On Intel Raptor Lake, any truth to the rumors that disabling all e-cores hurts single threaded performance of the p-cores??

[Wolverine2349]

I've tested it, he is completely wrong. Some games benefit from ecores off, (like 1 or 2), some games benefit from ecores on (again, just a couple), most games don't care about it. So turning them off is just silly.

Games do not scale beyond 8 cores and not many even scale to more than 6. 1 or 2 games is almost nothing. Turning them off makes sense if you want an 8 p core chip.

Disabling e cores makes sense for more thermal headroom especially on air cooling with a static manual all core all the time overclock. Only have to stress test and account for rock solid stability of 8 p cores. If intel had an 8 p core only CPU that would be the buy. But they do not. And don't say buy AMD if you want only 8 strong cores. AMDs strong 8 Zen 4 cores are not as good as Intel.

 

[Wolverine2349]

I've tested it, he is completely wrong. Some games benefit from ecores off, (like 1 or 2), some games benefit from ecores on (again, just a couple), most games don't care about it. So turning them off is just silly.

Games do not scale beyond 8 cores and not many even scale to more than 6.

Disabling e cores makes sense for more thermal headroom especially on air cooling with a static manual all core all the time overclock. Only have to stress test and account for rock solid stability of 8 p cores. If intel had an 8 p core only CPU that would be the buy. But they do not. And don't say buy AMD if you want only 8 strong cores. AMDs strong 8 Zen 4 cores are not as good as Intel

 

[Wolverine2349]

Turning them off makes absolutely no sense.


No it doesn't. Im running 5.8 ghz cyberpunk 2077 with ecores on. Are you saying that if I turn off ecores ill run 5.9 or 6.0ghz with the same voltage?

You have insane cooling. I cannot touch higher than 5.6GHz on p cores even with e cores off on an NH-D15S let alone with them on.

Ring is so easy to clock to 5GHz with off. With them on no way. Games like ring clock and RAM speed and fast all p core clock speed.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Can't see that being correct - they will have coded it to work with all variations of E-Cores and P-Cores from 0 E-Cores, to 0-P Cores and all variations in between.

Thread Director isn't entirely software based either, with 13xxx chips getting an update version of the thread director hardware, so whatever your thoughts on Windows 10 are also likely to be wrong, as thread director will still make decisions at a hardware level

Hardware needs OS level support. Windows 11 acts weird with CPUZ single thread score fluctuations badly with e cores off. Win10 e cores off CPUZ single thread score is consistent meaning proof e cores off do not hurt performance as thread director not there to interfere.

 

[Wolverine2349]

His cooler is fine, it's the user that's the problem.

u12a with a 95c temp limit, handle 330w in ycruncher

Lol 330 watt fine temps on U12a. I tested NH-D15 at stock and loading CInebench it throttles immediately and temps hit 102C like right away and 340 watts of power. ANd 340 watts will degrade CPU as ut is over 254 watt Intel limit, And this is with P cores downclocking themselves to like 5.3GHz. Can run them 5.6GHz easy with e-cores off and no throttling at all.

You must have a rare 1% 13900K platinum binned CPU to cool it ok with a U12a cooler and everything turned on.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Star Citizen really likes CPU resources and spawning threads, and on the hybrid chips it will put threads on the E cores and then you get stutters due to it having to wait on the slower cores. However people have tested and you don't have to disable the E cores, you should use Process Lasso and set Star Citizen to use the Physical P Cores.

There are other games out there that are also similarly affected, but as Star Citizen is so heavily CPU bound at the moment and the frame rates are lower, it's the easiest to notice the issue in.
I do wonder if we're gonna get a similar issue (but to a lesser extent) with the new AMD X3D cpu's using 2 chiplets, as only one will have the extra cache, and SC loves cache, but that's a topic for another thread/day.

Exactly well said. The e-cores stink for gaming. Games do not use lots of threads. Best disable them on especially on WIN10 for gaming as yikes if a game thread gets caught on an e-core.

WIN11 supposed to handle it better and in fact has a bug with thread director where all disabled could be a problem with HT on:

Core i7-12700K review revealing that E-cores hurt P-cores, but without them, everything is only worse

A review of the Core i7-12700K reveals that the presence of E-cores negatively impacts the performance of P-cores, but without them, the overall performance is even worse.

fox-laptop.com

No such issues with all e-cores disabled on 10 and for the better on 10 with them disabled.

