Gadgetory

welcome back to harbor unboxed today I've got a benchmark video for you guys and in a way it's a bit of a follow-up to last week's discussion about quad-core CPUs for gaming in late 2017 it's not a direct follow-up but there will be a few areas of overlap the focus here is on bottlenecking whether that be CPU or GPU bottlenecking and I'll be checking out a range of very different games so some will be old some will be new so we'll be CPU bound others will be GPU bound for the benchmarks I have grabbed a few different CPUs and this isn't an AMD versus Intel comparison so I'm not picking you know in I'm not matching up Intel CPUs with AMD CPU so you're not gonna see like an r5 1600 vs. 77 oh okay battle here we've done plenty of that so it's just a few random CPUs of different price categories doesn't matter which side of the fence they're on and we're comparing them with a range of graphics card so like the geforce gtx 1060 1070 and 1080 at 1080p and this should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of CPU and GPU pairing makes sense for your particular budget and the game should plan on playing and also show you just how much say lower in CPUs like the g 45 60 and rise in 312 hundred are limiting the performance of higher MGP such as the gtx 1070 and 1080 should you be crazy enough to pair a $100 CPU with a $400 plus GPU your flippin loonies but then I guess us reviewers kind of do that all the time don't we anyway so what was the end of the benchmarks we'll also check out some overclocking results as well so that should be pretty cool so with that let's jump into the benchmarks first up we have battlefield 1 and here you can see using something like the GTX 1060 there is no difference in performance between the various CPUs the g45 16 matches the core i7 7700 k with a minimum of 71 FPS and an average of 80 fps granted you might see a larger variance when in the heat of a 64 player battle but sadly that's just not possible to accurately benchmark anyway I personally have found the G 45 60 and GTX 1060 combo acceptable for multiplayer action you certainly can't complain with the price up creating to the gtx 1070 and we start to see a real separation between the various CPUs tested the 7700 okay is now up to 28 percent faster than G 45 60 that said the risin and Core i5 7400 CPUs still look quite good however once we move to the geforce gtx 1080 things start to change quite a lot now the 77 okay offers around 50% more performance in the g 45 60 and it's even 20% faster than the core i5 7400 so as expected with higher-end GPUs you really need a powerful CPU to take full advantage moving on we have the f1 2016 results I'm using the older 2016 version as f1 2017 came out after I gathered most of these results when I was testing the Rison 3 CPUs anyway some interesting results nonetheless even though we see the same 71 FPS average framerate with most of the CPUs tested using the gtx 1060 there is a small difference in the 1% low results then things change massively once we step up to the gtx 1070 here the g 45 60 starts to fall quite far behind especially when looking at the 1% low result here it was 33% slow with just 55 FPS when compared to the 77 arcades 83 FPS that said the horizon and core i5 processors do hang in there quite well with the 1070 however once we step up to the gtx 1080 the 7700 k is fully unleashed and now it can be seen pulling miles ahead of the core i5 7400 and Rison v 1400 the 77 arcade was almost 80% faster in the g 45 60 as well in what was a true display of dominance right so battlefield 1 and f1 2016 are very CPU intensive titles that utilize multi-core CPUs very well Far Cry primal on the other hand isn't particularly demanding on the CPU and it's certainly one of the more GPU bound titles we'll be testing with that being the case we unsurprisingly see no real difference in performance with the geforce gtx 960 between the 5 cpus tested moving to the gtx 1070 we find the core i5 and core i7 cpus are able to deliver noticeably better 1% lower results of course you can slow overclock the rise in CPUs and we'll look at that a bit later on then with the GT x 1080 we see much the same performance on all processes tested with the exception of the 77 or okay while the G 4560 Core i5 and rise and CPUs all limit the GTX 1080 to 1070 light performance meanwhile the 77 okay boost the average frame rate by 32% making it 41% fast and the G 45 60 I don't suspect anyone would pair RG 45 60 with a GTX 1080 but if you did this is why it would be a bad idea with total war Warhammer we return to an extremely CPU demanding title and as such even the GTX 1060 shows up the G 45 60 shortcomings as this lower clock to dual-core does start to fall behind if we jump up to the gtx 10a we find the horizon 3 and verizon 5 cpus aren't really able to increase performance over what was seen with the gtx 1070 it is worth mentioning that we've discovered this is due to the way in videos drivers handle the DirectX 12 API on their Pascal based GPUs anyway that's not the focus of this video even if we look at the core i5 and core i7 processors with the gtx 1070 there is now quite a bit of separation this is accentuated with the gtx 1080 and now the 77 ok is almost 30% faster than the core i5 7400 meanwhile it's 71 