BF4 Retail CPU scaling measured

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What? You just said the i5s mostly beat the i7s (true, from the charts you linked for ultra in Windows 7), now you're saying there's no difference?

It seems like a crap review site. The Core i7 and FX8350 are outperformed by cheaper lower clocked CPUs with less cores in their respective ranges. I would discard that review as it seems to be inconsistent and ignores what people are seeing with the game(and what other reviewers are seeing too). They don't indicate what maps they used or how many players were on each map.

One of the Sweclockers reviewers posted this Anandtech:

I am one of the main contributors to the SweClockers article (I hate Siege of Shanghai now..), and without trying to hijack the thread I just want to clarify some things. There is always a lot of information lost in translation, especially as Google Translate is less than stellar sometimes..


* All our tests took place on the 64p version of "Siege of Shanghai" during real multiplayer on real servers. I can't swear we had 60+ players all the time, but I can almost guarantee we played on servers with 50+ almost every benchmark run.

* We outline our benchmark methodology and our settings as detailed as we can (with screenshots!). Of course we couldn't do identical multiplayer playthroughs, but we tried to compensate by collecting data during pretty long timeframes (at least 3x 180 sec). If our three runs didn't give a plausible value, we did a few more until satisfied.
http://www.sweclockers.com/artikel/17810-prestandaanalys-battlefield-4/2

* If you read the comments below the graphs (I know, translations..), we actually doesn't call "a winner" when the FPS difference is to narrow. The nature of multiplayer is to random, so a few FPS must be considered within margin of error. We also try to point out the CPU and GPU bottlenecks in the different scenarios.

Again, I am sorry for "hijacking" the thread a bit, I just wanted to clear some things up. Happy hunting in BF4!

They made multiple runthroughs and made sure maps had at least 50 people. Moreover their use of 180 second runthroughs is good practice as many review sites tend to use 30 seconds of gameplay only.

 

[~>Dg<~]

What? You just said the i5s mostly beat the i7s (true, from the charts you linked for ultra in Windows 7), now you're saying there's no difference?

ive said since beta no difference in single gpu set ups but people argued like in bf3 there was difference yet there isnt .

only in crossfire or sli is a i7 beneficial. hyperthreading another myth

the benchmark will now be discarded because it shows how level they are

funny thing is i game every night with people and we have benhced bf3 and bf4 there is no difference on i7 or i5s unless in twin card situations. people will still argue even though its been shown there is no difference. theres been like 5 or 6 benchmarks showing the difference and the only ones that show differences are on multiple gpus or cards like the sweclockers for eg on a 7990 lol . its comedy gold as usual.

 

[dmferrett]

ive said since beta no difference in single gpu set ups but people argued like in bf3 there was difference yet there isnt .

only in crossfire or sli is a i7 beneficial. hyperthreading another myth

the benchmark will now be discarded because it shows how level they are

funny thing is i game every night with people and we have benhced bf3 and bf4 there is no difference on i7 or i5s unless in twin card situations. people will still argue even though its been shown there is no difference. theres been like 5 or 6 benchmarks showing the difference and the only ones that show differences are on multiple gpus or cards like the sweclockers for eg on a 7990 lol . its comedy gold as usual.

No single card at the moment will bottleneck an overclocked 3rd gen i5 IMO. (In the future with more powerful cards that may change of course)


i5 3570k 4.6Ghz 2200Mhz Memory CAS10

This what i've found,

2x7950's 1200Mhx with vsyn on I get 70-75% cpu utilisation and 47-49% gpu usage at max settings 1920x1200. 60FPS on a 60Hz monitor......

2x7950's 1200Mhz with vsyn off I get 90-95% cpu and both gpu's 100% 120-160fps, rare dips to 90fps.

I dont have a bottleneck but I would imagine with a third gpu its a certainty!!!!! Can an i5 push 200fps in BF4? Probably not.

So unless mantle pulls a rabbit out of the hat I need an i7.

Edit..

I just want to add that in games that are efficiently multithreaded, cpu utilisation is circa 20% lower with an i7. But this only plays a part in the overal scheme of things if you have 2xgpu's powerful enough to max out an i5. I guess it would take approximately 2x780's or 2x290's in my case 3x7950's or better to totally overwhelm a modern i5 at 4.4-4.7Ghz.

