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64-Player BF3 & CPU usage

If you want to talk about the FX's overclocked performance, get me a link that supports your ideas, then we can debate. I stand by my opinion, so you get to prove me wrong :).

When the FX was released we found out three important things, four if you count that it worked:
1. It's generally slower than the Phenom II X6 overall
2. It's single-core performance is nothing less than awful
3. It's hot as hell, and gets much hotter quickly when overclocked
(4) It actually works

These are all irrespective of clock-speed. If it's within the ballpark of Intel's finest, then yeah, you should be able to over-clock it until it is no longer a bottleneck given that Intel's CPUs are fast enough to avoid being bottlenecks.

Also, even if they didn't include a normal i5/i7, they included two other data points, one faster and one slower, so just look in between them, or just read a different review.
 
i think i already proved it

they purposely OC all the other CPU's and leave OUT the 8150?
thats the only CPU that did not get overclocked!

everyone with an amd cpu know that at 3.8GHz is when they start to un-bottleneck and high end gpu

so i dont need to prove as I ALREADY DID

you just dont see it
the FX cpus OC Like crazy on air
4.2GHz on AIR
 
You're beating a dead horse here.

First, you're criticizing Guru3D. Go send a letter to their editor, don't whine about it here.

Second, nobody cares about how fast the 8150 is, because it still isn't fast enough. 4.2GHz on air? I got 4.4GHz on my faster 2500k with the stock cooler. With an H60, it's dead silent at 4.8GHz, the same as it would be on a good $30 air cooler. Bulldozer is hot as hell bro.
 
yep you got 4.8 with FOUR CORES!

try and do it with EIGHT or even SIX

oh wait you can not because you only have FOUR

what do you think your temps would be if you had SIX or EIGHT?

hmmm

and for guru3d you can best believe im contacting them

we will see what they say when i get on them for those biases benchies!
 
Bulldozer cpu itself is not hot but it does use way more power so yes there is more resulting heat.

tdbone1, you dont have 8 real cores. and clock for clock an i5 would easily beat an 8150 while using much less power.
 
we are talking about BF3

in BF3 BD @ 4.2GHZ (1100T or even 8150) WALKS ALL OVER ANY QUAD CORE INTEL YOU GOT
with single GPU
 
tdbone1 said:
yep you got 4.8 with FOUR CORES!

try and do it with EIGHT or even SIX

oh wait you can not because you only have FOUR

what do you think your temps would be if you had SIX or EIGHT?

hmmm

and for guru3d you can best believe im contacting them

we will see what they say when i get on them for those biases benchies!
Click to expand...

Well, I hope your writing ability improves with email. If you sent something like the above to me, I'd ignore it.

Further, Bulldozer doesn't have 8 cores- it has 8 half cores, in four 'modules'. Everyone recognizes this outside of AMD marketing, which you bought hook-line and sinker if you believe.

Even worse, each of those half-cores is significantly slower than either their old Phenom designs or any of Intel's 'iX' designs. And AMD knows this, it isn't some secret, that's how they intended it to be. Bulldozer was designed like Netburst, with the idea of lower per-cycle performance in place of higher clock-speeds. They failed to get the clock-speeds, and thus Bulldozer is the slowest modern CPU.
 
cannondale06 said:
Bulldozer cpu itself is not hot but it does use way more power so yes there is more resulting heat.
Click to expand...

You're right, I should have clarified to say that it generates more heat by drawing more power- so there is more to cool. I didn't mean to refer to the actual CPU temperatures, just to relate that it would make a system hotter.
 
tdbone1 said:
where is it reported that BF3 uses more then 4 cores EXACTLY?

i have had 1090T with 6870 crossfire setup and I KNOW it uses six cores for sure but everyone i talk to (espicially INTEL people) always say FOUR CORES ONLY

if we alt-tab to see cpu usage that is the task schedular

they say this is proved by comparing I7 3930K (six core) with HT DISABLED to I7 3770K (four core) with HT DISABLED and both cpu`s at same freq

if no frame rate increase with 3930K than BF3 uses 4 threads only right?
Click to expand...

It does use 8 cores, DICE said this prior to beta realease.
 
tdbone1 said:
we are talking about BF3

in BF3 BD @ 4.2GHZ (1100T or even 8150) WALKS ALL OVER ANY QUAD CORE INTEL YOU GOT
with single GPU
Click to expand...

