C2D to a quad-core: worth it?

[PoweredBySoy]

I'm currently running an E8400 @ 3.6 and an ATI 4890 Toxic, but whenever I play on standard size maps I end up with a lot of slowdown and chugging. As such I've resorted to just playing on small maps, which improves my framerate quite a bit.

Almost all my video settings are set to Medium, with Terrain on High. 1680 resolution.

I'm not ready to upgrade my graphics card yet, but I've been looking to get into a quad-core for awhile now, now that games actually support it. Do you guys think I would get a nice bump in performance going to an i5? Albeit at lower clock speeds?

 

[civ_king]

IMO Core 2 Quad Q9550S @2.83GHz is good ($350)

 

[tokala]

I'm currently running an E8400 @ 3.6 and an ATI 4890 Toxic, but whenever I play on standard size maps I end up with a lot of slowdown and chugging. As such I've resorted to just playing on small maps, which improves my framerate quite a bit.

Almost all my video settings are set to Medium, with Terrain on High. 1680 resolution.

I'm not ready to upgrade my graphics card yet, but I've been looking to get into a quad-core for awhile now, now that games actually support it. Do you guys think I would get a nice bump in performance going to an i5? Albeit at lower clock speeds?

Lost of people are seeing that behaviour on DX10 hardware, including me Some even on pretty fast quadcores. But in your case it sounds worse than usual, maybe try another driver version?

And AFAIK, noone has posted core scaling benchmarks yet, so I would definately wait until it is confirmed that Multicores are efficiently used by Civ5. Your C2D will be roughly as fast as a i5 dual core at 3Ghz (without hyperthreading). So don't expect a big improvement, unless you can push an i5 to ~4 Ghz and/or the game scales reasonable good with more cores.

 

[spoooq]

Definitely do NOT upgrade until you see hard numeric facts showing it helps. Clock-speed still beats cores in many games.

 

[RRtexasranger]

This is a quick capture that I didn't of only having the game running for like 30 seconds playing one turn:



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Civilization 5 uses 4 cores, so there will probably a performance increase from a 2.83 Ghz Dual Core to a 2.83Ghz Quad Core, but I don't think the performance increase would be worth the upgrade. The only logical upgrade path would be to an i5 or an i7, but that would require you to get a new motherboard. You might as well wait for Sandy Bridge to come out.

 

[RRtexasranger]

IMO Core 2 Quad Q9550S @2.83GHz is good ($350)

I hope you didn't just recently buy that processor for $350 because there are much better i7 processors for much cheaper.

If you bought it a while ago when i7s costed an arm and a leg, then that is perfectly understandable.

 

[civ_king]

I hope you didn't just recently buy that processor for $350 because there are much better i7 processors for much cheaper.

If you bought it a while ago when i7s costed an arm and a leg, then that is perfectly understandable.

You would have to buy a new MoBo AND RAM

 

[tokala]

Civilization 5 uses 4 cores, ....

Apparently not. Add up the loads on the 4 physical cores in your screenshot, and you are JUST getting to two completely utilized cores. That's the second screenshot of an i7 system on Civ i have seen here, both look very similiar. This is not looking good for the advertised superior "scalability" with multicores

 

[merlinschmidt]

I have 6 physical cores and they are all at about 20-30% when playing Civ 5 (all settings maxed) with some stuff in the background... so you do not need to have that much cores for civ 5. Its not much slowlier with less cores, i think- although i was surprised that it tries to use all the cpus.

 

[tokala]

I have 6 physical cores and they are all at about 20-30% when playing Civ 5 (all settings maxed) with some stuff in the background... so you do not need to have that much cores for civ 5. Its not much slowlier with less cores, i think- although i was surprised that it tries to use all the cpus.

It doesn't. That's the windows scheduler for you, shuffling threads all over the various cores. What you see is the load averaged about something like on second per tick.

 

[Quboid]

The only logical upgrade path would be to an i5 or an i7, but that would require you to get a new motherboard. You might as well wait for Sandy Bridge to come out.

What's Sandy Bridge?

I have a C2D 2.4Ghz, overclocked to 3.3Ghz. I intend to ask Santa for an i5 or possibly i7. I was planning to get something about 2.8Ghz and overclock it to 4Ghz, I gather this is generally no problem with a decent cooler (I have a Zalman 9500).

