in the range and has better temps..I am curious to know the ambient temperatures for both of your setups..
 
Yea its probably my voltage being its .024 higher then Kaigne. Ill look into my bios pretty soon. I just picked up proper fitting fans and tx-4 to re-seat it today.

edit: My 4930 kinda sucks, I don't think its going to be able to go above 4.5 without an obscene amount of voltage (already up to 1.376 and still getting bsods)
I matched the voltage but i was unable to match the speed with it. http://i.imgur.com/Yh8xUWK.png
 
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Yea its probably my voltage being its .024 higher then Kaigne. Ill look into my bios pretty soon. I just picked up proper fitting fans and tx-4 to re-seat it today.

edit: My 4930 kinda sucks, I don't think its going to be able to go above 4.5 without an obscene amount of voltage (already up to 1.376 and still getting bsods)
I matched the voltage but i was unable to match the speed with it. http://i.imgur.com/Yh8xUWK.png

Mine isn't totally stable at 4.6 even at 1.4V. It will stress for hours but will eventually bsod surfing the web or whatnot.
 
as with other 'what do i need to run BF4" why not wait a day until it is out, wait for the [H] reviews and then buy so you know what you need.

I guess many just want to tap into the knowledge here and have the "perfect" rig ready to spend all their time playing the game, not shopping gear to play it! But that would be the best way to do it.
OP! Having played the unoptimized beta today a lot & comparing to a friend with a first gen hex core i7 you made the right choice! As others have said, get the 4930k if it's close in price. It does save in power consumption compared ans is faster that Sandy-E. You seem to know enough to make the choice that will make you happy. Also, good on you for giving your rig away, not sure if its free though :eek:
 
I guess many just want to tap into the knowledge here and have the "perfect" rig ready to spend all their time playing the game, not shopping gear to play it! But that would be the best way to do it.
OP! Having played the unoptimized beta today a lot & comparing to a friend with a first gen hex core i7 you made the right choice! As others have said, get the 4930k if it's close in price. It does save in power consumption compared ans is faster that Sandy-E. You seem to know enough to make the choice that will make you happy. Also, good on you for giving your rig away, not sure if its free though :eek:

Already ordered and delivered, putting it together after work. :)

And ya, it was for free.
 
let me know how you like your 4930k, I pulled my 3930k down from it's 5.0GHz (HT off) and 4.8GHz (HT on) OC just due to higher voltage. Running 4.7 (HT On) and very cool (custom water).
 
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