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64-Player BF3 & CPU usage

W

WiL11o6

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
478
I posted this in another forum asking people who 2600k to compare with 2500k performance in a full 64-player map. I ask because in 64-player maps, my GPU usage for both my 7970s fluctuate between 75-95%, putting load onto my CPU, which in turn drops my FPS down to 60, sometimes hitting 50s. I thought I was having driver problems until a couple members here had the same performance and so I thought it was just how it was supposed to be. A couple 2600k members in OCN forums never dipped below 80 most of the time, so I asked them to run some 64-player full game maps because I didn't believe 2500k to 2600k would net 20+ fps. Here are his findings:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1196856/official-amd-radeon-hd-7950-7970-owners-club/2440

Can anyone verify before I go out and buy a 2600k? If I can get 20 more stable fps with a 2600k, I would get rid of my 2500k and take a $150 or so loss.
 
Considering how many people have turned off hyperthreading in an attempt to eliminate stuttering, I'd think this is something that would have come out by now if it was really a factor - especially if it is that significant.
 
If this is true, then damn all those peeps that kept saying get a 2500k. Every thread I went to where somebody was going to get a 2600k for gaming, he'll get loads of replies telling him to get a 2500k. Hell, I got a 2500k because of the general consensus that 2600k is of very little benefit for gaming.
 
BF3 is threaded as hell. why else would AMD themselves use it to show off their mega-threaded bulldozer CPU?

frostbite 2 is giving us a taste of what the landscape will look like in the future

a 2500K is indeed great for gaming in general, but with that comes exceptions by nature. one of them is BF3. in the future, those number of exceptions will only grow.
 
I have an fx-8150 and a 7970 and I was looking at that render graph thing in bf3 and it looks like with stock clocks on both I'm cpu limited in battlefield 3. Think it was 1600x1200 max detail with whatever it selects for AA and AF with the max detail setting at the time ( I only ever play 64 player online maps) I now have an aftermarket coolermaster heatsink that I will throw on it (mainly cause that cpu fan is loud when I fold at night) and I'll bump up the clocks a bit using the multipler to see how things go from there.
 
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TroyX said:
you cant be serious.
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serious_cat_is_serious.jpg
 
Another thing to mention here is that the effect is more profound for sli or crossfire.

Single card setups will not get nearly as big a hit performance wise. You should stay at 90-95% with a single gpu in terms of usage. The big difference is with multiple gpus.

Now, in the future, game should be utilizing more cores. So yeah, if planning a new build, get at least a 2600K or the amd equivalent.
 
Silverghost said:
BF3 uses 8 threads. This is no secret
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I read an interview where DICE said it uses 6. I think the reason why 8 threads or 8 cores in BD work well is because windows has somewhere to play when BF3 is using 6.
 
Pitbully said:
I don't think there is an AMD equivalent, is there?:(
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Not yet no. There should be something equivalent in the coming months though. Planning for the future is more what I was referring to. I am not very familiar with the amd side of cpus.

The important message is that we are seeing a minor evolution in gaming that is important to the H enthusiasts with 2 or 3 7970s. Do not skimp on the cpu. This game is just a precursor of what is coming in terms of performance requirements.

I have a 2500K b/c I am set on the single fastest gpu I can afford solution for now. Waiting for nvidia to respond before I go with a new gpu. I will buy the fastest single card I can sneak by my wife.
 
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Danny Bui said:
OP, there is indeed a performance difference between the 2500K and 2600K but apparently only if you play on medium settings and lower. At Ultra, there's little to no difference according to this Swedish 64 player BF3 MP article:
http://www.sweclockers.com/artikel/14650-prestandaanalys-battlefield-3/5#pagehead
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Wouldn't that be dependent on the videocards used? Maybe someone with two 7970 (or the upcoming Nvidia cards) may see a difference in Ultra?




WiL11o6 said:
Can anyone verify before I go out and buy a 2600k? If I can get 20 more stable fps with a 2600k, I would get rid of my 2500k and take a $150 or so loss.
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Why not wait about two months and get the 3770K?
 
needmorecarnitine said:
Wouldn't that be dependent on the videocards used? Maybe someone with two 7970 (or the upcoming Nvidia cards) may see a difference in Ultra?
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Skunt said:
That article was based on a 6990. Two 7970s could show a difference in ultra settings between the 2500k and 2600k.
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There could very well be a difference. But unfortuantely I have not been to locate any articles yet supporting that.
 