Benches please. I fail to see how an 1100T or an FX-8150 running at 4.2GHz with lower instructions per clock-cycle across the whole CPU than any Intel CPU in the last five years is going to outrun a 4.6-5.0GHz i5/i7.
 
the review on guru3d shows it using eight also so i am pretty sure now that we know it uses all the cores you can throw at it that, that would make a big DIFFERENCE

unless you are a review site like guru3d that fabricates the test to severely show it dont

i mean look at that test again

can you clearly see what he did?

dont forget guru3d is no noobie
he knows what the hell hes doing

i dont even know how he could post suck an unfair test like that

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-690-review/12

look at what is NOT THERE
 
Stayfr0sty said:
It does use 8 cores, DICE said this prior to beta realease.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, is that eight cores or eight threads that can make use of eight cores?

Either way, the only CPU that will expose this is Sandy Bridge-E, or possibly a magic Thuban X6 at 5.0GHz. Hyper-threading is a bad fit for gaming, as are Bulldozer's modules.
 
tdbone1 said:
the review on guru3d shows it using eight also so i am pretty sure now that we know it uses all the cores you can throw at it that, that would make a big DIFFERENCE

unless you are a review site like guru3d that fabricates the test to severely show it dont

i mean look at that test again

can you clearly see what he did?

dont forget guru3d is no noobie
he knows what the hell hes doing

i dont even know how he could post suck an unfair test like that

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-690-review/12

look at what is NOT THERE
Click to expand...

Look at what? He benched with what he had, no shame in that. We all know already that no overclocking will save Bulldozer.
 
you can see in the BF3 CPU SCALING section that 8150 IS BOTTLENECKING RIGHT?

WHY THE HELL DONT HE OC THAT ONE????

IM GONNA TELL YOU WHY
because it will get up and walk away everything there

you do notice hes comparing an intel 3930K SIX CORE CPU $550 at newegg right now
you do understand that he then OVERCLOCKS THAT CPU???

omg come on man

if you cant see that is so unbalanced i dont know what to tell ya
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Just to be clear, is that eight cores or eight threads that can make use of eight cores?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's an important distinction - even though there may be a load on all 6 or 8 cores, that can just be the scheduler splitting the load a little bit. 8 cores at 50% are not necessarily any faster than 4 cores at 100%.

I'm also a little confused by why you think the 8150 would "walk away" from the rest - it's about 50% slower (at best) than the 4 core 965. Do you think you can get a 50% overclock on that 8150? Plus the 6 core 3960 is only marginally faster than the 4 core 965, so why would the 8 pseudo-cores of the 8150 be that much faster?
 
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tdbone1 said:
you can see in the BF3 CPU SCALING section that 8150 IS BOTTLENECKING RIGHT?

WHY THE HELL DONT HE OC THAT ONE????

IM GONNA TELL YOU WHY
because it will get up and walk away everything there

you do notice hes comparing an intel 3930K SIX CORE CPU $550 at newegg right now
you do understand that he then OVERCLOCKS THAT CPU???

omg come on man

if you cant see that is so unbalanced i dont know what to tell ya
Click to expand...

If you want me, or any other reasonable person on this forum to agree with you, you're barking up the wrong tree. Hell, go ask Kyle, and tell us what he says about it.

I've already addressed two things pertinent just to the post I am quoting:

1. It's the writer and editor of a site who determines how to test things, so take it up with them. No one here cares what Guru3D does, and they still created a very valid article.

2. Overclocking the 8150 wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. It's too slow out of the gate, and can't be overclocked high enough to match most stock Intel CPUs, let alone catch up to them after overclocking. Again, Bulldozer sucks for gaming, for which it was not designed. Bulldozer was designed for servers bro.
 
there is another link at guru3d showing that is not the case
http://www.guru3d.com/article/battlefield-3-vga-and-cpu-performance-benchmark-test/3

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cpu-scaling-performance-review/9

all these reviews show the 8150 or even 1100T with no OC

their default clocks are right on the limit of bottlenecking any really top end single gpu card

when you just start to OC these six core and eight core amd chips just a bit they are no longer the bottleneck and the gpu gets to shine meaning BF3 FPS gOES WAY UP
 
IdiotInCharge said:
If you want me, or any other reasonable person on this forum to agree with you, you're barking up the wrong tree. Hell, go ask Kyle, and tell us what he says about it.

I've already addressed two things pertinent just to the post I am quoting:

1. It's the writer and editor of a site who determines how to test things, so take it up with them. No one here cares what Guru3D does, and they still created a very valid article.

2. Overclocking the 8150 wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. It's too slow out of the gate, and can't be overclocked high enough to match most stock Intel CPUs, let alone catch up to them after overclocking. Again, Bulldozer sucks for gaming, for which it was not designed. Bulldozer was designed for servers bro.
Click to expand...

yea its so slow that he chose not to even try to OC

instead he OC's the one that has no bottleneck!!
omfg
you can see that right?

and a $200 cpu against a $550 cpu that is OC on top of that?

you are not blind right?
 
