As far back as I can remember, the gaming industry, as far as it relates to computer hardware, has been on a steady, constant climb of improved performance and higher system requirements. Today, few things can push your PC to its breaking point—and sometimes beyond!—like games. We've previously looked at what optimization in games means, which is a great primer for this discussion.
It really doesn't matter how much money or hardware you throw at the problem, because a year later, there will always be newer, faster technology that unlocks additional features. Our Large Pixel Collider (and Maximum PC's Dream Machine) both represent the best gaming hardware available. With a price well north of $10,000, you'd think they could handle any game we might care to run, at 4K and with all the settings maxed out. They get there most of the time, but there are inevitably a few games where they come up short. The hardware and software necessary for max quality simply doesn't exist yet.
How we tested
Our test PC is very similar to our current. We're using a GTX 1080, which is the main element, but we've upgraded the CPU to an overclocked Core i7-6800K with an MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. This is a $2,500 / £2,200 system built to handle just about anything, with room for a second GTX 1080 if you're thinking about 4K, or if you want that 1440p 144Hz display to be put to good use.
So what are these games that can bring even the mightiest PC to its knees, and what are they doing that requires more processing power than a third-world country? Here's our list of the most demanding PC games currently available. I've tested each game in the list, running at 2560x1440 and (* mostly) maximum quality on a GTX 1080 paired with a 4.2GHz i7-6800K. This is a step down from the absolute maximum hardware and settings you might run, but running at 4K will basically cut the performance in half, and as you'll see shortly, that means nearly all of these games fail to achieve 60 fps. I'll report the average and 97 percentile minimum fps as well as the settings used on each game.
* Some features, like SSAA and even MSAA in certain games, are simply too demanding to warrant enabling. SSAA for example is equivalent to doubling or quadrupling the number of pixels rendered.
Crysis (2007)
Engine: CryEngine (1)
2560x1440 very high 4xAA: 72/33 fps avg/min
2560x1440 very high 4xAA: 72/33 fps avg/min
'Can it run Crysis?'
It's not the first game to punish high-end systems with extreme system requirements, but it's the game that kicked off a meme that continues today. That 20 billion dollar supercomputer is fast … but can it run Crysis? LPC is fast, but can it run Crysis? And so it goes. I just pulled this game out of retirement to see how it runs on a modern system, expecting to see some good performance, but either the drivers, or Windows 10, or the game itself just don't seem to care that nine years have passed. Crysis continues to be a hardware glutton, and even now it tends to run poorly at its very high preset, averaging above 60 fps on the test system but also routinely dropping well below that mark.
Back in 2007, running Crysis at maximum quality wasn't just demanding, it was impossible—there wasn't a system around that could come close to 60+ fps without dropping many of the settings. What was the problem? Crysis pioneered the use of several advanced rendering techniques, and it was one of the first DirectX 10 games to hit the market. The combination of new algorithms and a new API meant that it pushed the technology boundaries in ways that the hardware wasn't really equipped to handle. And yes, the implementation probably wasn't optimal. Crysis Warhead and Crysis 2 stepped back the hardware requirements (relative to what was available) without a major drop in quality, and while Crysis 3 (2013) continues to tax modern systems (64/47 fps on my test system), none of those sequels have pushed hardware at the time of release quite as hard as the original Crysis.
Hitman (2016)
![Arma Arma](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123777945/858851343.jpg)
Engine: Glacier 2
2560x1440 max (no SSAA): 81/57 fps
2560x1440 max (no SSAA): 81/57 fps
Hitman won't punish your system like some other games on this list, but crank up the settings to maximum and it can be pretty choppy—and that's without supersample antialiasing (SSAA). It's not just about the graphics card either, at least not if you want to push high frame rates. You'll need a good CPU, preferably with multiple cores, and then you'll want to run the game in DX12 mode to fully utilize the CPU cores.
Since Hitman isn't quite as fast-paced as other games, slight dips in framerate aren't as painful, and lower settings can provide a big boost to performance. But the bare minimum GPU you'll need to maintain 60 fps at 1080p 'ultra' is GTX 980/1060 6GB or RX 470, while at 1440p the GTX 1080 provides (mostly) smooth sailing.
