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Intel Core 2 Gaming Performance

StealthyFish said:
what? I think that would be called a graphics card benchmark on three different processors from two companies.
Click to expand...

If that works for you, the go with it.
 
First let me start this by saying that I have been a [H]ardOCP reader ever since the days when 3dfx was still in business. Every single time a new piece of PC hardware has came out, I've always trusted you guys for a solid review. For the first time in about 10 years, you've disappointed me.

Not once in this review did you test the Conroe in a CPU limited situation. Not once. Most people already knew that the Core2 Duo wouldn't make a difference at high resolutions becasue most games are GPU limited in those situations. Why did you write a review focusing on something that most people already knew?

Honestly, it seems that this review was written to prove a point of some sort. There's nothing wrong with that, but I walked away from the review asking myself several questions:

1) How will the Core2 Duo preform in tomorrows games?
2) What is the overall potential of the Core2 Duo in gaming?
3) What difference will the Core2 make in games that are CPU limited?

In the one game that was *somewhat* CPU limited (Oblivion) there was a noticable difference, so why didn't you explore this further, and test in more game situations that were CPU limited?
 
Snip - enough - stay on topic an stop the personal childish crap. Kyle


Quite disappointed I am Kyle :(. if editing my posts to silence me because you can't reply to me is your only way of doing things...I’m quite disappointed.
 
jon_k said:
First let me start this by saying that I have been a [H]ardOCP reader ever since the days when 3dfx was still in business. Every single time a new piece of PC hardware has came out, I've always trusted you guys for a solid review. For the first time in about 10 years, you've disappointed me.

Not once in this review did you test the Conroe in a CPU limited situation. Not once. Most people already knew that the Core2 Duo wouldn't make a difference at high resolutions becasue most games are GPU limited in those situations. Why did you write a review focusing on something that most people already knew?

Honestly, it seems that this review was written to prove a point of some sort. There's nothing wrong with that, but I walked away from the review asking myself several questions:

1) How will the Core2 Duo preform in tomorrows games?
2) What is the overall potential of the Core2 Duo in gaming?
3) What difference will the Core2 make in games that are CPU limited?

In the one game that was *somewhat* CPU limited (Oblivion) there was a noticable difference, so why didn't you explore this further, and test in more game situations that were CPU limited?
Click to expand...

1. When I get some of tomorrow's games, I will tell you. We have never been big on trying to predict the future with so much specialized code out there.

2. I think this is really the same question. As we showed, Conroe produced an incredibly awesome gaming experience with all of today's most popular games.

3. If you will give me a list of games that you find the overall gameplay experience is limited by the CPU we will test them.

Well, it is not our job to take a neglibible difference and exploit it into a issue when there is none. Yes, there was a difference, no, it was not big. I am over making a mountain out of a molehill and being one of those sites that declares a King of Gaming because a product gave a 3 fps better rate at ANY resolution.
 
StealthyFish said:
For someone who has written reviews for 9 years, I would have expected a more indepth review of the processors. Instead of running at 1600x1200 resolutions and running on an extraordinarily small list of games, you could have ran it at multiple resolutions and ran on a varying list of games.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughts, I am sure there are plenty of other sites out there that will fit your needs. Sorry it did not work out for you here.
 
Snip - Please stay on topic and do not troll here please. Kyle

my statement was quite valid to the topic. You did state that in any resolution, we will only see a 3 fps difference between an FX-62 and an X6800 if both had the same RAM and graphics card.
 
as seen in the multi gpu tests at other places, your realworld gaming is going to be noticable better with conroe. andan tested xfire and shows quite a performance leap. it will be very interesting when [H] does the same thing, perhaps it will settle the natives
for single gpu users its a tie with the performance per $ win going to intel for now
for multi gpu users there is no contest, i dont think amd can drop prices enough to even come close, look at the cheaper conroes here.

this is where we can see a difference, using 2 video cards at realworld settings.



12590.png
 
cupholder2.0 said:
Go back a page or 2 and read my post....I think its you who isnt catching on...not us.
Click to expand...