So yes, the AMD CPUs are limiting BF3 at stock speeds, and yes, overclocking them helps alleviate that bottleneck. So what, they're still slow, even maxed out on good water-cooling.

The Thuban X6 cores are markedly very similar to the original Athlons, and four of Bulldozer's modules are slower than six of Thuban's cores.

And no, for ****'s sake, Bulldozer/the 8150 don't have eight independent cores. They have eight integer cores, divided amongst four modules, and each of these modules has one floating-point core. This is great for many things not related to gaming; it's essentially a full hardware implementation of Hyper-threading. And Hyper-threading does not help games, as well it shouldn't.
 
i dont care how many cores it has
i dont care how slow you say it is

if its so slow in BF3 then why is he have it in the group with the $550 CPU from intel that is SIX CORES AND OVERCLOCKED

so enough about how hot it gets and how slow it is and how old it is
if all that mattered at ALL then certainly we would see:
2500K
2600K
2700K
3570K
3770K

instead we see a 965 @ 3.65 and a 3960K at 4.7?

again i say
WAKE UP!
 
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So your complaint boils down to - he didn't test every possible CPU? They do have a limited amount of time to do these tests, you know. They included an AMD in the test to show performance comparable to the Intel chips - would you rather they had tested an X6 or something?

No mater how they tested it, I still don't see why you think overclocking the Bulldozer is going to make up the 50% deficit it has compared to both the older 4 core and new 6 core Intel processors.
 
tdbone1 said:
we are talking about BF3

in BF3 BD @ 4.2GHZ (1100T or even 8150) WALKS ALL OVER ANY QUAD CORE INTEL YOU GOT
with single GPU
Click to expand...

So an 8150 at stock bottlenecks a 690 (or 680), but if you OC one to 4.2GHz (massive power consumption and heat produced when you do) it no longer bottlenecks a single card, great.

But you actually think an oc'd 8150 will beat a 4.5-5GHz Sandy/Ivy in BF3 multi-player? Link/benchmarks to support claims please. Complaining about the Guru3D test method does not prove your point.

From my experience, a single 670 is not CPU limited by a 3770K in BF3 64 player MP. I've run the game at stock (3.5GHz with 3.7GHz turbo) and OC'd at 4.5GHz, there is no perceivable difference at 1200p/max graphics settings, so the game is GPU limited. Do you own an 8150 or something?
 
Stayfr0sty said:
Its a no brainer, any high end AMD cpu should handle this game fine. Even PII X6s.
Alpha benchmarks which werent fully optmized yet even showed the 1100T only trailing a 2500k by 15 fps. And they both scored over 150 fps.
No need for an intel, AMD will do fine, whats important is video card the most.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-3-alpha-test-gpu.html
Click to expand...
well thats on low settings and many settings impact the cpu. but also that is alpha testing like you mentioned and all cpu performance has improved.
 
Stayfr0sty said:
Its a no brainer, any high end AMD cpu should handle this game fine. Even PII X6s.
Alpha benchmarks which werent fully optmized yet even showed the 1100T only trailing a 2500k by 15 fps. And they both scored over 150 fps.
No need for an intel, AMD will do fine, whats important is video card the most.

http://gamegpu.ru/action-/-fps-/-tps/battlefield-3-alpha-test-gpu.html
Click to expand...

Not only is it alpha, it's single-player. I could give a rats about that, any CPU should be fine there. It's like the difference between Warcraft III and WoW; same basic engine and graphics (upon WoW's release) but WoW had significantly higher CPU usage. BF3 MP also has both higher CPU usage and higher GPU usage than SP, which means that you need a faster CPU and GPU than the single-player benchmarks would lead you to believe. I detest sites using only the SP portion of the game in reviews, it's silly.

And again, both the 1100T and the FX-8150 are slower for gaming at the same speeds as an i5-2500k+, run hotter and suck more power at base clockspeeds, don't overclock as high, and then run much hotter and suck much more power when overclocked. They're slower no matter how you look at them, and with $200 unlocked Intel quad-cores, they don't have a place in gaming outside of IGPs. They do make great IGPs though.

Guys, I like AMD. I'm glad we have competition, and I like the Bulldozer design, on paper, and I still think it has real promise. But how we feel about AMD or their products does not change their performance. They have a lot of work to do.
 
cannondale06 said:
well thats on low settings and many settings impact the cpu. but also that is alpha testing like you mentioned and all cpu performance has improved.
Click to expand...

