This one actually surprised us a bit but both Bulldozer and Vishera aced the Ivy Bridge chip. Since we used the same GeForce 580 card with the same drivers for all of the tests, we didn’t expect much of a difference.
Winner: Vishera and Bulldozer
When we saw the result of the physics test in 3DMark 11, we were even more confused. The physics test in 3DMark11 is mostly about the CPU and more cores generally win. But here we see the Intel CPU ahead, albeit slightly, over both AMD cpus.
Winner: Ivy Bridge
Our head scratcher got even weirder once we saw the results of the 3DMark 11 graphics test. Again, we used a matching set of GeForce GTX 580 cards which we verified was running at the same speed on each platform and the same drivers. In the last five or six CPU showdowns, this usually leads to the same graphics score since it’s all about the GPU. In fact, even though we have recorded those scores, we generally don’t report the 3DMark11 graphics score since they’re almost virtually the same. Yet both AMD chips have a clear advantage. If we had used an ATI card, we could attribute it to secret sauce performance optimizations from the CPU and graphics teams but we used an Nvidia graphics card. And we know Nvidia and ATI like each other as much as much as Tupac and Biggie. Frankly, we have no idea why there’s such a difference but it’s possible better drivers and/or better PCIe performance in the 990x chipset are the reason.
Winner: Vishera and Bulldozer
To see if that graphics performance translated into more real-world gaming tasks, we ran all three chips using the STALKER: CoP benchmark at 1366x768 resolution to intentionally not make the graphics card the bottleneck. We are running with DX11 mode on, but no tessellation and contact hardening shadows off. The other graphics settings are also at the default settings and we report the SunShafts result only.
Winner: Ivy Bridge
Valve created its Particle Test benchmark using the Source Engine almost six years ago when the first quad-core CPUs were introduced. We used to think the test topped out with quad-cores but lately we’ve been seeing this benchmark run faster the more threads you give it. For example, the six-core Sandy Bridge-E chips with Hyper-Threading slaughter all others in this benchmark. So would the eight-core FX procs take it? No. Not at all. The Ivy Bridge eats both AMD parts despite the higher core counts.
Winner: Ivy Bridge
Our final game benchmark involved using the popular Heaven 3.0 benchmark. We run this at 1366x768 with tessellation set to medium. Even so, this is a pretty hefty GPU-centric benchmark. Overall, if we had to assign a winner, it would be the Ivy Bridge chip, but not by much of a margin. It’s pretty close between it and the Vishera CPU. Even the Bulldozer pulls up some respectable numbers. This probably represents the best lesson here when it comes to CPUs and gaming: Gaming today is 80 percent GPU. If we were gamers, we’d put more money in the GPU than the CPU for most games.
Winner: Draw
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Comments are closed on this article
dakishimesan
October 23, 2012 at 3:20am
an honest question:
I was thinking, i know benchmarks are necessary to test relative performance, and we know from them that AMD does well in heavy threaded work, and Intel much better in IPC. Okay, but when you run a benchmark, it's just the benchmark and an otherwise idling system.
What if you had a benchmark that tested simultaneous normal tasks, such as virus scan/browser tabs/flash video/video compression/music playing/photoshop/etc all at once, the kind of stuff that we all do? When the system has more cores to submit thread work to, wouldn't that favor AMD?
I want to see that benchmarks -- all/some the other benchmarks running at once.
kevaskous
October 23, 2012 at 12:46am
Yes this is more promising of the ideals behind this design, we keep seeing these sort of improvements and this will be a winner quickly, next rig, AMD, for sure, support what I'm seeing without caring on the minor loss.
vrmlbasic
October 23, 2012 at 12:28am
I really wish that the benchmarks were interactive, that I could compare MaximumPC tests between this new AMD chip and older chips, where applicable. Specifically my older 955 Phenom II x4 which has served me well. A Phenom who will probably be put into another machine after seeing these benchmarks ;)
Say, what parameters did MPC use for its 7-zip tests? I fired up 7-zip and ran the benchmark with default settings and after one pass my "overall rating" is a mere 10,456 MIPS. This is less than half the performance of the new AMD chip, so I'm curious.
BTW, when is AMD coming out with a chipset to succeed the 990FX? It's getting a bit long in the tooth, AMD's FM2 boards are more feature-rich, their budget tech is beating what seems to be their flagship tech.
Neufeldt2002
October 22, 2012 at 9:32pm
Well, at least it is a step in the right direction. Hopefully we will see more steps in the right direction and get some competition from AMD.
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