 

[Wolverine2349]

The e cores were never designed for gaming, they are squarely for remedial apps/tasks whilst the p cores do their thing in gaming. This has been known since day 1 and Thread Director is the internal tool that handles all of that. If there is an issue with a game using e cores for the engine then that's a game patching problem, not an Intel problem. This was seen in a handful of games at launch of 12th gen but was patched within 2 months for all affected titles.

The e cores are super useful and here to stay as far as I can see and from personal experience too.

Yeah which is why Intel should make a 6-8 P core only unlocked K chip with no e-cores and better binned P cores as e-cores do nothing at all for gaming. And/or add some extra L3 cache as games love that as well as P cores clock speed and charge same amount for 8 P core with extra cache chip as gamers pay for that extra L3 cache instead of e-cores or a 8 P core only chip with same amount of L3 cache as 13900K, but only 6-8 P cores for less money than the ones with e-cores added on.

Instead those of us that do not like e-cores nor have use for more than 8 cores have to pay extra then disable the e-cores to get the best P core Instructions per Clock and latency, but do not want to deal with the e-cores and hybrid gimmick crap.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Such an 8 P-core chip would mean designing and fab-ing a new die, and with limited market and volume you'd end up paying more for less.

If you meant just disable all e-cores (on existing dies) at the factory to sell as a cheaper model, why would they do that on functioning dies which they would otherwise sell with e-cores enabled for more (bare in mind they already have the various lower price points populated with lower spec/binned chips so there isn't an unserved lower price point spot in the market). The only incentive to go through the effort of an extra 'special' limited appeal P-core only model is if they can charge you more for it. Which begs the question why would anyone pay more for such a model when they could simply buy the e-core version and disable the cores themselves.

Yes good point there, though how come AMD has an 8 P core only Ryzen 7700X and not just 7900X and 7950X if the fabs are cheaper. I mean the lower end AMD SKUs are defective higher core SKUs right??


I mean why doesn't Intel have defective e-core SKUs with 8 working P cores like AMD has defective P cores to have a count down to only 8 P cores.

 

[Wolverine2349]

You do realise there are models in the family without E cores right that are great for gaming? And AMD currently have a slew of standard core chips too. Nobody is forced into anything. I don't think you have fully understood what the architecture sets out to achieve.

Gimped amounts of L3 cache and locked CPUs so no chance to overclock via multiplier.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Because we've been forced to pay for them.

Exactly and we want 8 strong cores well binned unlocked without using the e-cores and there is no Intel CPU on current arch available with 8 P cores and large L3 cache without the e-cores.

Intel would be wise to also offer a CPU for same price with 8 P cores only and lots more L3 cache for same price as 13900K. That would be the gamer's enthusiast chip,

Maybe Intel does it with Raptor Lake refresh as games do not benefit at all from anymore than 6-8 cores and will not anytime soon if ever given the difficulty of writing time sensitive apps like games to scale to as many threads as possible.

 

[Wolverine2349]

I don't even understand what you are talking about.

There is not a single scenario that a 13900k with ecores off is faster than with ecores on. Disabling them is silly. Period

No its not. Its all about individual use case scenarios.

There most certainly are cases where disabling e-cores gives faster performance. Likewise there are cases where leaving them on gives better performance. It all depends on the use case scenario.

 

[Wolverine2349]

But you are the one buying a ferrari and turning it into a lada by disabling the ecores, lol

Lol no!! Disabling those peasant crappy cores is no wear near turning a Ferrari into a Lada

 

[Wolverine2349]

Can you post one scenario where ecores off gives better performnace? I've been asking you for months now. Post your bench, ill post mine with ecores on and we will see the results. How hard is it

Test wydajności rdzeni P-Core i E-Core w procesorze Intel Core i9-12900K z pamięciami DDR5 Patriot Viper Venom | PurePC.pl

Test wydajności rdzeni P-Core i E-Core w procesorze Intel Core i9-12900K z pamięciami DDR5 Patriot Viper Venom (strona 26) Test wydajności rdzeni P-Core i E-Core w procesorze Intel Core i9-12900K. Test z pamięciami DDR5 Patriot Viper Venom RGB

www.purepc.pl

Tons of examples where performance is way better in games with those e-waste cores off!!

And that is better even manually tuning the CPU in which games will be much better with those e-waste cores off, More thermal headroom and can clock ring higher and P cores higher and L3 cache all available to the important P cores and not starved by those e-waste cores for games.