Grand Theft Auto V (2015)
Engine: Rage
2560x1440 max + advanced: 64/43 fps
2560x1440 max + advanced: 64/43 fps
Grand Theft Auto wasn't always known as a series that could bring your system to its knees, and to its credit, GTA5 can scale way back on image quality and get much higher frame rates. But if you want to max out the settings, Rockstar has a lot of extra features that put the hurt on your GPU. Along the way to maxing out every graphics option, I enabled Nvidia PCSS (that's 'percentage closer soft shadows' if you're wondering), 4xMSAA, and all the extras in the advanced graphics settings. That dropped performance down to just over 60 fps with periodic dips below that, and it required more than 4GB VRAM, which is pretty impressive for a game that can run at close to 200 fps at 'normal' settings on the same hardware. Multi-GPU scaling is good, however, so high-end SLI systems can generally handle 4K at max (or close to it) settings.
Battlefield 1 (2016)
Engine: Frostbite 3
2560x1440 ultra: 115/89 fps
2560x1440 ultra: 115/89 fps
Battlefield 1 looks quite nice and can run well on a large variety of graphics cards, but while the single-player campaign isn't too demanding, multiplayer can really tax your CPU. In most games, a Core i5 processor will be the least of your worries, but in BF1 with 64 players running around, we saw framerates drop nearly 30 percent going from an overclocked 6-core 4.2GHz i7-5930K to a 4-core 3.9GHz i5-4690. That puts performance just over 80 fps average still, but expect plenty of dips below 60 fps during intense battles.
Games that make me say you should seriously consider opting for a Core i7 over a Core i5 are rare, but Battlefield 1 definitely belongs on the list. Note also that Battlefield 4 and Star Wars: Battlefront use the same engine, though they don't seem to be quite as demanding as the newcomer.
Far Cry Primal (2016)
Engine: Dunia
2560x1440 ultra + HD textures: 76/56 fps
2560x1440 ultra + HD textures: 76/56 fps
Despite coming from the same publisher, Ubisoft, Far Cry Primal uses a different engine than The Division (see below). It also omits some of the Nvidia-specific technologies, and the result is a slightly less taxing game. That doesn't mean it runs super well on every card, however, and with the HD texture pack installed our GTX 1080 manages to just about maintain a constant 60+ fps. If you've got a G-Sync or FreeSync display, preferably of the 1440p 144Hz variety, that's not a problem, but AMD's Fury X can't even hit 60 fps at the same settings. And at 4K, only dual-GPUs will get you there.
The Division (2016)
Engine: Snowdrop
2560x1440 max HBAO+ HFTS SMAA: 54/36 fps
2560x1440 max HBAO+ HFTS SMAA: 54/36 fps
The Division includes dynamic lighting, reflections, parallax mapping, and contact shadows, along with some Nvidia GameWorks technologies like HBAO+ and HFTS (Hybrid Frustum Traced Shadows, an enhancement of PCSS). I normally test using the 'ultra' preset, but there are quite a few features that can be set to even higher levels. For this test, I maxed out everything, including object rendering distance, SMAA, and of course HFTS shadows and HBAO+ ambient occlusion. The GTX 1080 scores 69/46 at the ultra preset, but adding in these other features drops performance by over 20 percent. At maximum quality settings, that makes The Division one of the most demanding games currently available, though you'll need an Nvidia GPU if you want to enable certain features like HFTS.
The Witcher 3 (2015)
Engine: REDengine 3
2560x1440 ultra w/ HBAO+: 53/40 fps
2560x1440 ultra w/ HBAO+: 53/40 fps
Some people complained that the graphics quality of The Witcher 3 was reduced between the preview 'bullshots' and what we eventually received, but that was probably done in the name of balancing performance against image fidelity. Because the game is still super demanding, especially if you enable HairWorks and all the other extras—which I did for this test. That drops performance by 25 percent compared to my normal testing (without HairWorks or HBAO+), and the GTX 1080 ends up dropping well below 60 fps.
One interesting fact to point out is that if you have an SLI setup, the in-game anti-aliasing (FXAA) causes serious issues with multi-GPU scaling, so you're better off disabling that feature in the game and using Nvidia's drivers to force FXAA on. Once you do that, a second GPU can improve performance by around 75 percent. Which means 1080 SLI is just about enough to run 4K at max settings and still get 60 fps.