I'll be getting a new mobo and RAM from Santa too. No idea what mobo, or even what chipset - do you even have a choice any more or are they all Intel?

 

[RRtexasranger]

Apparently not. Add up the loads on the 4 physical cores in your screenshot, and you are JUST getting to two completely utilized cores. That's the second screenshot of an i7 system on Civ i have seen here, both look very similiar. This is not looking good for the advertised superior "scalability" with multicores

But all 4 cores are used for processing the information, making the game multi-threaded. And it should be noted that the game I tested it on was at about turn 300 on a Small Map. I would imagine a large map or possibly even a huge would give those 4 cores a work out.

What's Sandy Bridge?

I have a C2D 2.4Ghz, overclocked to 3.3Ghz. I intend to ask Santa for an i5 or possibly i7. I was planning to get something about 2.8Ghz and overclock it to 4Ghz, I gather this is generally no problem with a decent cooler (I have a Zalman 9500).

I'll be getting a new mobo and RAM from Santa too. No idea what mobo, or even what chipset - do you even have a choice any more or are they all Intel?

Sandy Bridge is Intel's new line of processors (estimated to come in Q1 2011), similar to how Nahalem (i3,i5,i7) succeeded C2D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microarchitecture)

However, prices for Sandy Bridge may be high if the i7 taught us anything. So you may either want to wait if you think you will have plenty of money for a new CPU set up (new RAM, mobo, and CPU), or but now while i5 and i7 prices are falling.

Also there is AMD's future micro architecture called Bulldozer which is supposed to give Intel a run for its money. Which is also supposed to come out in early 2011.

 

[RRtexasranger]

Also, if you are upgrading right now, then get either the i5-750, i7 870, or the i7 930. You can simply OC to achieve those horribly overpriced vairants.

As for mobos, Gigabyte is always very good. I currently run the Gigabyte P55-USB3 chipset and I couldn't be happier.

 

[Quboid]

Thanks.

Can I upgrade to a low end i5 or even i3, and then upgrade again to a Sandy Beach i7, without changing the motherboard or RAM? Or is it a different socket?

 

[civ_king]

Thanks.

Can I upgrade to a low end i5 or even i3, and then upgrade again to a Sandy Beach i7, without changing the motherboard or RAM? Or is it a different socket?

Sandy Bridge is a different socket

 

[tokala]

But all 4 cores are used for processing the information, making the game multi-threaded. And it should be noted that the game I tested it on was at about turn 300 on a Small Map. I would imagine a large map or possibly even a huge would give those 4 cores a work out.

Technically it is certainly correct that Civ5 is multithreaded, but it won't help you if there a one or two "big" threads and a plethora of smaller ones
It was exactly that situation that made Supreme Commander near unplayable on a single core, but more than 2 cores didn't improve the performance. It was the "simulation" thread that was utilizing one core to 100% after a while, and ultimately brought down even "monster rigs".
At turn 300 at a "small" map the game is already going full tilt, bigger maps would just require more RAM.

 

[civ_king]

Technically it is certainly correct that Civ5 is multithreaded, but it won't help you if there a one or two "big" threads and a plethora of smaller ones
It was exactly that situation that made Supreme Commander near unplayable on a single core, but more than 2 cores didn't improve the performance. It was the "simulation" thread that was utilizing one core to 100% after a while, and ultimately brought down even "monster rigs".
At turn 300 at a "small" map the game is already going full tilt, bigger maps would just require more RAM.

And more CPU, because more AIs

 

[tokala]

And more CPU, because more AIs

As long as the part of the map your are looking at is filled up with stuff, it shouldn't matter what happens on the other 99% of the map.
And it is unlikely that the AI calculations are efficiently multithreaded. I would be happy to be proven wrong, though.
Where are the screenshots with fully utilized multicores?

 

[civ_king]

As long as the part of the map your are looking at is filled up with stuff, it shouldn't matter what happens on the other 99% of the map.
And it is unlikely that the AI calculations are efficiently multithreaded. I would be happy to be proven wrong, though.
Where are the screenshots with fully utilized multicores?

Civ V is unoptimized just like Civ IV vanilla