percent faster and the g 45 60 overwatch has yet another cpu intensive title that takes advantage of core heavy cpus at least as well as any DirectX 11 title does here we see that with the gtx 1060 all 5 cpu configurations provides similar results however once again moving to the gtx 1070 starts to mix things up a bit though it is mostly the g 45 six that's lagging behind the g 45 60 finds its limits with the gtx 1070 and this can be seen we're moving to the 1080 virtually no increase in framerate is seen meanwhile the 77 or EK is now 24% faster with the 1080 and that means it's 53% fast and the g 45 60 so yet again we see a clear and very large example of cpu bottlenecking the witcher 3 is one of the first games to really make good use of quad-core CPUs but even so the hyper threading enabled G 4560 does very well in this title overall we do appear to be primarily GPU limited here and even with the GTX tonight he installed the 77 okay isn't able to pull away from the core i5 memorize and processes moving on we have some Rainbow six siege results and here the 7700 K is able to squeeze a little more out of the 1060 though the one percent low figure is much the same a similar situation is seen with the gtx 1070 and then finally with the gtx Tenaya installed the semi summary kate is now significantly faster at least when comparing the average frame rate World of Tanks is all about that single thread performance so higher clock speeds rule here and this is why the horizon 3 1300 X is able to outpace the risin 5 1400 the 7700 K and its high out of the box operating frequency also gives an advantage here though it was something like a gtx 1060 you won't see any real difference as we move to the gtx 1070 the core i5 and core i7 cpus pull ahead in their now offering around 10% more frames than the r3 1300 x then with the GT X 1080 installed the 77 ok races ahead and is now 19 percent faster than the core i5 7400 almost 30% faster than the G 45 60 like World of Tanks Counter Strike global Offensive doesn't utilize multi-core CPUs very well and the 77 error case superior IPC performance and higher operating frequencies do give it a significant advantage in this title even with the gtx 1060 installed we see a rather large difference in performance between the core i5 and core i7 cpus when compared to the pentium and rising cpus then once we get up to the gtx 1070 and 1080 graphics cards the cpu bottlenecking is quite extreme with most of the CPUs tested before wrapping things up let's see how the horizon 3 am rising 5 CPUs compared to the 7700 ok once overclocked to be clear we're not overclocking the 77 or ok just the rise in CPUs the 1300 X has been replaced with an overclocked r3 1200 and that's been clocked at 4 gigahertz while the core i5 7400 has been replaced with the old Sandy Bridge Core i5 2500k which has been clocked at a very mild 4.4 gigahertz the rosen 5 1400 has now also been overclocked to 4 gigahertz while the 77 hurricane as I said has been left untouched and of course so too has the locked Pentium G 45 60 first looking at battlefield one we see that we are again GPU limited with the GTX 1060 but as we move to the gtx 1070 the midfield looks a bit more competitive that said even with the overclock the rise in CPUs are still slower than what we saw previously with the core i5 7400 at least in this particular title that said with the GT X 1080 installed the rise in CPUs now somehow come back and pull ahead of where the i5 7400 was and they're also now not a great deal slower than the 77 ok so that's interesting the r5 1400 for example is now just 10% slower which isn't bad given its price here we see that when testing with overwatch that overclocking the horizon 5 1400 really helped it close the gap on the 77 okay with the gtx 1070 the quad core rise and 3 still struggles and in fact the overclocked r3 1200 is no faster than what we saw with the stock r3 1300 X and this is down to the fact that xf r is disabled once we have a clock however once again we see that with the gtx 10a the rise and cpus actually do better which is quite surprising at least when compared to what we saw with the stock figures previously the r3 1200 at 4 gigahertz is now 6 percent faster than the r3 1300 x when comparing the 1% low result even so these CPUs are clearly limiting the GTX 1080s performance as the 77 RK was able to extract noticeably more frames the last game that I'm going to look at with these overclocked results is World of Tanks and here the overclock rise and CPUs are able to catch up though they aren't able to match the stock 77 or acade still as expected overclocking the rise in 3 & 5 CPUs to 4 gigahertz does reduce the bottleneck but even so in these older titles they still struggle to get the most out of even the gtx 1070 so how bad is bottlenecking in 2017 I hear you ask or was that that's what the video is asking anyway well that all depends on how bad you are at pairing appropriate hardware any experienced system builder will tale it's important to build a balanced system especially if you want to receive the maximum bang for your buck trying a future-proof though that's generally just a waste of money you're best off looking at what hardware combos deliver the best results right now and just go from there for example if