AMD vs Intel for input latency

GregI · 5 Mar 2020 at 21:36

Most people seem to be focused on the frame rates between these cpus but not much people seem to be discussing the input latency.

It's been hard to find any actual informaton on this besides tech yes city: https://youtu.be/dsbVSknUK7I?t=221

The thing is this is the 2700x and I am pretty sure the Zen2 improvements might have closed the gap on games such as CS:GO. To be honest I didn't even think there would be such drastic input delay differences just by changing the CPU when framerates were identical.

darket · 5 Mar 2020 at 23:02

Getting in before the raging nerds

Rroff · 5 Mar 2020 at 23:10

One of the reasons I've not hurried to move on from my X79 setup - can be tuned for decent low latency in gaming

Though IIRC when Battlenonsense did similar tests the latency difference on the AMD side was much lower than that - around 4ms on average or something off the top of my head.

darket · 5 Mar 2020 at 23:16

Rroff said:
Though IIRC when Battlenonsense did similar tests the latency difference on the AMD side was much lower than that - around 4ms on average or something off the top of my head.

I may be wrong but wasn't that Nvidia vs Amd drivers and frame limiters etc ?

Rroff · 5 Mar 2020 at 23:18

darket said:
I may be wrong but wasn't that Nvidia vs Amd drivers and frame limiters etc ?

He has done a ton of tests when it comes to latency from system latency to GPU latency and everything related. I wouldn't be able to point back to a specific video or section off the top of my head though was something I watched awhile back.

Grim5 · 6 Mar 2020 at 00:09

darket said:
Getting in before the raging nerds

I'm sure competitive gamers don't actually play games, they just research and test ways to get lower and lower latency

sadbuttrue · 6 Mar 2020 at 08:44

Anandtech do DPC latency tests in their reviews.

The use of HPET (High Precision Event Timer) by default means a DPC latency of around 100 microseconds. However, some motherboards can increase this by almost 200% and that's not AMD/Intel specific.

Back when I was gaming I could swear blind mouse input was faster with HPET disabled - this brings DPC latency down to sub 10 microseconds.

Psycho Sonny · 6 Mar 2020 at 11:09

what's the difference in latency between say a 7600K and a 3600X?

do you know the timings of each?

If it's below 20ms then i would say completely negligible. For most gamers anything below 40ms is acceptable. 20ms for competitive gamers and 10ms for pro's.

I belive S1mple's reaction time is 22ms and he's the best in the world.

Perfect_Chaos · 6 Mar 2020 at 11:39

Well people can notice the difference between a TN and IPS screen in screen response, I'd be willing to bet I'd see a tad motion blur if i moved to an IPS screen since I'm used to TN.

Lowest latency on all hardware is best for obvious reasons, otherwise it all adds up.

alec · 6 Mar 2020 at 13:10

What part of CPU might affect this? Are people confusing by memory latency difference?
The memory latency difference between current Intel (~45ns) and AMD (~70ns) is measured in NANO seconds. Input lag, ping, DPC, screen pixel refresh is measured in MILLI seconds. Thats 6 orders of magnitude.
AFAIK AMD cpus never had a problem with millisecond latencies

Perfect_Chaos · 6 Mar 2020 at 14:04

alec said:
What part of CPU might affect this? Are people confusing by memory latency difference?
The memory latency difference between current Intel (~45ns) and AMD (~70ns) is measured in NANO seconds. Input lag, ping, DPC, screen pixel refresh is measured in MILLI seconds. Thats 6 orders of magnitude.
AFAIK AMD cpus never had a problem with millisecond latencies

It's just a comparison.

Also:

Taken from https://www.techspot.com/news/83347-zen-3-rumored-flaunting-monumental-ipc-gains-early.html

humbug · 6 Mar 2020 at 16:15

As far as input lag goes 10ms is 0.01 Seconds, the blink of an eye or human reaction is 0.30 Seconds.

Intercore latency. 40ns is 0.000004 Seconds.

In terms of experience its all meaningless, if Yes Tech City claims there is a tangible difference at 0.01 Seconds he's talking crap......

sadbuttrue · 6 Mar 2020 at 16:20

1ms is detectable when it comes to hand/eye co-ordination.

There is an excellent demonstration of this from 8 years ago using a touch screen.

Psycho Sonny · 6 Mar 2020 at 16:32

sadbuttrue said:
1ms is detectable when it comes to hand/eye co-ordination.

There is an excellent demonstration of this from 8 years ago using a touch screen.

i just watched that and 10ms was negligible like i said. 1ms was bang on. 50ms noticeable and 100ms horrific.

Psycho Sonny · 6 Mar 2020 at 16:34

Perfect_Chaos said:
It's just a comparison.

Also:

Taken from https://www.techspot.com/news/83347-zen-3-rumored-flaunting-monumental-ipc-gains-early.html

that is in nanoseconds. so no difference what so ever in the real world.

Perfect_Chaos · 6 Mar 2020 at 16:40

Psycho Sonny said:
that is in nanoseconds. so no difference what so ever in the real world.

Well if you check the article, they claim it makes a difference in game frame rates, and is what makes Intel have the lead.

faceman123 · 6 Mar 2020 at 16:40

0 difference

but more patches might see that there intel @5ghz perform like a donkeyy

Psycho Sonny · 6 Mar 2020 at 17:04

Perfect_Chaos said:
Well if you check the article, they claim it makes a difference in game frame rates, and is what makes Intel have the lead.

so it is FPS that makes the real difference?

I get 500 fps in CSGO so no issues there.

I just tweaked apex legends so i hit up to 200fps and minimum of 120 fps so again no issues there either.

If i was struggling to hit say 90 fps then they may have an argument but anyone playing competitively in the FPS world should be aiming to hit 120 fps as a minimum these days. thereafter it makes little difference. some to the pros but not your average player.

So I would say this whole thread is clickbait fake news.

Rroff · 6 Mar 2020 at 17:15

Psycho Sonny said:
so it is FPS that makes the real difference?

I get 500 fps in CSGO so no issues there.

I just tweaked apex legends so i hit up to 200fps and minimum of 120 fps so again no issues there either.

If i was struggling to hit say 90 fps then they may have an argument but anyone playing competitively in the FPS world should be aiming to hit 120 fps as a minimum these days. thereafter it makes little difference. some to the pros but not your average player.

So I would say this whole thread is clickbait fake news.

It is full system latency from clicking a button to having that result in a software action, framerate is a component but not the full story of that. Best case scenario in your average game is ~9ms on any hardware but there is more to it than reaction times - even someone with not great reaction times can often feel the difference in overall gameplay of latency variation, etc.

Perfect_Chaos · 6 Mar 2020 at 17:18

Psycho Sonny said:
So I would say this whole thread is clickbait fake news.

Maybe you should take it up with Hardware Unboxed / Techspot then