Silverghost said:
BF3 uses 8 threads. This is no secret
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It doesn't appear to use 8 on mine. There are 8 cores loaded, but none of them are over 50%, so that could easily be Windows scheduling doing load-sharing. I have yet to see any benchmarks showing significant performance differences between a 2500K and a 2600K, or even better, between a 2500K and a 3930K (which is true 4 core vs 6 core). Do you have any links to back that claim up?
 
use some common sense here. some game engines can use 6 or even 8 threads but that does not mean that the game is going to need all of those cores.
 
cannondale06 said:
use some common sense here. some game engines can use 6 or even 8 threads but that does not mean that the game is going to need all of those cores.
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True, but there is nothing wrong with having a couple extra cores to keep windows and other background apps happy while your game has full access to 4 unused cores.
 
jreinlie4 said:
True, but there is nothing wrong with having a couple extra cores to keep windows and other background apps happy while your game has full access to 4 unused cores.
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you missed my point which was simply that you cant just look at the task manger and determine how many threads the engine is designed to use.
 
2 7970s and a 2600k oced makes a difference compared to a oced 2500k we use bf3 eyefinity to stress the systems that have been brought into our work and yes it makes a better smoother game. single 7970 shows even a better performance but not as comparable to crossfired. Less than 2 years ago fools were saying games will not use 4 cores and to not worry about your 2 core chip. oh and remeber all the smart enthusiasts saying to not get the 1156 but they should get the 1866 because it was future proofed for upgrades! You will hear alot of stuff from people that do not own both chips but they will speculate and say that it does not help because they google and read thinking they know.
 
cannondale06 said:
you missed my point which was simply that you cant just look at the task manger and determine how many threads the engine is designed to use.
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Correct, but what you can do is open up the task manager and change the affinity of the process (bf3.exe) to fewer and fewer threads and watch in-game performance drop like a hot potato.
 
onthemour said:
2 7970s and a 2600k oced makes a difference compared to a oced 2500k we use bf3 eyefinity to stress the systems that have been brought into our work and yes it makes a better smoother game. single 7970 shows even a better performance but not as comparable to crossfired. Less than 2 years ago fools were saying games will not use 4 cores and to not worry about your 2 core chip. oh and remeber all the smart enthusiasts saying to not get the 1156 but they should get the 1866 because it was future proofed for upgrades! You will hear alot of stuff from people that do not own both chips but they will speculate and say that it does not help because they google and read thinking they know.
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and some people just make up their own numbers even when reviews show them to be exaggerating or flat out full of shit.
 
and some people think their 2500k's are completely unchallenged in all games ever created.
 
jreinlie4 said:
and some people think their 2500k's are completely unchallenged in all games ever created.
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lol, please show me one case at realistic settings I would use where I need a faster cpu. maybe if I ran three 7970 gpus but I dont. by the time my 2500k at 4.4 starts to be a problem with any single gpu, I will have already upgraded.
 
jreinlie4 said:
2500k for that lonely 570? no problem. 2500k for 2 7970's? no.
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you see in that review that a stock 2600k does nothing over the 2500k with a 6990 at just 1920x1080 when using max settings. going to three screens would mean a massive increase in gpu power would be needed. so even two 7970s at 5760x1080 would be more gpu limited than the 6990 was at 1920x1080. simple math says he is just exaggerating.
 
Skunt said:
If this is true, then damn all those peeps that kept saying get a 2500k. Every thread I went to where somebody was going to get a 2600k for gaming, he'll get loads of replies telling him to get a 2500k. Hell, I got a 2500k because of the general consensus that 2600k is of very little benefit for gaming.
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the reason people are suggesting 2500k's over the 2600k for BF3 is the fact with hyperthreading it splits the resources of each core, which is causing the stuttering issue a lot of people see with hyperthreading and BF3. so say thread 5(core 0 second thread) requests it needs 60% of the resources but thread 1 is requesting the same 60% it constantly bounces those resources between the threads. its one of the disadvantages to hyperthreading. a lot of people have found disabling hyperthreading on the 2600k's for BF3 makes the game run a heck of a lot smoother and it removes windows load balancing crap in the process.
 
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BF3 doesn't have to fully uses 8 threads, to actually uses them, partially using them reducing latency in rendering. two different process and be computed side by side instead of one waiting for the other.
 