 

[Wolverine2349]

In the review you just posted 8+8 with ht on is faster than 8+0 ht on in almost every scenario. WTF are you talking about man????? Like seriously, this is nuts...

Not true at all in games and this was with Windows 11 proving how bad those e-cores are for gaming as the thread director screws up the P cores in WIN11!!

Core i7-12700K review revealing that E-cores hurt P-cores, but without them, everything is only worse

A review of the Core i7-12700K reveals that the presence of E-cores negatively impacts the performance of P-cores, but without them, the overall performance is even worse.

fox-laptop.com

In WIN10 having those e-waste cores off helps performance so much for games!!

 

[Wolverine2349]

In all of the games but 1, ecores on gave higher numbers. Seriously, do you even look at the links you are posting? Ecores on is faster in all of them

Not true at all. In fact that benchmark was not mostly games but mostly infinite threaded productivity apps. The games most of them are better with those e-waste cores off.
And here is more proof most games benefit with them off:

Should Gamers Disable E-Cores? Core i9-12900K, 41 Game Benchmark

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hardwareunboxedJoin us on Floatplane: https://www.floatplane.com/channel/HardwareUnboxedBuy relevant products ...

www.youtube.com

 

[Wolverine2349]

Eh? You've posted another link that shows benchmarks where turning E cores off scores lower???

Look at game benchmarks not all of benchmarks most of which are infinite threaded productivity apps. Vast majority of games are better with those e-cores off. All games are better with e-cores off except CIv III, Shadow of Tomb Raider and Total War Kingdom.

And that includes CPU core heavy Hitman 3 and CyberPunk 2077.

Its very dependent on use case, but the point is there are definitely scenarios where it makes sense to disable the e-cores.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Eh? You've posted another link that shows benchmarks where turning E cores off scores lower???

Yes slower in productivity apps where more cores on top of already fast cores the better.

I am talking about gaming in which most games are better with them off and that is a fact!!

 

[Wolverine2349]

From your own link

Core i7-12700K review revealing that E-cores hurt P-cores, but without them, everything is only worse

A review of the Core i7-12700K reveals that the presence of E-cores negatively impacts the performance of P-cores, but without them, the overall performance is even worse.

fox-laptop.com

"Another important observation is that the merit of E-cores in the excellent gaming performance of the Core i7-12700K is minimal. Turning them off doesn’t change much, the FPS stays the same high. Moreover, there are quite a few games that benefit from turning off energy-efficient cores due to the increase in L3 cache performance. But on average, a cluster of E-cores still does more good than harm, so we still would not recommend using Alder Lake processors with power-efficient cores turned off."

We are talking only about gaming not about doing other things, Performance is performance even if only 5%. That is more than margin of error especially with better thermals and less power consumption to get equally high clocked P cores and ring.

And we are talking about benchmarks not what the final words of those who stated the benchmarks are and recommendation to disable or not disable e-cores. The fact is looking at the charts e-cores hurt lots and lots of gaming performance.

It once again goes to show there are reasons and use case scenarios where it makes sense to turn off the e-cores. Every use case and user is different. Saying there is nada reason for anyone to disable the e-cores is flat out untrue and eveyrone has their own likes and needs and some desire to disable them and nothing at all wrong with that.

This is in contrast to someone buying a 7950X and disabling one CCD when they could just buy a 7700X. That is because a 7700X exists. But an 8 OP core only with 36MB of L3 cache does not exist. Some people also just do noit want the e-cores and trying to say nada reason to disable them is an insult to those people who want Intel P cores only but cannot buy such a chip.

 

[Wolverine2349]

But in both links you posted even games perform better with ecores on!!! Am i missing something???

Some games yes, but most games are worse with e-cores on especially CPU intensive ones (Cyberpunk, Watch Dogs, Hitman 3) with the exception being modern simulations (Total War and Civ) which are also CPU intensive that perform better with e-cores on.

So every use case is differnet are there are definitely reasons to disable them depending on games you play and most games are in fact better with them off even though some can be better with them on.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Presumably by having e-cores turned on (and background processes running on them) you also minimise any frame time variance or "microstuttering" where P cores would otherwise be context switching background processes.

Framerate is only part of the picture - I'd be interested in any reviews that show frame time results

Those results show 1% lows which tell the whole FPS picture and most games better with e-cores off. 6 to 3 win for e-cores off even on WIN11 which gimps the P cores with thread director not knowing how to deal with them with P cores off.

Imagine WIN10 where e-cores off will be so much better!!