Umm in case you didnt know CPUs are too be benchmarked at lowest settings and rez to eliminate video card as a factor.....
 
Stayfr0sty said:
Umm in case you didnt know CPUs are too be benchmarked at lowest settings and rez to eliminate video card as a factor.....
Click to expand...
umm in case you did not know that is silly for modern games because AGAIN, many settings impact the cpu NOT just the gpu. how you test cpus is to run the game at highest settings except for AA but use a low resolution. using low settings would give you no indication of how your cpu could actually handle the game. heck a 2.0 core 2 duo can handle handle most games on low settings but would crap itself on high settings for modern games.
 
cannondale06 said:
umm in case you did not know that is silly for modern games because AGAIN, many settings impact the cpu NOT just the gpu. how you test cpus is to run the game at highest settings except for AA but use a low resolution. using low settings would give you no indication of how your cpu could actually handle the game. heck a 2.0 core 2 duo can handle handle most games on low settings but would crap itself on high settings for modern games.
Click to expand...

Which is why dual cores cant even break 60 fps in the alpha benchmark....
Your sounding like a n00b, everyone knows that CPUs are benched a minimum and those russians certainly know what they are doing, hence they benchmark video on higher settings and CPU on low.
Turning settings up like you say only stresses video card.
 
Stayfr0sty said:
Which is why dual cores cant even break 60 fps in the alpha benchmark....
Your sounding like a n00b, everyone knows that CPUs are benched a minimum and those russians certainly know what they are doing, hence they benchmark video on higher settings and CPU on low.
Turning settings up like you say only stresses video card.
Click to expand...
no they sometimes test with highest settings on that very site too. and you are the freaking noob here if you still cant get through your head that many settings impact the cpu too not just the gpu. its asinine to test on lowest settings as that does NOT give you an idea of your cpu can handle the actual game. AGAIN, you run low res but highest settings(except for things like AA ) to get an accurate picture of how cpus will handle a game. :rolleyes:
 
Both of you- you set up your test to isolate what you're testing. They'll teach you about that in school. There's no point in debating the results of other sites, especially when you can use results from this site. I understand independent testing, but hell, start here!

Also, cannondale is right about testing the CPU with high graphics settings at lower resolutions and without AA. That's exactly how you should do a CPU test. Now how does this relate to CPU performance in BF3? It only really matters at resolutions the game will be played at, which makes a CPU-bound test a pretty silly discussion point. And it's still single-player, which really isn't bound by anything on a modern system!
 
tdbone1 said:
where is it reported that BF3 uses more then 4 cores EXACTLY?

i have had 1090T with 6870 crossfire setup and I KNOW it uses six cores for sure but everyone i talk to (espicially INTEL people) always say FOUR CORES ONLY

if we alt-tab to see cpu usage that is the task schedular

they say this is proved by comparing I7 3930K (six core) with HT DISABLED to I7 3770K (four core) with HT DISABLED and both cpu`s at same freq

if no frame rate increase with 3930K than BF3 uses 4 threads only right?
Click to expand...

Battlefield uses 4 principal threads with a few minor threads. Here is the proof:

SINGLE-PLAYER ANALYSIS:

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7986&pageid=8150

The scaling from 2 to 4 cores is almost %70 in the single player tests (pretty impressive). There's SOME scaling above 4 cores from lower-priority threads, but it's relatively small. For everyone except SLI/CFX users (those require more CPU overhead) there's no point in more than 4 cores for single player.

MULTI-PLAYER ANALYSIS:

The FX-8150 AND the x6 gets outperformed by the i5 2500K on 64-player maps/CFX when you crank the graphics to medium (not GPU-limited). The FX-8150 has twice as many cores (and the x6 has %50 more), but Battlefield 3 can't make use of them.

Something to note from this multi-player test: scaling on the Phenom II from 2 and 4 cores is %100! You do see some improvement with 6 cores versus 4, but again nowhere near the %50 performance increase you'd expect if the game had 8 principal threads. And this is a very special case: a maxed-out 64-player game running CFX. For most players running single GPUs, a 2500k will be plenty.
 
Last edited:
cannondale06 said:
no they sometimes test with highest settings on that very site too. and you are the freaking noob here if you still cant get through your head that many settings impact the cpu too not just the gpu. its asinine to test on lowest settings as that does NOT give you an idea of your cpu can handle the actual game. AGAIN, you run low res but highest settings(except for things like AA ) to get an accurate picture of how cpus will handle a game. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Ok now your just trolling, only recently do idiots at review sites bench at high settings.
Any old school reviewer and someone that actually knows what they are doing benches at min details and rez. You argument is invalid, good bye.
 