Ark Survival Evolved (2015 Early Access)
Engine: Unreal Engine 4
2560x1440 epic: 30/20 fps
2560x1440 epic: 30/20 fps
Okay, Ark is still in Early Access, though it's supposed to launch before the end of the year—maybe. It's been around long enough now that I had hoped performance would improve, but much like players in Ark, it punches and stabs your hardware in the face, then stomps all over it with a giant dinosaur. Using the 'epic' preset, I could barely hit 30 fps, let alone 60—and it doesn't really matter whether you're staring at the face of a rock wall or looking out over a vast expanse of the island, Ark will run like a three-toed sloth on its way to a nap. You might think dropping the settings would help a lot, and the low setting certainly does, but even at 1440p medium framerates hover around the 60 fps mark.
There was talk last year of Ark getting a DirectX 12 patch to improve performance, and maybe that will still happen. But unless I'm mistaken, the game needs far more in the way of optimizations (see above note about staring at a rock wall—culling all the content behind the face of the rock should significantly boost framerates). And frankly, it's not the prettiest game around to begin with. Unless you have a pair of high-end GPUs (1080/1070 or Nano/Fury X), or a patch comes along that makes a huge difference in performance, plan on shooting for 30+ fps in Ark using the medium or high preset.
Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)
Engine: Foundation
2560x1440 max + VXAO + SMAA: 54/44 fps
2560x1440 max + VXAO + SMAA: 54/44 fps
If you've noticed that many of these games use Nvidia's GameWorks libraries, you might be tempted to think that GameWorks is equivalent to a game being poorly optimized. That's not actually the case (or at least you can't prove it one way or the other), however, as GameWorks is simply a library of graphics effects that Nvidia has created, many of them designed to showcase stuff that you might not otherwise see. Case in point is Rise of the Tomb Raider's VXAO, voxel ambient occlusion, which is the next step in indirect (ambient) shadow quality beyond HBAO+.
The problem with many of these effects is that changes in the way things render aren't always clearly better. Check out this, where VXAO looks like a brightening filter combined with bloom. Does it look better or worse than the HBAO+ image? I'm not sure I could say. What I can say is that Rise of the Tomb Raider is already a demanding game, and turning on VXAO causes a substantial 20 percent drop in performance, putting the GTX 1080 well below the 60 fps mark yet again. Note that VXAO is currently only supported on Maxwell 2.0 and Pascal cards, and it's only available in DX11 mode.
Ashes of the Singularity (2016)
Engine: Nitrous
2560x1440 max: 37/24 fps
2560x1440 max: 37/24 fps
Originally conceived as the tech demo Star Swarm to show the benefits of low-level APIs (AMD's Mantle at the time), the Nitrous engine, as it's now called, eventually got ported to DirectX 12 and became a real-time strategy game that can show hundreds of units on the screen at once. Under DX11, the number of draw calls will cause severe problems at maximum quality, and while lower settings help, even the 1080p 'standard' setting can punish systems.
I decided to take things to the next level, starting at the 'crazy' preset and then maxing out temporal AA quality, terrain object quality, shadow quality, and texture quality. This gave me the second lowest fps on a GTX 1080 of the games I've tested (behind Ark), but being a real-time strategy game it feels a bit more forgiving than your typical first-person shooter. What's interesting here is that, even with an overclocked 6-core processor, the CPU appears to be a significant bottleneck. Just plan on running lower quality settings on most systems and you'll be okay… maybe. A GTX 1050 at 1080p standard only averages 36 fps.
Arma 3 (2013)
Engine: Real Virtuality 4
2560x1440 max 4xMSAA: 42/22 fps
2560x1440 max 4xMSAA: 42/22 fps
Developer Bohemia Interactive has a reputation for creating realistic warfare simulations, and all that number crunching combined with the large maps means you'll want a powerful system. Arma 3 is known for being a system crusher, and it can make use of faster CPUs like the Core i7 if you have them.. sort of. The single player game isn't too bad, but like Battlefield 1, multiplayer takes things to a whole new level. I measured performance of 80/62 fps in single player, while on a server with 80 people on the island of Stratis, staying above 40 fps was a challenge, and dips into the low 20s were a common occurrence. Turning settings down helps a bit, but Arma 3 multiplayer doesn't seem like it's intended to run at higher frame rates, as even dropping to the low defaults still left my system below 60 fps in most areas, suggesting the bottleneck lies elsewhere.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
Engine: Dawn
2560x1440 ultra (no AA): 50/40 fps *
2560x1440 ultra (no AA): 50/40 fps *
The undisputed king of demanding games right now, selecting the 'ultra' preset in DXMD will consume your graphics card and leave it spitting out broken and flickering pixels. Okay, not really. But the game can take even the fastest GPU and still fail to come anywhere near 60 fps at 1440p ultra—and that's without enabling 4xMSAA. * Enabling 4xMSAA drops performance in half, which means a single GTX 1080 pokes along at just 25/20 fps at 1440p. You can forget about 4K ultra for now, as that would halve framerates yet again. A pair of Titan X cards in SLI might get above 30 fps at 4K ultra with 4xMSAA, though. And unlike Ark, the game actually looks really great—you can at least appreciate the level of detail and complexity being rendered on your system and think, 'okay, I see why my system is struggling.'
