The Witcher 3 - Good show for AMD

Dave2150 · 20 May 2015 at 05:10

Nice to see the dual core Pentium G3258 getting utterly annihilated, as a dual core should in this age

Very nice to see the developers optimized this game for the AMD core module CPU's - solid performance across the board with an overclocked FX @ 5Ghz being within 10 FPS of Intel's best.

If more games had been developed like this, it could have been a major win for AMD, back when the original Bulldozer and then Piledriver were released.

Source: http://pclab.pl/art63116-47.html

Note they tested all these CPU's with both an NVIDIA 970 and an AMD 290. I didn't bother linking the 290x CPU benchmarks, as AMD GPU's are clearly running terribly in this game, whether that's because of 'Gameworks' I'm not sure, however that's an argument best suited for the GPU forum

malachi · 20 May 2015 at 09:13

Some nice results there

teppic · 20 May 2015 at 10:02

5GHz isn't always that easy to run though. Dropping down to ~4GHz is only losing 7fps, so I bet the 4.4GHz spot would be decent enough.

psychas · 20 May 2015 at 10:25

the difference between between 4790 or even 5820 oc against 2600k oc is shocking, basically no difference at all , just 5 fps :eek:

DragonQ · 20 May 2015 at 10:25

Hmm, HyperThreading barely helps and there seems to be no benefit to having 6 cores over 4 on Intel CPUs.

spoffle · 20 May 2015 at 10:28

There's something off about this game

Scurburg · 20 May 2015 at 10:41

Its GPU heavy and optimized from 4/8t is seems. Isnt the CPU load abnormally low anyway?

On another note, the 960 is looking like a pretty good buy for this, especially considering you get the game with it.

stuie · 20 May 2015 at 10:54

Buck for buck though its still intels game and that doesnt include the power saving benefits

4670 @ 72fps

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £129.95
Total : £321.94 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

9590 @ 64.6 fps

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 9590 Black Edition 4.70GHz (5.00GHz Turbo) (Socket AM3+) Processor - OEM £184.99
1 x Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £142.99
Total : £327.98 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

I know what I'd go for 8fps more for 6 quid less

Deathjester · 20 May 2015 at 11:35

stuie said:
Buck for buck though its still intels game and that doesnt include the power saving benefits

I know what I'd go for 8fps more for 6 quid less

Same; also....

An 8 Core 5ghz OC processor is within 8 FPS (12%) of a lower clocked (3.4 GHz lower cored processor (4)...

The 5GHz processor is probably pretty close to 220W TDP rather than 84W from the Intel chip.

Way to go AMD.

Also Witcher is very GPU heavy rather than CPU heavy.

Kelt · 20 May 2015 at 11:45

My Xeon 5650 is barely being used in this game.

GPU though, at 99% all the time.

I reckon I'd get the same framerates with my old 486

Davedree · 20 May 2015 at 11:53

stuie said:
Buck for buck though its still intels game and that doesnt include the power saving benefits

4670 @ 72fps

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £129.95
Total : £321.94 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

9590 @ 64.6 fps

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 9590 Black Edition 4.70GHz (5.00GHz Turbo) (Socket AM3+) Processor - OEM £184.99
1 x Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £142.99
Total : £327.98 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

I know what I'd go for 8fps more for 6 quid less

Firstly out the box a fx9590 doesn't run 5ghz.
Secondly save yourself 70-80 and get an 8320e/8320 and clock it to 4.8ghz-5ghz yourself.

Scurburg · 20 May 2015 at 12:11

stuie said:
Buck for buck though its still intels game and that doesnt include the power saving benefits

4670 @ 72fps

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Asus TUF Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £129.95
Total : £321.94 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

9590 @ 64.6 fps

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 9590 Black Edition 4.70GHz (5.00GHz Turbo) (Socket AM3+) Processor - OEM £184.99
1 x Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £142.99
Total : £327.98 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

I know what I'd go for 8fps more for 6 quid less

That AMD is overpriced and just "better" binned,the board is also overkill, no sane person recommends them over intel at that budget, and since we are talking about AMD, then it is about the budget. Intel is recommended hands down if budget is not limited/restrictive.