I've read the entire thread. I certianly understand your arguement... I just think its retarded. I don't give a shit how much faster Core2 is at 800x600. I'm not going to be playing my games at a low resolution. When new technology comes out, and more advanced games come out, I think Core2 needs a serious reevaulation. Right now, in high-res gaming, Core2 has no advantage over an A64. [H] showed that instead of showing the ass kicking Core2 devilers at low res.

I don't know about you, but [H] had what I wanted to see. If I went through the effort, and spent the money to go from a 3Ghz Opty 165 to a Core2, I would see no benefit. Therefor, I am not going to do it. A few months from now, I believe Core2 will probably be significantly better for high res gaming. Guess what... I'll get it then, when its available everywhere, and the prices have settled. Right now, there's just no point.
 
Here's a breakdown of the GAMING part of the articles quoted to show the flaws no one wants to look at.
Taken from the BeHardware Review :
http://www.behardware.com/articles/623-15/intel-core-2-duo-test.html
Excuse me ahem, what are the settings? I've been through the article twice now. 800*600? 1600*1200 max everything? Where can I see the difference if I buy Conroe. BTW this is the only page pretaining to the [H] CONROE GAMING review.
OverClokers show:
http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=489587&P=5
Conroe definately on top. Anyone gaming at 1024 * 768 here with a 500$ CPU- raise your hand NOW!
Neoseeker - now running timedemos and 1024*768 at low settings http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/core2duo_e6700/15.html .Need I say more?
Xbitlabs http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6300_11.html
now at 1024*768 medium to low settings on 500$ CPU's.
Ok folks, what have we learned? At medium to low settings you can get up to 50% FPS increase in most games using Conroe.
I would ask anyone here who has a 500$ CPU and games at medium settings to please say so and make a complete ass of themselves.
 
dajet24 said:
I agree the videcard is not a biottleneck maybe you could run the gaming test again with a gx2 and see if there is a big difference?

to cover that base
Click to expand...


A list of low res numbers are already posted in this thread. Search for "HL2" in this thread and you will find them.
 
altcon said:
Here's a breakdown of the GAMING part of the articles quoted to show the flaws no one wants to look at.
Taken from the BeHardware Review :
http://www.behardware.com/articles/623-15/intel-core-2-duo-test.html
Excuse me ahem, what are the settings? I've been through the article twice now. 800*600? 1600*1200 max everything? Where can I see the difference if I buy Conroe. BTW this is the only page pretaining to the [H] CONROE GAMING review.
Xbitlabs http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6300_11.html
now at 1024*768 medium to low settings on 500$ CPU's.
Ok folks, what have we learned? At medium to low settings you can get up to 50% FPS increase in most games using Conroe.
I would ask anyone here who has a 500$ CPU and games at medium settings to please say so and make a complete ass of themselves.
Click to expand...

I hope you realize that an E6300 and the E6600 are under 500 dollars. In fact, they're about 320 USD and below.
 
StealthyFish said:
I hope you realize that an E6300 and the E6600 are under 500 dollars. In fact, they're about 320 USD and below.
Click to expand...

That doesn't change the point of his arguement. No one is going to be gaming at the settings that they are benchmarking at.
 
jon_k said:
Well, that CellFactor demo in software-physics mode for one. A few RTS games (most RTS games become CPU limited with 100s of characters on screen) would have been nice too.

I also would have liked to see how the Conroe would handle a heavy physics load in more games. IE start up Oblivion, launch a fireball into 100 objects and see how the CPU takes it.

I completely get what you were trying to show with the article. I just think that there are a lot of situations (mainly physics related) that you could have explored, but didn't.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your thoughts, we will keep it in mind next time.
 
Viper87227 said:
That doesn't change the point of his arguement. No one is going to be gaming at the settings that they are benchmarking at.
Click to expand...

so why write this if we pretty much all already knew what was going to happen? This really should go into the video card section since it is clearly a fact that the graphics card determined the majority of frames and not the CPU.
 
Riptide_NVN said:
Yeah a million other sites test in low resolutions and people want to just crucify you for daring to be a little different. Man that's gotta be rough.
Click to expand...