 

[MooMoo444]

Nice to see that HT is finally becoming useful and isn't just something to epeen about

 

[scotsdragon]

Hpyer threading and multi core utilization is more and more common now as it should be nothing worse than knowing you've splashed a lot of cash and its not being utilized

 

[~>Dg<~]

more and more common name games that show benefits from it that are out now ? i guarentee you cant show more than 5 if you can even show 5 that show a decent increase

bf4 doesnt before you save that.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Seems like it's not really finished rather than anything to panic about. Beating CoD to release seemed to be the higher priority rather than a polished game.

 

[dmferrett]

Seems like it's not really finished rather than anything to panic about. Beating CoD to release seemed to be the higher priority rather than a polished game.

Very True.
Marketing and sales are clearly more important to EA than the quality of the product they release.
I just hope they can optimise and fix the game fast.

 

[gpuerrilla]

I just hope they can optimise and fix the game fast.

Yes. I reckon after a few updates the engine and drivers will boost the multi-core machines way higher then they currently are performing. I would think it was in EA/Dice's best interest to get single cores and weaker systems running the game than focus on the enthusiast bracket which would be a smaller %.

for those with i5s struggling
...
so funny at 1080 single card the i5s mostly beat the i7s lol. maybe i should downgrade to a i7

Why would you want it performing for the top tier of machines and running like a dog on older/weaker hardware? - would be cutting off the arm to tackle a sore finger.

It's good that it is running well on i3's etc as it means they don't have to upgrade to play it.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Typical usage during BF4 on a 3930K @ 4.44GHz

Spoiler

 

[MooMoo444]

Typical usage during BF4 on a 3930K @ 4.44GHz

Spoiler

Seems pretty good usage spread across all 12 threads you have there

 

[Yaayuh!]

Seems pretty good usage spread across all 12 threads you have there

Yep, that's pretty much worse case scenario as well. I'm impressed at the scaling across so many threads.

 

[Jono8]

for those with i5s struggling

http://www.hardwarepal.com/battlefield-4-benchmark-mp-cpu-gpu-w7-vs-w8-1/

so funny at 1080 single card the i5s mostly beat the i7s lol. maybe i should downgrade to a i7

"The benchmark was done on an empty server"

Lol

 

[gpuerrilla]

"The benchmark was done on an empty server"

Lol

Gotta keep them i3/i5-ers happy!

 

[~>Dg<~]

haha theres 4 or 5 benchmarks in mp aswell that show it also ive ran benchmarks with out lot who have i5s and i7s same maps while playing together .

 

[pmc25]

Steamroller CPU's could turn out to be very strong performers in this game.

Perhaps relative to their number of threads, but there won't be more than 2 module / 4 thread Kaveri, and it is very unlikely that there will be SR FX. I think PD is here to stay until it's scrapped in favour of a 4+ module Excavator APU in 2015, or less likely Excavator FX, or whatever they choose to call it.

This said, Kaveri is likely to offer an amazing all in one solution at playable settings and framerates at 1920x1080 for BF4 and the like. If Steam Machines are to be a success, it hinges on Kaveri IMO.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Yeah do agree pmc.

 

[DarkTheSupreme]

Tried a few matches on an FX 8320 today and it doesn't run quite as well as my 3570k to be honest.

Was hard to maintain over 100 FPS on lower settings and on full ultra a lot of drops to 50-60.

Definitely playable but just no where near as smooth.

 

[alex_123_fra]

Tried a few matches on an FX 8320 today and it doesn't run quite as well as my 3570k to be honest.

Was hard to maintain over 100 FPS on lower settings and on full ultra a lot of drops to 50-60.

Definitely playable but just no where near as smooth.

Overclock your 8320 more. At 4.6GHz you are barely breaking a sweat. 4.8GHz is the sweetspot and you have the headroom in terms of voltage so why not use it. I would also run some formal benchmarks to get objective figures around the "doesn't run quite as well" statement.

Heard this before in BF4 and I don't find this to be the case on my 8320 paired with a 7990 (which eats a single 780 fairly comprehensively).

Edit: my bench figures are earlier in this thread for comparison.

 

[Make]

Overclock your 8320 more. At 4.6GHz you are barely breaking a sweat. 4.8GHz is the sweetspot and you have the headroom in terms of voltage so why not use it. I would also run some formal benchmarks to get objective figures around the "doesn't run quite as well" statement.

Heard this before in BF4 and I don't find this to be the case on my 8320 paired with a 7990 (which eats a single 780 fairly comprehensively).

Edit: my bench figures are earlier in this thread for comparison.

I doubt 0.2Ghz difference will bring more than a few candymarks in any benchmark or real world use. Though it's better to have it than not have it.