The recommended AMD buy is the 8320e (£110) and OC to 9370/9590 speeds. This can be done with mid range board (with 6+2 or 8+2 around £80) and reasonable cooler. There is a saving of ~£80 on the CPU and ~£60 on the MB over the ones you chose.

An AMD fx-8 setup can comes in £60-£100 cheaper than the 4670K equiv setup. For some it is a significant enough saving to consider, especially if it can be used towards a better GPU, which with this game, the performance is more dependant on.

It also depends on what games people are going to run too, and as we can see, the witcher 3 is not that dependant on CPU making AMD a worthy consideration for it. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for their GPUs ATM.

9590 can be used in the charts to get an idea of what performance can be expected from the 8320e once OC'd.

joeyjojo · 20 May 2015 at 12:24

Others have already said it, a more fair comparison would be say

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320E Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £109.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
Total : £199.58 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

So 72 FPS for £320, or 60-65 FPS for £200. AMD is still the value king when games are well behaved. And in reality that £120 would go on a better GPU, adding another handful of FPS.

(Then again, that Asus TUF is probably overkill)

Freddie1980 · 20 May 2015 at 13:02

Deathjester said:
Same; also....

An 8 Core 5ghz OC processor is within 8 FPS (12%) of a lower clocked (3.4 GHz lower cored processor (4)...

The 5GHz processor is probably pretty close to 220W TDP rather than 84W from the Intel chip.

Way to go AMD.

Also Witcher is very GPU heavy rather than CPU heavy.

The AMD Bulldozer CPU's are not really 8 typical CPU core's. A module of which it has 4 (each core is split into two integer clusters which have to share resources) of them is more of the equivalent of a CPU core due to amount of cache it has available to it. So really it's Intel's 4 cores Vs. AMD's 4 modules.

kaku · 20 May 2015 at 13:17

joeyjojo said:
Others have already said it, a more fair comparison would be say

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320E Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £109.99
1 x Asus M5A97 EVO R2.0 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
Total : £199.58 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

So 72 FPS for £320, or 60-65 FPS for £200. AMD is still the value king when games are well behaved. And in reality that £120 would go on a better GPU, adding another handful of FPS.

(Then again, that Asus TUF is probably overkill)

But then you're still worse off than a stock-clocked 2500k from 4 and a half years ago.

Doogles · 20 May 2015 at 13:42

Still though my i5 3570k is closer to the i7-5820k than the FX 9590 and uses less power...

Concrete · 20 May 2015 at 14:19

Oh well I guess I'll have to play the game on my overclocked 8320 and get only the maximum frames per second that my monitor can display

joeyjojo · 20 May 2015 at 14:29

kaku said:
But then you're still worse off than a stock-clocked 2500k from 4 and a half years ago.

Not saying Intel quads aren't faster, but stuie's claim that Intel are better value for money is wrong (because the FX-9xxx are a rip off).

For this game, it's definitely better value to get an FX-8. And the £120 saved could go an the GPU. For example, it would put you more than half way up to a 980 from the 970 used in the benchmark, giving a 30% ish boost.

opethdisciple · 20 May 2015 at 14:42

We are still in the DX11 era. This is typical of CPU's atm.

DX12 is what is needed to start using up all those threads/cores avialbe on i7's.

Andy__C · 20 May 2015 at 14:43

Happy Days..... my 8350 skips along at 5ghz with little fuss and sits and 4.8 for daily use under water, doesn't really top 55 degree's that often.

Will keep it at 4.8 with the SLI 970's and enjoy the settings at max (still yet to try the hair thing)

Good to see CDPR coding efficiently enough to have a wider audience at a more forgiving spec, well done.