you're addicted to overwatch and this is the game that you'll be playing primarily for the forseeable but you can only afford a geforce gtx 1070 for example and i say only because it is a $400 GPU or not the $700 gtx 1080i but yes i get that it is still a very expensive GPU anyway if the gtx 1070 is as good as it's possibly going to get for you spending over $300 on the 77 or okay might not be a smart choice when the $160 isin 5 1400 delivers a very similar experience for a fraction of the price for those playing overwatch though this also appears to be true for most other titles as well once overclocked they are both able to get the most out of the gtx 1070 in this cpu intensive title but what about the future I hear you say we saw that even when overclocked the r5 1400 was still 10% slower than the 77 are ok with the GTX 1080 and that margin will no doubt grow with the 1080i and faster GPUs in the future I guess I'd first question how many of you stretching your budget for something like a gtx 10:17 now I'm going to turn around and upgrade the GPU within a 24 month period I'd say almost none of you will do that so in 3 to 4 years when you finally upgrade the gtx 1070 it's then that i'd evaluate where the Rison 5:14 hundreds at and potentially the m4 platform for that matter it's likely going to make much more sense to take the money you save now and put that towards an upgrade in a few years time rather than future proof now which will no doubt just result in more wasted money right now the 7700 K is the cheapest that's ever been as the 8700 K is due out next week that aside though at 310 dollars plus at least 110 dollars for a budget z2 70 board and say $30 for a cooler you've invested at least 450 dollars a smarter option right now might be to buy the horizon 5 1400 for example it costs 160 dollars put that on a be 350 motherboard for $70 and you've got about of $230 combo there that's almost half the price of what you would have spent on the 77 kay system and of course as we've just seen you will get a very similar experience with the gtx 1070 then as i said in two or three years you can look at spending the other half of the money you just saved on another two hundred and thirty dollar CPU and motherboard combo and that is assuming you can't reuse the a m4 motherboard for as m2 cpu for example and I'm sure there's similar scenarios you could make with an Intel processor certainly as I said after next week I'm just giving this example now because it's a valid example that exists right now and on that note of course all of this will need to be re-evaluated shortly when we get the eighth generation course abuse and of course we'll be taking an in-depth look at that very soon as for the argument that quad cores shouldn't be used for gaming anymore and that is the four core for threaded quad cores well you can see why that's a bit silly there's nothing wrong with the rise and three series or intel's dual cores with hyper-threading enable for that matter we've paired with a sensible GPU of course something like the gtx 1060 as we just saw those buying a $400 gtx 1070 or maybe a $500 plus GT X 1080 probably out looking at spending a hundred dollars on their CPU so if it's various kind of users that are saying quad cores are no good for gaming well they probably don't understand the budgets of guys buying $100 CPUs anyway the rise and three series along with the intel pentium g 4560 or really any of the cable akin skylake dual cores that have hyper threading enabled those CPUs are targeted at budget shoppers budget gamers and at the high end or the top of any budget gamers wishlist you'll find something like a GTX 1060 or the rx 580 if they were affordable at the moment anyway gtx 1060 type performance not a gtx 1080 and for the vast majority of games something like you know these affordable cpus whether it be the r3 1200 or a g40 560 they're really indistinguishable from something like the 77 okay when using a gtx 1060 and we also saw because the r3 1200 does it's an unlocked part you can overclock it we found once overclocked does hang in there pretty well with something like a gtx 1070 so there is a bit of future proofing available there well that's going to do it for I hope that helps those of you trying to work out what kind of CPU and GPU pairing will suit your budget and needs best yeah like I said that pretty much does it for this one I don't have anything else to say on the subject I hope you enjoyed the video like it subscribe if you haven't already those are good things to do maybe go back and watch episode 4 of upgrade my PC please that was a really cool episode if you vote you can win a naturally yeah very dings closed by now it closed yesterday afternoon so if you haven't voted you probably missed out on a really sweet prize but in two days time what is it set though something a couple of days time there'll be another episode and you better vote and win a really cool prize and that's global so yeah we've had a couple of winners around the world already and yeah so suppose in the meantime I don't really know what you can do with your time maybe you go back and watch a really long unboxing video or something yeah oh I'm your host Steve I'll catch you guys next time yeah I'll go third that was pretty smooth that outro