How much better single-threaded performance do current CPUs have?

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wyqtor

Limp Gawd
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My main reason for upgrading my CPU (i7-4770K @ 4.4 GHz) would be to get better single-threaded performance in indie simulation games that usually run on mostly one thread (Cities Skylines, Oxygen Not Included, Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, Prison Architect, Rimworld, etc. - stuff like that) and can suffer from low FPS in the late game?

How much better is the performance of current CPUs (like the i9-9900K or i5-9600K) in this use case? Is an upgrade worth it at this point, or should I rather save my money for Ice Lake or the equivalent from AMD?
 
AMD single thread performance hasn’t matched Intel yet. However that might change when Ryzen comes out with 5GHz this July. If I were you I’d hold out until next gen. Your CPU is still very formidable.
 
IPC has been +5-10% per generation, app dependent. But combined with higher base/ boost clocks and more cores, there's a lot to be gained depending on usage of course.
 
to answer your question, you'll definitely see a performance increase in single threaded applications going from a 4770k to a 9600/9700/9900k just due to the higher boost clocks and IPC improvements over the 4770k. if you don't need all the extra threads there's obviously money you can save there by going with the non HT processors. but like others have said we're only a few months away from Ryzen zen 2 processors that if you can hold out til those announce/launch it may be worth it either in performance or because intel drops the prices on their current gen stuff.
 
Skylake is 5-10% faster per-clock than Haswell, 20% if your game is bandwidth-limited on DDR3.

The 9600k will, hit 4.6 at stock, and most can be overclocked to 4.9-5.0, so that bumps you up to 30% best-case, or 20% worst-case.

You're going top have to wait until intel 10nm, if faster single-thread performance is what you desire. Sunny Cove should be available by the end of this year, or early 2020.

People are mostly expecting Zen 2.0 to match Skylake IPC, but not exceed it, while likely not hitting the same high clocks as Intel. Maybe jump 200 mhz over the 2700x.
 
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fullvietFX said:
AMD single thread performance hasn’t matched Intel yet. However that might change when Ryzen comes out with 5GHz this July. If I were you I’d hold out until next gen. Your CPU is still very formidable.
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I have heard this for 10+ years, it is always that next generation where AMD will match Intel on C2C performance
 
I went from a 4790k to an 8700k. No overclocking on either. Hasn’t been terribly noticeable.
 
I don't really notice my 4770k (stock) to i5-8400...I'd wait until at least Zen2 if I were you.
 
My two recent upgrades were 3700->8700k, and i7 860 -> Ryzen2700x.
They are both noticeable upgrades for all tasks. The IPC hasn't changed overwhelmingly, but it did go up and the clock rate is MUCH higher, so it does really help.

That said, unless something really sucks for you now, I'd echo the advice to see what Zen2 does.
 
I will echo what is said I went from a Xeon 1231v3 (basically a 4790 so <4GHz) to a r7 1700 in my workstation. Basically equal or even a tad bit slower single thread but i did go from 4c8t to 8c16t so other stuff that is multi threaded is much better. Also remember to jump platform from 1150 to anything newer, requires a DDR4 investment, but prices are falling as of recently.
 
MyNameIsAlex said:
I have heard this for 10+ years, it is always that next generation where AMD will match Intel on C2C performance
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I'm going to bet that Zen 2 still won't match Intel's latest CPU's on a clock for clock basis. They probably won't clock significantly better than they do now. I'm expecting most of Zen 2's increases in performance to be due to a clock speed improvement, but I'm thinking it will only be a couple of hundred megahertz at best. We'll see though. AMD's CPU's almost never live up to any of the rumors or pre-release hype.
 
lol, amd always matches the speed of intel chips 2 years before it. Only with built in overclocking and heat issues do they get close to the performance.
 
That was true in the early to mid 2000s but it has been quite a long time since then. With that said the per core performance getting much closer since Zen was released. Zen 2 may do it only to have Sunny Cove retake the per core performance lead in 6 months. It very much depends on the frequency TSMC can clock its 7nm parts. I don't think the hw Spectre will hurt AMD. Might even help a little if they can convince OSs to not apply software mitigations for Zen2.
 
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