If that is the case, why are they so low in the high end cpu charts?
How do you consider 62nd (out of 471) place low? Their are only a handful of i7 CPU's and the FX 9590 that are
slightly ahead of my 9726 Passmark rating? Or put another way: I am in the upper 13th percentile or ahead of 87% of all high end CPU's on that chart.
Makes me wonder if we are looking at the same chart?
I'm interested in buying an old dual cpu Xeon system- I do some 3D work plus graphics but I would also like to know what would play ED better, assuming I use an identical GPU:
A dual cpu Xeon (X5650 x2, 12 core, each core 2.66 GHz) with 24/36 Gb ECC RAM (full PC, but would need a new GPU - £630) max 24 threads
or a new I7 4790K based PC with 16Gb RAM (barebones, £564) max 8 threads
(Both score identically on CPU power on Passmark, over 11,000)
Would having a dual CPU setup be better for the multicore future (physical cores v hyperthreading), or is the difference negligible? (Dare I utter the phrase 'future proof', at least for a while?)
From what I have tried (I do run Photoshop CS5) their is a VERY noticeable difference going from 4 cores to 6 cores. Also bear in mind I have upped my memory from 8 to 12 megs. And Photoshop is a VERY power hungry program when it comes to CPU and memory resources. I have not tried video rendering but I am sure that would have a noticeable "real world" difference.
But running Elite dangerous (at least for now, in beta) I have capped my performance going by frame rates alone. The game does not load much faster (if at all) between the 3 (X5450, i7 980 and the X5650) Cpu's I have tried. Frame rates in game play are between 60 in open space and 45 in crowds or space stations. And bear in mind that is with vertical sync enabled. Since my monitor runs at 60hz I could care less about higher frame rates and I really dislike screen tearing. If I disable vertical sync I can hit close to 200 fps in space, but again, whats the point if I have to deal with screen tearing? To my eyes I cant tell the difference once I go above the vertical sync limit. Put it this way: If you could blink your eye faster, so what? :smilie:
Then again it does make me grin when I open task manager and see 12 threads displayed. I am giggling at the thought of how your proposed dual X5650 would look with 24 threads,,,,,,,,
:
Aren't these all blown away by I7 Haswell's far lower power usage?
Not in the desktop class. An i7-4790K Haswell comes in at 84 tdp. For sure that's better than my 95 tdp. But it is not in the same "blown away" category as 95 vs 220 tdp.
Now if you start looking at the mobile or laptop category of i7 Haswells, yes, they have REALLY low TDP's. But we are talking a whole different class of processors.
At the end of the day, I am very happy with my purchase when you consider I got the mobo, CPU and memory for what a modern day "high end" CPU would have cost all by itself brand new.
In the spirit of this threads title I will make a general claim: Once you have the modern day equivalent of CPU and memory requirements spec'ed by Frontier the only noticeable difference you will see between machines will be measured by the graphics card.
Ignore the claims of fanboys. They cant see past their AMD or Intel logos anyway and never bother to post specific details or facts.
And forget trying to future proof your machine. Those damn software guys are always going to find a way to program something that will choke the life out of your shiny new hardware in less than a year,,,,,,,,,,,
GUARANTEED
