CPU for 3440×1440

Can't stop thinking about this. I think I'm overtired.

But, yeah, what I took away from the youtube benchmarks is very much in line with my 40% better framerate estimate.

You say you get mostly 55 but dips to 30 and up to 70. Let's just call that 60 and 40% of that is 24FPS. You can see the Farcry YT bench @1440 is potentially 27FPS gain, so 24 is the conservative estimate I said it was. It's true the ultrawide is another million pixels workload from normal 1440p but but it's another 3M pixels to 4k which is an absolute shitload. More than another whole 1080p screen of extra work.(1080p is ~2M pixels) Which brings the importance of CPU back closer towards 1080p, lower res gaming. If real 1440p gets 27 FPS gain then 24 gain for ultra seems reasonable, in Farcry.

If the i5-9400 is as good as a 12 core, as shown in your original benchmark, then you can compare your CPU (the 4690k in the youtube vid) to the higher end ones when trying to work out potential gains from any new 6 core.

So, if you go from 55 fps average to 55 fps minimum that's definitely comparable to a serious weapon upgrade in an RPG. That's pretty much maximised damage rolls. You'd definitely ready for the next tier mobs with a new sword like that!

lostforever said:

I am currently around 55 FPS average and I have seen things dip to 30 FPS and goes up to 70ish. I am happy with it and if I can boost it by upgrading the CPU then why not?

Yes I am aware that I need new MB and RAM and I am factoring that into the cost as well. Budget is around £400 to £500.

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That's a nice budget for what you're after, considering that RAM prices are very low these days (you can get a decent 16GB kit for as low as £60 on Amazon) and that you don't really need a top of the line CPU.

I recommended you Ryzen 3600 and i5 9400F (I wrote 9400, but 9400Fis cheaper because it doesn't have an integrated graphics if I'm correct, and I assume you don't need that). From what I've seen they seem to trade blows in games so it's up to you if 3600 and multi-threading is worth the extra money. Ryzen 3000 is still a young architecture and from what I read about some people having problems with it. I was lucky with my 3700x, but it can go either way.

This is easy to resolve; install intel cpu monitor; play your game; see if the cpu is stressed. problem solved.

I didn’t use the 1440p from the video because for whatever reason he switches from a 1080ti to a 2080ti. Which obviously will be less bottlenecked and show a bigger difference between cpus.

When I get home I’ll see if I can’t find a better comparison because, well I like this sort of thing.:lol:

Anyway I’d be surprised if the real world differences is more than 20% across the board with a 1080ti at 3440x 1440. Which is 5-10 FPS on 50fps. Not worth it IMO. I could be wrong of course but I’ll look for some benches.

A good CPU is very important for modern gaming, but not because of the resolution. It's simply because games are finally taking advantage of proper multithreading - and that's why you need one with at least 6 cores - if you ask me.

Now, I personally use a 2560x1080 monitor - because I value performance quite a bit higher than resolution (once you reach a certain point).

The biggest downside with 4K and similar resolutions is simply that they're so very, very expensive in terms of performance.

So, I would always caution people to test out games at a lower resolution before going crazy with a new high-res monitor.

I wouldn’t trust this BriefDArt, he’s new and probably not very knowledgeable.

Although, by tomorrow he’ll probably have more post than me, only to delete his account by the weekend. :lol:

sakichop said:

I wouldn’t trust this BriefDArt, he’s new and probably not very knowledgeable.

Although, by tomorrow he’ll probably have more post than me, only to delete his account by the weekend. :lol:

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Now now, those are cheap shots

I didn't have many games installed but here is what I get

Everquest 2 (15 year old game MMO) - 1 core at 100% rest less than 50%. GPU at 30%. FPS Low 20, Avg 50, High 70

Greedfall - 4 cores 100%, GPU at 80% FPS (50, 70, 100)

DAI - 4 cores around 90%, GPU at 95 - 100%, FPS (80, 95, 100)

ESO = 4 cores around 50%, GPU at 40%, FPS (45, 60, 75) , crappy game engine?

I am installing more new games now to get better numbers but EQ2 and Greedfall are definitely being bottlenecked by the CPU.

What you could also do is to overclock/underclock your CPU to see what impact a 10% speed gain/loss would have on the fps and if the 10% faster CPU actually has a significant advantage of your CPU when it's 10% underclocked.