The secret to DXMD's GPU-killing performance comes via every modern graphical bell and whistle you care to name. Dynamic lighting, screenspace reflections, tessellation, volumetric lighting, subsurface scattering, cloth physics, parallax occlusion mapping, and hyperbolic refractions. (I made that last one up.) The good news is you can disable a lot of these features to improve performance, and not all of them make a huge difference in the way the game looks. Still, even using the low (minimum quality) preset on a GTX 1080, DXMD only manages to average 128/97 fps at 1080p. The GTX 1080 is about three times as fast as the GTX 1050, which means budget cards like the 1050 at minimum quality will only run at ~40 fps. This is the Crysis of 2016, using technology and hardware in ways that will tax even the fastest current system. Perhaps five years from now, we'll have hardware that will finally be up to the task.
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For more details on what makes a game demanding, be sure to check out .
Having a game push my PC to the limit and force me to upgrade is nothing new. For me, it all started back with Wing Commander on a 286 12MHz. My first PC (that I bought) was less than six months old when the game came out, and I suddenly found out that my 16-bit CPU couldn't do things that the 32-bit 386 would allow—EMS / Expanded Memory being the specific issue in this case. I sold off my still-new 286 and eventually dropped another $500 to upgrade to the fastest 386 I could find (33MHz), doubling my RAM in the process. The 486 was technically available as well, but to a 17-year-old earning minimum wage, that was like going out and buying the $1650 Core i7-6950X today.
What's truly crazy to think about, however, is that 30 years later, my current 6-core i7 processor is nearly 100,000 times faster than that old 286 12MHz. Moore's Law may be dead, but ten years from now we're still going to have significantly faster systems than we do today, which will enable the next set of ultra demanding games.
What games have you played that punished your hardware so badly that you eventually upgraded just to get a proper experience from the game? Let me know in the comments, and I'll see about updating this list as needed!
Watch Dogs 2, ARMA 3, Far Cry, For Honor
The Watch Dogs 2 results are a little confusing because despite all 16-threads being heavily utilized on the Ryzen CPUs, their performance isn't that impressive. The 6900K and 5960X crush the quad-core Core i7 chips and yet Ryzen doesn't enjoy the same gains. Obviously this is an optimization issue.
Ryzen isn't even competitive at 1440p in Watch Dogs 2, which is a shame. Again, hopefully something can be done to better support the new CPUs in this title.
Is Arma 3 Cpu Intensive Free
ARMA 3 isn't a game I really like to test but in fear that you guys might burn this thing to the ground I have included it. Despite poor utilization, the 1800X actually looks good in relation to the 6900K, though unsurprisingly the higher-clocked Kaby Lake and Skylake chips offer much better performance in this title.
The 1440p results are much the same though the 6900K and Ryzen CPUs are more competitive with the Core i5s here.
Far Cry Primal isn't a particularly CPU-demanding game and it doesn't utilize a large number of threads. Despite offering smooth performance out of the box, the Ryzen 7 1800X and 1700X are slower than the Pentium G4560 here, though disabling SMT boosts performance by 14%, enough to put the 1800X on par with the 6900K.
The 1440p results are more competitive and again with SMT disabled the 1800X is able to rub transistors with the 6900K.
I told you guys I would get a For Honor CPU benchmark done -- this counts right? Like Far Cry, this isn't a CPU-intensive game. That said, the Ryzen CPUs do rather well here, beating out the 6900K.
Moving to 1440p we hit a hard GPU bottleneck with the Titan XP so the results are very much shaped here.
Article Index
We decided to conduct thorough testing and try to establish an answer to this never ending dilemma: What is the Best CPU for Gaming ?
“Which CPU should I buy? Intel or AMD? What about overclocking, is there any use of it at all and if there is, is it worth giving extra money for a more expensive overclockable CPU?”
So many questions that need answering, and answering only one of them is a difficult task. PC gaming is on its turning point as next-gen consoles have been released, previous generation consoles are still here and will probably stick around for a year or two at least.