Silverghost said:
BF3 doesn't have to fully uses 8 threads, to actually uses them, partially using them reducing latency in rendering. two different process and be computed side by side instead of one waiting for the other.
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Assuming that what is being processed is parallel-able. Otherwise the first second thread still has to wait for the first to complete.
 
I have my hyperthreading enabled on my 2600k so my CPU monitor shows 8 theoretical cores instead of 4. Whenever I run Battlefield 3, all 8 of the theoretical cores are shown to be used (with varying percent usage). Whenever I use applications that don't use hyper threading then only 4 of the cores are shown as being used (cores 1, 3, 5, 7). I can't tell you if there is a performance difference in Battlefield 3 with hyperthreading turned on or off since I haven't personally tested it.
 
exlink said:
I have my hyperthreading enabled on my 2600k so my CPU monitor shows 8 theoretical cores instead of 4. Whenever I run Battlefield 3, all 8 of the theoretical cores are shown to be used (with varying percent usage). Whenever I use applications that don't use hyper threading then only 4 of the cores are shown as being used (cores 1, 3, 5, 7). I can't tell you if there is a performance difference in Battlefield 3 with hyperthreading turned on or off since I haven't personally tested it.
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Same here !!!
My question (I'm being serious here) is why would you build a rig (for gaming) with a dual gpu setup and then handicap it with a "lesser" cpu? I built my rig with a 2600k whether or it would be used completely. It's called future proofing.
Don't be cheap. I am not insulting the OP. Just the ones to told him to get the 2500k for gaming. You can't justify by saying it's not used. All 8 cores ARE used by the game and other stuff.
For the OP, if you can afford the 2600k upgrade, do it. Simply as that. If not for bf3, then for the next game that will use all cores.
 
E^vol said:
Same here !!!
My question (I'm being serious here) is why would you build a rig (for gaming) with a dual gpu setup and then handicap it with a "lesser" cpu? I built my rig with a 2600k whether or it would be used completely. It's called future proofing.
Don't be cheap. I am not insulting the OP. Just the ones to told him to get the 2500k for gaming. You can't justify by saying it's not used. All 8 cores ARE used by the game and other stuff.
For the OP, if you can afford the 2600k upgrade, do it. Simply as that. If not for bf3, then for the next game that will use all cores.
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/Sigh.

By the time games make use of 8 threads ( and let me be specific here, when I say games I mean any game being made period ) your 2600k will be long and useless.

Fact is probably 95~% of all PC games are single threaded. This includes new games still to this day, buying Red Orchestra 2? ST'ed, buying Sins of a Solar Empire (including Rebellion?) ST'ed.

Maybe 4%~ of games are double threaded, and finally that leaves us with 1%~ of games being multi threaded beyond two.

If you do multiple virtual machines and encode movies & music, oh and apparently run this software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orc_Software then by all means get a 2600/2700 or a 3770k when IB hits.

Buying a HT'ed CPU for games is about as smart as buying 12GB+ of ram for games :rolleyes: I guess if you wanna stroke your e-peen in front of your real life friends that's your call, but it doesn't make you look particularly bright.
 
It obviously depends on which game you want to play and in this case, the OP mentioned BF3 which is multi threaded.

Besides, there's only $80 between the 2 cpus, which is nothing if you're ready to install dual gpus. Again, don't be cheap. We are enthusiasts. If we weren't, we wouldn't buy $1200+ worth of gpus.

Also, why not install 12gb or 16gb of ram? It's cheap. Money only has a value when used.
We, as enthusiasts, build fast computers. Why not give it "more"? That's like building Frankenstein and giving him a small penis with premature ejaculation. (this is not an e-penis reference)
 
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I'm a huge fan of overkill status, not "This is good enough for now."
Go back to the Steam forums, you ain't [H].
 
Update:

I switched out my 2500k for a 2600k and I made the same runs through Strike at Karkand.

On my 2500k @ 4.5ghz, my GPUs would both be 75-95% usage, it's almost always under 90%, floating around 85% and drops to 75% occasionally.

On my 2600k @ 4.5ghz, my GPUs do not go under 90% usage, very seldom does it even hit 90%, it normally sits 95-99% usage, mostly 97-99% on a 64-player server.

Flame me if you want, but it's exactly like the screenshot of the AB from the OCN forums.
 
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