Rome was not built in a day. ;) We will continue to inovate and change the way we do things to better reflect the gamer's true experience. What you guys might find really amusing is that the guys in the benchmark labs at Intel fully back us on our philosophy. When we get SLI next with with NVIDIA lauch of the their 500 series for Intel, we will be seeing some of this again. :)
 
StealthyFish said:
so why write this if we pretty much all already knew what was going to happen? This really should go into the video card section since it is clearly a fact that the graphics card determined the majority of frames and not the CPU.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I browsed in tonight expecting a nice CPU review, and instead got a video card test gaming wise.

While I understand the reasoning I guess, I dont think it accurately portrays the situation. I wouldnt buy a ferrari enzo and race it against a evo and limit my testing to a quarter mile.
 
Wow, this reminds me of when [H]ardOCP changed their video card review style for the first time. They offer something different that no other site had thought of and everyone got angry.

I admire the way Kyle sticks to his beliefs and understand why they published the review the way they did. It may not be the complete picture of CPU performance, but it's been shown for a long time now that games are GPU-limited. Why people would expect this to change with Conroe is beyond me.

I still plan to get a Conroe in a few months when I upgrade my desktop, mainly for the overall performance and price but not because I expect to gain 50fps while running Oblivion at 1920x1200.
 
As I've already said and had to fight over in other forums, I love your "newfound" testing philosophy.
I have yet to try and replicate your tests and come out with different results!!
So I am happy to use many of your reviews as referance for my customers.
 
StealthyFish said:
so why write this if we pretty much all already knew what was going to happen? This really should go into the video card section since it is clearly a fact that the graphics card determined the majority of frames and not the CPU.
Click to expand...

Because we didn't know that. There were dupped benches floating around showing huge gains at high resolutions. Sure, alot of people knew that that woudn't be the case, but you can bet your ass pleanty of people had a sliver of hope that conroe was so damn amazing that it was capable of what these scores were showing. So, from this angle, [H] was more out to prove that all the early benches were infact, wrong.

Also, you ask what is the point of this article when it tells us what we already know? Well, then I ask you, what is the point of all the articles showing the performance at settings no one is going to be using?

Methinks Conroe is simply ahead of its time. As I said before, in the next gen of video cards, we may see much better results from conroe. Right now, however, were not, so I see no reason to be an early adopter.

Don't get me wrong, if someone were building a new gaming PC, Conroe all the way. However, all of us AMD guys can stop freaking out about how much Core2 stomps at A64. Right now, its not an issue, so right now, there is no reason for us AMD guys to sell off all our shit to try and move to Core2.
 
Kyle , with all due respect I hope you aren't claiming that your tests are not GPU limited.

You bash other benchmarks ( I suppose you refer to IDF ) but those had a Crossfire X1900XTX setup.

From the outside it looks like you wanted so much to stand out from others reviewers that in the process you forgot the most valuable trait of a reviewer : being objective.

When called on it ( IDF if you remeber , the BIOS and FX 60 ) , Anand redone his benchmarks to eliminate any doubt.

My suggestion is this : either put a E6600 there ( use the X6800 and use a 9x multi ) or use a Crossfire setup.

I'm willing to bet that the E6600 will get the same scores as the E6700 and X6800.
 
Schmiggy_JK23 said:
Agreed. I browsed in tonight expecting a nice CPU review, and instead got a video card test gaming wise.

While I understand the reasoning I guess, I dont think it accurately portrays the situation. I wouldnt buy a ferrari enzo and race it against a evo and limit my testing to a quarter mile.
Click to expand...


Yes, that is why we used the same exact video card in each comparison. This way we could isolate the gaming experience as it pertained to the power of the CPU. And bingo, now you know it does not really matter which CPU you get when it comes to gaming today on the Conroe or Athlon. Other things do greatly matter though.
 
savantu said:
Kyle , with all due respect I hope you aren't claiming that your tests are not GPU limited.

You bash other benchmarks ( I suppose you refer to IDF ) but those had a Crossfire X1900XTX setup.