Also really old games could have completely different issues. I mean ending up with 20 fps in EQ2 really doesnt seem right. But it might be that the game just has a very odd setting which strains the cpu unnecessarily. I remember when I tested a Beta of EQ2 back in 2004 and remember that its graphics scaling options were…extensive. Wouldn't be surprised if there is some stuff which just breaks.

On ESO it seems to be a similar story. I just looked over a video on youtube and the first comment was "I can’t believe this game still runs like shit in 2019."

Edit: also fun in this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidj...much-needed-performance-updates/#189a3a7516d1
It mentions: "Finally, in Q2 2020, ZeniMax Online will institute what it’s calling “Cold Storage” for account management, more framerate improvements, and various other bug fixes."

I actually wouldn't expect any significant gains by upgrading the CPUs here in particular.

MMO's can hit the CPU pretty hard, actually. Maybe translating all those packets into people/enemies and trying to predict where they are if their packets don't show up?

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey burns the CPU hard because the fool engine keeps throwing out textures then re-loading them again. Re-loading means decompressing which means a CPU hit.

I'm surprised Greedfall is pegging the CPU. I wonder if it could have the same problem? If the game lets you lower the texture size, that might give a good indicator.

Two more benchmarks,

Crysis 2 - 4 cores 50%, GPU at 98% FPS (80, 100, 120)
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Ultra - 4 cores 100%, GPU at 93% FPS (23, 45, 60)
Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, High - 4 cores 100%, GPU at 80% FPS (35, 55, 75)

So here is the summary of what I think I am seeing…

CPU is bottleneck depends on the game however the 2 "modern" games I have are definitely bottleneck by CPU so the chances are any new games will also be bottle-necked by my CPU as well. However as to how much more FPS is hard to say by upgrading but it seems it can be anywhere from 10% to 20%.

EQ2 is an interesting beast in that its single core bound as its an old game. However its game I have been playing for 15 years! New expansion is out in December and chances are I will be playing it non stop for 2 or 3 months. It looks like game which can benefit from high clock speed on a single core.

So over all I think I can benefit from CPU upgrade but since the gains are not huge I think I will want to limit my budge down to about £300 to £350. This is for CPU, MB and RAM.

What should I go for? AMD or Intel?

Ivanwah said:

That's a nice budget for what you're after, considering that RAM prices are very low these days (you can get a decent 16GB kit for as low as £60 on Amazon) and that you don't really need a top of the line CPU.

I recommended you Ryzen 3600 and i5 9400F (I wrote 9400, but 9400Fis cheaper because it doesn't have an integrated graphics if I'm correct, and I assume you don't need that). From what I've seen they seem to trade blows in games so it's up to you if 3600 and multi-threading is worth the extra money. Ryzen 3000 is still a young architecture and from what I read about some people having problems with it. I was lucky with my 3700x, but it can go either way.

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See my other thread but I have reduced my budge down to £300 to £350 mark now!

I am tempted by 3600X which is about £40 more than than 3600 and I hope price will drop even further during black Friday! I have not looked too much into MB and RAM for Ryzen so do you know any good ones please? The reason why I ask is, I have read there are BIOS issues etc with AMD CPU and MB etc.

BriefDArt said:

A good CPU is very important for modern gaming, but not because of the resolution. It's simply because games are finally taking advantage of proper multithreading - and that's why you need one with at least 6 cores - if you ask me.

Now, I personally use a 2560x1080 monitor - because I value performance quite a bit higher than resolution (once you reach a certain point).

The biggest downside with 4K and similar resolutions is simply that they're so very, very expensive in terms of performance.

So, I would always caution people to test out games at a lower resolution before going crazy with a new high-res monitor.

Click to expand...

Welcome back Dart

I love ultra wide and I did try 2560x1080 for a while and didn't like the height so went to 3440×1440. I agree its very expensive in terms of performance but I love the immersion it brings

But it looks like I am going to upgrade the CPU if I can get good deal during Black Friday.

Kordanor said:

What you could also do is to overclock/underclock your CPU to see what impact a 10% speed gain/loss would have on the fps and if the 10% faster CPU actually has a significant advantage of your CPU when it's 10% underclocked.

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This is a good point however my old MB died about 2 years ago and for some reason I replaced with a cheap £30 ones. I don't think it will let me over clock it but I will check my manual again.