How does this affect PC gaming you ask , since game developers usually do not bother optimizing games when porting them from consoles, this usually means that games only use 2 CPU cores/threads, or in the best case scenario 4 cores/threads. And yes next-gen consoles have an eight core CPU however, if you have read our previous benchmarks you should know that optimization isn’t perfect with next-gen consoles and games. As long as old consoles are still here and make the majority of the market, improvements when it comes to optimizing console ports is not in sight. Most users are confused when looking to get a new CPU since it’s hard to pick a long lasting solution without the fear of wasting money, which is quite valuable in these troubling times. Not an easy time to pick a CPU, then again it never was.
Testing Methodology and List Of Games
Choosing a list of games to benchmark and the pre-sets to use wasn’t exactly an easy thing since some games, like Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag or COD: Ghosts are capped at 60 or 90 FPS meaning that we have to max out the settings in order to decrease the number of frames and avoid that retched cap. This changed our initial idea of testing the games at a 1080p resolution at medium settings, since we tried to simulate the real life situation as best we could. 1080p monitors are a standard for some time now as well as most gamers not maxing out their settings due to incapable hardware. The same thing goes for 1440p since it would only decrease the number of frames per second, and therefore decreasing or even diminishing the margin between processors due to heavier GPU rendering, which is something we wanted to avoid.
Best CPU For The Money
In order to determine which CPU is the best for the money we included a novelty into our testing procedure called Performance Value Index. After careful examination of the data we found that the i3 4130 is the cheapest CPU in our benchmark that gives the most stable and consistent performance, so we decided to give that CPU a 100% performance value index.
We calculated index performance for the benchmarked CPUs while overclocked at 4.5GHz (only for those where overclocking is possible of course), since if you are buying Intel’s K or AMD’s FX CPU you will want to overclock otherwise you are wasting your money. But we also tested the CPUs at stock speeds in order to find out whether overclocking gives benefits in games and to which extent.
The only CPU that could have been overclocked but wasn’t, is AMD’s FX 8320. Our sample could not reach more than 4.2GHz which is slightly better than the default frequency of the CPU running at 3.5GHz (4GHz turbo). Since the FX 8350 runs at 4.2GHz in Turbo mode there wasn’t really any reason in overclocking the FX 8320, since a FX 8350 gives exactly the same performance at stock. All of the other indexes for CPUs have been tested and calculated in comparison with the i3 4130 index performance value. Of course we chose the best prices for each CPU that we could find on the market.
These are the prices that have been used when calculating Performance Value Index:
i7 4770k – $320
i5 4670k– $222
i5 4570– $195
i3 4340 – $160
i3 4310– $120
FX 8350– $199
FX 8320– $140
FX 6300– $110 Get link vip.
FX 4300– $97
You will find a detail description of pre-sets and the testing methodology for each game we have benchmarked. Also we added a Performance Value Index for each game which was calculated based on the performance in-game and the prices in online stores.
Best Gaming CPU Test Systems
CPU | i7 4770K – i5 4670K – i5 4570 – i3 4340 – i3 4310 FX 8350 – FX 8320 – FX6300 – FX4300 |
Motherboard | Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5, Asus Gryphon Z87 |
RAM | 2x 8GB@ 2133 Mhz Kingston HyperX Beast : KHX21C11T3K2/16X |
HDD/SSD | 2 x Intel 520 Series 240 GB |
GPU | GTX770 4GB |
Monitor | Shimian QH270-IPSMS 2560x1440p 27″ |
PSU | Thermaltake ToughPower XT 775W |
OS | Windows 8.1 |
Starcraft 2 CPU Benchmark
For benching Starcraft 2 we used Unit Tester 0.97. This mod is very useful for players who want to perfect their in-game combat skills but it is also useful for benchmarking since you can put a large amount of units to collide. We decided to test one of the most extreme situations that you will ever encounter in Starcraft 2, 125 Zealots and 25 Medivacs on each side which gives a total of 250 active units. Of course all of that was run at Extreme settings as you can see from the image. Most of the time Starcraft 2 is not a demanding game and can run on pretty much any CPU locked at 60 FPS, however we wanted to investigate how CPUs behave in some of the most stressful situations possible and we believe we found the right measure. This scenario is likely to happen in 4 vs 4 large scale battles.