From the outside it looks like you wanted so much to stand out from others reviewers that in the process you forgot the most valuable trait of a reviewer : being objective.

When called on it ( IDF if you remeber , the BIOS and FX 60 ) , Anand redone his benchmarks to eliminate any doubt.

My suggestion is this : either put a E6600 there ( use the X6800 and use a 9x multi ) or use a Crossfire setup.

I'm willing to bet that the E6600 will get the same scores as the E6700 and X6800.
Click to expand...

I would suggest you actually read what we wrote before posting anymore. It is obvious that you have not spent much time with the content. Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Viper87227 said:
There were dupped benches floating around showing huge gains at high resolutions. ..
Click to expand...

Those were with X1900XTX in Crossfire mode.This test only shows that a 7900GTX is the limit with virtually no difference between the 2.66 and 2.93GHz Conroe.Heck , I bet a 2.4GHz Conroe will have the same scores.

I'm surprised you forget to mention the multimedia tests which show the 2.66 Conroe having the edge on FX62 by 15-25% and the XE with 20-35% which are perfectly inline with benchmarks dating back to the IDF in march.

But then again , this isn't what you want to see , so it is simply better to ignore them.
 
Hmmm, all other sites show increased performance in almost all areas from Duo 2 and yet [H] shows an almost exact same FPS result in resolutions also done by other websites and then proclaim [H] is doing it right and then points fingers at EVERY other site saying their reviews and interpretaions of Intels new CPU biased and wrong? Wow, tooting your own horn are you Kyle?

I smell a serious amount of bullshit and pride from [H]. Scuze me while I go toss some salt bags over my shoulder for this review of Duo 2 :rolleyes:
 
Coldtronius said:
Wow, tooting your own horn are you Kyle?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. I learned a couple of years ago that those with the 3dfx mentality would do all they could to keep their simple test systems in place. Running a bunch of canned benchmarks can be done in a day, but playtesting real games takes a lot of time. And that costs a lot of money to do and many sites do not want to make the investment.

If you are satisfied with the status quo, more power to you. Sorry you do not find value in our content.
 
i was pretty disapointed in this review... I think the people testing this stuff have forgotten that their 100% of their readers cannot afford all these high end parts. Shoddy. I found this one interesting
 
Actually I think Kyle's got a kind of vaild point.

Weird, eh? ;)

Yeah the Conroe is the hottest/fastest/best CPU without question, but do you need it yet enough to justify a full system build?

If you're building a new system I think it'll be a no-brainer to go Conroe if they're available in quantity soon and at the prices we've been hearing, but I'm going to be looking at the AMD price cuts and hoping the 3800x2 falls to $170 damned quick so I can get one.

I can afford a $170 upgrade 'specially since I have another 939 mobo lacking for a CPU so I can use it and my old CPU along with a bit of new memory to upgrade my wife's machine...but there is no way I could build a new system right now and that's basically what I would need to do to get a Conroe set-up.

Besides, with an X1800GTO or a 7600GT XXX gaming at 1280x1024 for me will be plenty fine and a 3800x2 should be a nice upgrade from my current 3000+ Venice...so for me AMD will still make sense.

I have a feeling it'll be like that for more than a few others out there, and I think THAT is sort of the whole point Kyle's gaming section was trying to make.
 
i'm just curious kyle, but what percent do you think the margin of error is?

Also, how many times do all of these cpus fall within it?
 
digitalwanderer said:
Actually I think Kyle's got a kind of vaild point.

Weird, eh? ;)

Yeah the Conroe is the hottest/fastest/best CPU without question, but do you need it yet enough to justify a full system build?

If you're building a new system I think it'll be a no-brainer to go Conroe if they're available in quantity soon and at the prices we've been hearing, but I'm going to be looking at the AMD price cuts and hoping the 3800x2 falls to $170 damned quick so I can get one.

I can afford a $170 upgrade 'specially since I have another 939 mobo lacking for a CPU so I can use it and my old CPU along with a bit of new memory to upgrade my wife's machine...but there is no way I could build a new system right now and that's basically what I would need to do to get a Conroe set-up.