Stayfr0sty said:
Ok now your just trolling, only recently do idiots at review sites bench at high settings.
Any old school reviewer and someone that actually knows what they are doing benches at min details and rez. You argument is invalid, good bye.
Click to expand...
how the fuck is that trolling? its not my fault that you cant comprehend that many settings in modern games impact the cpu too. shadows, level of detail, draw distance and some other settings have an impact on the cpu too. lol, how ironic that you have the nerve to call other people trolls, idiots and noobs. :rolleyes:
 
defaultluser said:
Battlefield uses 4 principal threads with a few minor threads. Here is the proof:

SINGLE-PLAYER ANALYSIS:

http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=7986&pageid=8150

The scaling from 2 to 4 cores is almost %70 in the single player tests (pretty impressive). There's SOME scaling above 4 cores from lower-priority threads, but it's relatively small. For everyone except SLI/CFX users (those require more CPU overhead) there's no point in more than 4 cores for single player.

MULTI-PLAYER ANALYSIS:

The FX-8150 AND the x6 gets outperformed by the i5 2500K on 64-player maps/CFX when you crank the graphics to medium (not GPU-limited). The FX-8150 has twice as many cores (and the x6 has %50 more), but Battlefield 3 can't make use of them.

Something to note from this multi-player test: scaling on the Phenom II from 2 and 4 cores is %100! You do see some improvement with 6 cores versus 4, but again nowhere near the %50 performance increase you'd expect if the game had 8 principal threads. And this is a very special case: a maxed-out 64-player game running CFX. For most players running single GPUs, a 2500k will be plenty.
Click to expand...

why is the 2600k 26fps faster in LowFps than 2500k with 0xaa but are neck to neck with 4xaa in that test you linked.
 
cannondale06 said:
how the fuck is that trolling? its not my fault that you cant comprehend that many settings in modern games impact the cpu too. shadows, level of detail, draw distance and some other settings have an impact on the cpu too. lol, how ironic that you have the nerve to call other people trolls, idiots and noobs. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It doesnt matter if those settings affect CPU too. The golden rule for benching CPU is min details and rez period. And if you dont know that your a n00b :)
Btw I been around since the 90s with PC hardware. So no im not a n00b. And im an old school vet at another well known tech forum for 10 years. So shush before you get ignored.
 
TroyX said:
why is the 2600k 26fps faster in LowFps than 2500k with 0xaa but are neck to neck with 4xaa in that test you linked.
Click to expand...

Combination of BF3 sucking down all 4 cores plus the overhead of CFX. There is also some limited scaling of the BF3 engine beyond four cores, as I made clear in my post. The combination of these two with Hyperthreading produce the framerate difference.

More than four cores can be faster in multiplayer, but you need a taxing situation like the one I linked to justify it. In any case, with a minimum framerate of about 60fps, you probably wouldn't notice the improvement between the 2500k and the 2600k.
 
Last edited:
Stayfr0sty said:
It doesnt matter if those settings affect CPU too. The golden rule for benching CPU is min details and rez period. And if you dont know that your a n00b :)
Btw I been around since the 90s with PC hardware. So no im not a n00b. And im an old school vet at another well known tech forum for 10 years. So shush before you get ignored.
Click to expand...
so you are just a stubborn old fart? :p

you need to get through your head that comparing cpus needs to be done on high settings and low res. for example there are places in GTA 4 that are 100% cpu limited on highest settings even with my 2500k at 4.4. if I were silly enough to only look at cpu comparisons on low settings then I would think I could stay at 60 fps the whole time. low settings gives NO indication of how well your cpu can actually handle games.
 
cannondale06 said:
so you are just a stubborn old fart? :p

you need to get through your head that comparing cpus needs to be done on high settings and low res. for example there are places in GTA 4 that are 100% cpu limited on highest settings even with my 2500k at 4.4. if I were silly enough to only look at cpu comparisons on low settings then I would think I could stay at 60 fps the whole time. low settings gives NO indication of how well your cpu can actually handle games.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If you're just trying to compare CPUs you can use minimum settings, but that's more for an architectural analysis than to determine how well each CPU handles a particular game.

There's a reason to do both, but using higher settings is more applicable to this thread.

Also, please, PLEASE, quote someone from DICE when you claim that the game uses more than four threads, and how it uses them. I appreciate an analysis of the running game but without developer input you/we could still be way off base.
 
I went from a 955be at 4.3 to an i7 2600k at 4.5. The minimum fps in bf3 went up quite a bit.
 
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