Kordanor said:

Also really old games could have completely different issues. I mean ending up with 20 fps in EQ2 really doesnt seem right. But it might be that the game just has a very odd setting which strains the cpu unnecessarily. I remember when I tested a Beta of EQ2 back in 2004 and remember that its graphics scaling options were…extensive. Wouldn't be surprised if there is some stuff which just breaks.

Click to expand...

I am going to do some testing with my EQ2 buddies who have better CPU than me and see what kind of numbers they are getting so it will let me know if upgrading the CPU will improve EQ2 performance.

Zloth said:

MMO's can hit the CPU pretty hard, actually. Maybe translating all those packets into people/enemies and trying to predict where they are if their packets don't show up?

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey burns the CPU hard because the fool engine keeps throwing out textures then re-loading them again. Re-loading means decompressing which means a CPU hit.

I'm surprised Greedfall is pegging the CPU. I wonder if it could have the same problem? If the game lets you lower the texture size, that might give a good indicator.

Click to expand...

I only tested Greedfall at max setting. I will try and lower the settings and see if things changes.

This is what I am thinking,

Intel 9400f - £130
MB - £65
16Gb RAM - £65
£260

Intel 9600k - £200
MB - £65
16Gb RAM - £65
£330

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 - £175
Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard - £63
Patriot Viper 4 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory - £64
£302

AMD Ryzen 5 3600x £215
Gigabyte B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard - £63
Patriot Viper 4 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory - £64
£342

Ideally AMD Ryzen 5 3600x if the price is below £300 for the combination…

Be aware that a "k" processor on a non "z" chipset makes almost no sense as you would not be able to overclock and therefore use the additional performance you are paying for.
I don't think you'll find any decent z390 board for 65 Pound

Also both Intel CPUs mentioned come with a stock cooler which isn't excactly good. And if you want to overclock the 9600k you should probably pay some extra money for a decent one.

Kordanor said:

Be aware that a "k" processor on a non "z" chipset makes almost no sense as you would not be able to overclock and therefore use the additional performance you are paying for.
I don't think you'll find any decent z390 board for 65 Pound

Also both Intel CPUs mentioned come with a stock cooler which isn't excactly good. And if you want to overclock the 9600k you should probably pay some extra money for a decent one.

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Thats good point thanks. I will need to look more into MB and it seems I need around £100 for decent MB.

Also it seems these Ryzen CPU runs very hot. 50C to 60 C idle and upwards of 80 to 85C at full load. Yikes! My current CPU 30C idle and 60C at full load even after 1 hour of gaming. I find this annoying during summer as my room is not well ventilated.

I also don't like fan noise as well....

lostforever said:

See my other thread but I have reduced my budge down to £300 to £350 mark now!

I am tempted by 3600X which is about £40 more than than 3600 and I hope price will drop even further during black Friday! I have not looked too much into MB and RAM for Ryzen so do you know any good ones please? The reason why I ask is, I have read there are BIOS issues etc with AMD CPU and MB etc.

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Like I said in the first post, forget 3600x if you can't find it for the same or lower price as 3600 non-x (which I doubt). Even on black Friday, if 3600x's price falls, so will 3600's. Here are the two pitted against each other. As you can see, the difference in gaming is negligible. Not worth £40 difference.

Also, one thing to note when pairing 3000 Ryzen processors with older motherboards (you listed a B450 board in your post) is that they are not compatible out of the box. Motherboards need a bios update before you can use them, and you need a working CPU to do a bios update. There are new B450 motherboards compatible with the new CPUs, released this year and they are labeled MAX (for example, Gigabyte B450 something something MAX). The cheapest I can find is this.

Ivanwah said:

Like I said in the first post, forget 3600x if you can't find it for the same or lower price as 3600 non-x (which I doubt). Even on black Friday, if 3600x's price falls, so will 3600's. Here are the two pitted against each other. As you can see, the difference in gaming is negligible. Not worth £40 difference.

Also, one thing to note when pairing 3000 Ryzen processors with older motherboards (you listed a B450 board in your post) is that they are not compatible out of the box. Motherboards need a bios update before you can use them, and you need a working CPU to do a bios update. There are new B450 motherboards compatible with the new CPUs, released this year and they are labeled MAX (for example, Gigabyte B450 something something MAX). The cheapest I can find is this.

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Thanks and good point on both. It looks like I will stick with 3600 if going with Ryzen and use that money for a good cooler as the stock one seems to be crap anyway