Besides, with an X1800GTO or a 7600GT XXX gaming at 1280x1024 for me will be plenty fine and a 3800x2 should be a nice upgrade from my current 3000+ Venice...so for me AMD will still make sense.

I have a feeling it'll be like that for more than a few others out there, and I think THAT is sort of the whole point Kyle's gaming section was trying to make.
Click to expand...

We don't often agree, but here is the quote to back up what you are saying.

When it comes to playing games, the only persons that need to be even a little concerned with upgrading their CPU to a Core 2 processor might be those with high-end SLI, CrossFire, or GeForce GX2 video cards and we have yet to prove that due to the testing limitations we ran into. Then, and only then, you might see an Intel Core 2 processor deliver a performance advantage.
Click to expand...


Lastly, I would advise everyone that is thinking of rushing out and purchasing their latest upgrade that we are sure to see HUGE pricing slashes out of AMD before the end of the month.
Click to expand...
 
I honestly dont get why you guys are so upset. First off, the 7950 didnt work becuase of compatibility problems with the motherboard. As was the crossfire setup, like kyle stated it was too much of a fight to actually come up with some numbers. Now let's face it, a damn 7900gtx isnt a SLOW video card in any respect, and niether is it a CHEAP one. Crossfire x1900xtx's? You've got to be kidding me. Regardless, they used what they had on hand (and probably more than what the average gamer has.) So quit your whining unless you really do play quake 4 at 800x600 (gogo fps whore strafe jumpers.) And honestly I cant wait until motherboard manufacturers get some of these problems ironed out so I can continue to hate the people REALLY responsible for all this bullshits, namely ATI and Nvidia.
 
b0bd0le said:
i'm just curious kyle, but what percent do you think the margin of error is?

Also, how many times do all of these cpus fall within it?
Click to expand...

I would suggest that Brent has gotten the technique down to a couple of percent or lower. This is another place where it gets very expensive to do this testing because it is time consuming to get comparable results. There are so many variables in real gameplay you have to keep a very keen eye for things throwing off your numbers.
 
b0bd0le said:
oh i have another question too

why wasn't the i975x used?
Click to expand...

This has been addressed more than few times already.
 
From reading this topic, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of members were expecting too much of the Conroe in games. With the [H]ard review, they were left upset because Conroe was dubbed being the next best thing in computer performance since slice bread. Of course, Kyle did real gameplay benchmarks and found the Conroe platform isn't as wonderful as some hoped (or seemed due to synthetic benchmarks). It seems that some are upset @ [H] because Hard proved them wrong. Oh well I thought it was a great review. Nice job keeping people informed about real word performance :)
 
Testing the CPU out in games we actually play (and at settings we'd actually use) is great in my opinion.

I really don't care how much faster I can:

- Play an old game that I don't even have
- Play a game at low settings that I would never use in any real situation
- Watch a benchmark

I appreciate the way the review was done and now I am no longer on the fence as to whether I need to pick up a Conroe right away.

Also, I don't really understand the confusion about the chipset. Intel made it clear that 965X was the chipset made from the ground up for Conroe.
 
Mr. Miyagi said:
From reading this topic, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of members were expecting too much of the Conroe in games. With the [H]ard review, they were left upset because Conroe was dubbed being the next best thing in computer performance since slice bread. Of course, Kyle did real gameplay benchmarks and found the Conroe platform isn't as wonderful as some hoped (or seemed due to synthetic benchmarks). It seems that some are upset @ [H] because Hard proved them wrong. Oh well I thought it was a great review. Nice job keeping people informed about real word performance :)
Click to expand...

I don't think it's that at all. I think it's more the fact that everyone knows that Conroe can, and does, outperform the FX-62 but that HardOCP didn't show that because all the benches were GPU limited. That's why everyone feels that SLI or CrossFire should've been used. We all know what Conroe is capable of (see AT's review, as well as [H]'s encoding review) but it wasn't given the chance to stretch it's legs and get moving. Hopefully, we'll see that in the next couple of weeks.
 
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