How is Sandy Bridge useful for gamers?

[gazzab]

I recently went from E6600 GTX470 to QX9650 GTX 470 and felt my money spent on the GPU was for the most part wasted up to that point as the GTX was clearly getting nowhere near the support from the rest of the system to live to full potential.

I have now gone from QX9650 to i7 2600K and my minimum FPS has increased significantly yet again, I again think what a waste of money the 470 was until I had a CPU to let it breath free...

for example even with a QX9650 @ 3.6ghz Crysis was mostly CPU bottlenecked at 1920x1080 at least where minimum fps is concerned. Under Crysis bench I now get approx 30fps at 1920x1080 4xaa ultra high whereas previously I would get just about 30fps at 1368x720 no aa but ultra high. just from changing CPU? That must mean theres CPU bottleneck in there somewhere... dual to quad is a must if you ask me, and if you're going to do that - price/performance - Sandy Bridge all day long.

Interesting stuff, It's definitely time for an upgrade, Crysis runs like **** for me right now. I think this pretty much proves that the 'your money is always better spent on the GPU' argument isn't necessarily right.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=100

i7 950 vs. SB i5 2500K - and that's before the overclocking begins!

If you compare like for like (i7 950 vs SB i7 2600K) the gap becomes even larger!

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=100

Cheers for that, really useful

 

[Andrew_McP]

I was just confused about how GPU on a chip would be of benefit to gamers

I guess the way to look at it is that the only reason Intel can get a GPU doing decent amounts of work (compared to similar onboard GPUs) on the die is that the architecture is more advanced than previous generations. So even though the GPU is useless to serious gamers, the fact it exists right next to the cores means Intel are very confident of the chip's abilities.

We benefit by being able to inject extra current and heat in the form of overclocking rather than via the GPU section of the chip.

Andrew McP

 

[opethdisciple]

I think the answer to this question is that SB improves cpu based physics for gamers compared to older chips.... which is far more common than Nvidia GPU physx, so in other words it has relevance.

 

[arknor]

how does it improve cpu based physics when current and even some older generation cpu's such as overclocked Q6600 arent a bottlekneck in games anyway

 

[opethdisciple]

how does it improve cpu based physics when current and even some older generation cpu's such as overclocked Q6600 arent a bottlekneck in games anyway

Improves.... thats all I said.

The question was how does it benefit gamers......

I was just looking at some benchies between my current cpu and a SB and there is a frame increase, on average 5-10fps (no idea what gpu they are using)

But for game that use cpu based physics, SB will help a lot.

Im not disputing or arguing, just answering the question.

SB will accelerate the calculation of cpu based physics.... nothing too remarkable there.

 

[zoomee]

I know from experiance, and comments about 5% gains are complete rubbish given you're currently running E6400. Its almost worth the CPU investment just to realize the rather sizable investment you've already made in the GPU...

The OP had not stated he had such a lowly CPU - its obviously going to make a difference with what he has now, however between SB and a nicely clocked i7 920/950 - I still stand by my less than 5% gains in games comment.

tbh - what with all the people being sucked into the hype about SB you'll probably find a heck of allot of the i7 920/950's up for sale secondhand which would net a good saving of say £100 or more over buying a SB platform. Is £100 worth 5% gain? That I'll leave the OP to decide.....

 

[Nocky24]

The OP had not stated he had such a lowly CPU - its obviously going to make a difference with what he has now, however between SB and a nicely clocked i7 920/950 - I still stand by my less than 5% gains in games comment.

tbh - what with all the people being sucked into the hype about SB you'll probably find a heck of allot of the i7 920/950's up for sale secondhand which would net a good saving of say £100 or more over buying a SB platform. Is £100 worth 5% gain? That I'll leave the OP to decide.....

I've been looking around to find how much my current kit is worth and I'm kind of surprised how few 920s are for sale atm on MM and fleabay. However I know what you mean, you can get a D0 chip for £150 delivered at auction, which would be a decent saving, but then it is a dead end socket now.

 

[Essexraptor]

I've been looking around to find how much my current kit is worth and I'm kind of surprised how few 920s are for sale atm on MM and fleabay. However I know what you mean, you can get a D0 chip for £150 delivered at auction, which would be a decent saving, but then it is a dead end socket now.

I think I'll stick with my i7 920/HD5970 combo until the "look at my Sandy Bridge" hype settles down.

It won't make you a better gamer if your ***** already and whats the point of harping on about FPS increase, purely hot air.

At the OP

If your a gamer running a dedicated GPU, like your GTX570, the built in GPU is not a concern for you. It's aimed at the mass market remember and not just enthusiast types found on this forum. The vast majority of peeps buying computers don't give a fig about bottle necks, overclocking or nowt like that. They just want a computer and how the image on the monitor gets shown is of no concern to them. The CPU manufactures are producing these "all in one" chips to cut out the need for a dedicated GPU for the average user... that's it period

It's a shame that you did not visit us earlier and we may have pointed out the pitfalls of investing a wad in a GTX570 and running a low spec CPU before your purchase

 

[subbytna]

4ghz i7 vs a 5ghz 2500k
the main reason I made that shift as I game primarily
oh at 5760x1080
and BC2 never been so smooth

flopper any chance of pics of your display setup?

 

[Essexraptor]

4ghz i7 vs a 5ghz 2500k
the main reason I made that shift as I game primarily
oh at 5760x1080
and BC2 never been so smooth

Mhew

i7 920 @ 3.8Ghz/5970 poor excuse for a upgrade flopper....lol

(old man shaky hand pic)