240°

Core i7 a waste of money for gamers, says Nvidia

Nvidia's technical marketing director Tom Petersen had a go at Intel, after he saw some Intel marketing that claimed a Core i7 920 CPU would boost gaming performance by 80 percent, compared to... something.

Anyway, Petersen says Intel's claim is based on 3DMark Vantage's CPU score alone, and that it makes no sense whatsoever. He says the benchmark "doesn't actually measure anything about game performance," and claims Intel is being a "little disingenuous."

He then compares a Core i7 based machine with a GTS 250 to a Hummer truck, saying it "has got to be big, and it's got to be expensive and of course it's infused with Hafnium, which is kind of a dig at Intel." He goes on to compare the performance of the Hummer PC to a dual-core with a GTS250 SLI setup, dubbed Beamer, which offers more graphics muscle.

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um4rio5479d ago

why not buy the hummer today and keep it for a good few years, running everything fine, rather then having to upgrade the beamer next year?

IdleLeeSiuLung5479d ago (Edited 5479d ago )

Or you can just buy the beemer and keep it for a few years. Why not go another step? Buy a console instead of the PC and keep that for a few years....

Buying the latest and greatest rarely scales well relative to performance vs. value.

If you actually read the article Tom Petersen states something pretty obvious, the effect of increased CPU power after a certain point (i.e. no bottleneck) is negligible compared to getting additional or increased GPU power for gaming.

PS360WII5479d ago

Well I solve that by having a nice processor AND and nice video card....

Kakkoii5479d ago

No thanks. I'd rather not be a sheep.

I take joy in building and upgrading my computer. Plus it's used not just for gaming, but almost everything else in my life. PC's aren't just used for gaming like consoles are.

Plus we can play games in MUCH higher resolutions, with much better details. I don't want to wait 6-8 years for a new console, just to play what PC's could play 2-3 years before.

Sure, it can be a bit more money, but it's damn well worth it lol. But it's hardly the huge amount of money console fans try to make it out to be.

evrfighter5479d ago

"Buy a console instead of the PC and keep that for a few years.... "

If I bought a console now for gaming. I'd be taking quite a few steps backwards technology wise. Why do that when I can play Cod 4, Cod Waw, Fallout 3 completely maxed out already?

SaiyanFury5479d ago

@Kakkoii

Agreed completely. Keeping a gaming grade PC isn't nearly as expensive as some people believe. I have a Core 2 Duo CPU with a newly purchased GTX 285 and I can play Crysis in 1680x1050 with 4x antialiasing and it runs at 55FPS. I have many consoles and I love them all, but if I want something state of the art I can just play it on my PC. My CPU is over a year and a half old as is my RAM, motherboard and so on. The ONLY piece of equipment I've upgraded is my video card. My first PC purchase in over a year and a half and it was only 400 dollars. Quite frankly, I think it's money well spent. How much money do people spend on regular, everyday things like coffee? If you spend a dollar a day on coffee, over the course of a year that really adds up.

SaiyanFury5479d ago (Edited 5479d ago )

Sorry double post. My internet connection was messing up.

XxZxX5478d ago

why not wait until i7 is cheap and needed, then u buy them instead. aint that more value for the money?

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Gue15479d ago (Edited 5479d ago )

and the battle between Nvidia vs Intel continues... ;-0

PS360WII5479d ago

But when I load up Empire: Total War it gives me the "Runs Great on i7" logo ;)

Zinny5479d ago

Oh so is that why EVERY single gaming benchmark has the three i7's as the top 3 best? Because it's a waste of money? Awesome. Maybe I'll go waste some more money tonight on a nice steak instead of buying the big mac value meal.

FantasyStar5479d ago (Edited 5479d ago )

It's not a matter of the Core i7 flagship in question, but the focal point of where to put the extra cash. For a game like Crysis, an E4400 or even a E8400 is good enough and well within reasonable spending. However the GFX is what's going to make Crysis either swim or sink and with that, the extra $200-$300 premium should go into a good GFX card.

http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-... - If someone checks out the Maximum PC Article about building a $500 Rig, the only high-end component is undoubtedly the GFX Card(ATI HD4870) because most PC games are graphics-intensive and very few games ever take advantage of multi-threaded quad-core processors.

Pairing a Core i7 975 with an 8800GT ISN'T going to get 30+ FPS on Crysis @ 14x9.

Pairing a Core2Duo E4400 with a GTX 275 IS going to get 30+ FPS on Crysis @ 14x9.

A smart PC gamer knows how to find the balance in components to ensure that one component isn't bottlenecking the other or overcompensating too much. Why have a Core i7 when the 8800GT can't process that much data at once? Likewise, why have a GTX 275 when the E2160 can't feed enough data to the GFX card?

The article may slant in Nvidia's favor, but it's got a good point regarding which of the "Big 3" is more important in getting a good framerate in PC gaming.

Kakkoii5479d ago

Well one should not even bother with the i7 950 and 975 anyway. 950 is the exact same chip as the 920. And the 975 has a few minor tweaks.

If someone does decide to go for an i7, get an 920 and overclock that biatch.

evrfighter5479d ago

I see this pretty much as Nvidia saying "Don't spend the insane amount of cash for the cpu. Instead invest your money in the graphics dept. and go SLI"

It's not hard to figure out, once you break it down

Kakkoii5479d ago

The thing is, it's actually true. The GPU is the main thing you should be focusing on in your gaming computer. Most of a Quad-Core CPU's power is never used by almost every game game.

FantasyStar5479d ago (Edited 5479d ago )

However, when you got games like Supreme Commander, World in Conflict, or even Left4Dead: it'll take full-advantage of the Quad-Core and we benefit. I think I gained almost 15+ FPS from my Q6600 2.4GHz alone in WiC.

evrfighter5478d ago

Don't get me wrong. I know it's true it true. I'm just saying this for people that havn't figured it out.

Kakkoii5478d ago

@FantasyStar: Depends, what was your CPU before? That Quad might have a new instruction or 2 that your old one didn't. Which games can use to increase performance.

For example, my Pentium 4 HT only has (MMX, SSE, SSE2) instruction sets.
While a Core 2 has (MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1).

FantasyStar5478d ago (Edited 5478d ago )

@Kakkoii

I stayed within the Conroe family. I went from an E6550 to a Q6600(SLACR) and noticed the improvements. I can see where you're coming at though, that my improvements may not be as drastic as 15+ FPS universally unless I jumped from <E4400 to the much superior Q6600 which does throw off people.

But I'm sure I don't need to cite the supported instructions for the Q6600 since you know that already. My PC Specs are in my Bio.

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70°

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