Starcraft 2 Min-Avg-Max FPS
Starcraft 2 Average Frametimes
As you can see from the frame rates and frametimings, AMD’s CPUs are sluggish, even the overclocked ones. It is interesting that the i3 CPUs handle the game quite well, not as well as a more expensive i5 or i7 CPU but, the performance is stable. Of course Intel’s i7 4770k and i5 4670k overclocked at 4.5GHz give the best performance and the gameplay with these CPUs is as smooth as butter.
Starcraft 2 CPU Performance Index Value
However, when we turn to the performance index and what you are getting for your money the situation is different. The i3 4340, FX 4300 4.5GHz and i5 4670k are all at a 78% index performance value in terms of frames/price. But as you can see horrible frame timings with AMD’s CPUs make them less attractive.
ARMA 3 CPU Benchmark
ARMA 3 is one of the most CPU intensive games on the market since it features 2 islands, Altis (270 square kilometers) and Stratis (20 square kilometers). Having huge maps with a viewing distance of up to 20 km is a massive hit on CPU performance. Testing ARMA 3 in MP surroundings was not possible due to inconsistent frame rates with all CPUs. In that light we went for free strolling and running across the island of Stratis. Even in that scenario Arma showed to be a very demanding piece of software.
ARMA 3 Min-Avg-Max FPS
ARMA 3 Average Frametimes
Intel’s CPUs take the crown again when it comes to performance and the difference is substantial. This is one more game where it’s clearly shown that although being very CPU intensive, having more cores or threads doesn’t make much of a difference (if any). AMD’s FX 8350 and Intel’s i7s do a better job than their slower and less expensive counterparts.When it comes to frame rating Intel again does it better, although 10ms average frametimes for AMD is not a bad result.
ARMA 3 CPU Performance Index Value
In our performance value index only the FX 6300 and FX 4300 both overclocked at 4.5GHz can compete with the i3 4130 in terms of price/performance. If you want the best performance and you have enough money an i5 4670k is as good as it gets and buying an i7 CPU will not give you many benefits.
Call Of Duty: Ghosts CPU Benchmark
Call of Duty: Ghosts is one of the games that come with capped FPS. Around 90 FPS is the most you will get out of this game. This is strange since this is a competitive game, where people use 120Hz monitors and 120 FPS is a must. Our initial idea was to test all of the first person shooter games at medium settings in order to get the performance that is most widely used amongst gamers. However with COD: Ghosts we had to make an exception and test on the highest possible settings in order to avoid that unfortunate FPS cap. Also check out our COD:Ghosts Benchmark .
Call Of Duty : Ghosts Min-Avg-Max FPS
Call Of Duty : Ghosts Average Frametimes
The results are more or less identical, proving that you really don’t need an expensive CPU to run this game and get maximum performance. As a matter of fact you don’t really need to overclock. Call of Duty Ghosts is one of those games that can run on pretty much any modern CPU. Download yu gi oh pc game kaiba.
COD Ghosts CPU Performance Index Value
In this case, performance value index is just here to state the obvious. The FX 4300 is the best CPU you can buy for this game when it comes to the price/performance ratio. You won’t be wrong if you buy a FX 6300 or i3 4130. Buying an expensive CPU for just this game would be a clear waste of money.
Metro: Last Light CPU Benchmark
As we mentioned before, FPS games are tested at Medium settings in order to get the highest frame count per second as possible but still keep good image quality. Metro: Last Light is also one of the most demanding games on the market and it’s here to set an example on how CPU power hungry a single player FPS game can get.
Metro: Last Light Min-Avg-Max FPS
Metro: Last Light Average Frametimes
This is one of the rare instances where the i3 CPUs didn’t perform very well. The FX 6300 beats them on stock clocks as well as when overclocked. The optimization in this game is good, but isn’t perfect. The i7 4770k does better than any other CPU, especially when overclocked but the difference is marginal vs the i5 4670k.
Metro: Last Light CPU Performance Index Value
The numbers speak for themselves. The FX 6300 gives the best value for money on Metro Last Light. The FX 4300 also behaves well in terms of frames but just plain horribly when it comes to frame rating, so it is best to skip this CPU. The i3 and FX 8320 (on stock) give the best ratio in terms of price and performance on one hand and in-game smoothness on the other. For those who want the best performance, an i5 4670k is all you need, since once again the performance index values indicate that the i7 4770k is a waste of money.
Assassin’s Creed 4 : Black Flag CPU Benchmark
If you have ever played any Assassin’s Creed game you should know this game needs a lot of CPU power since there’s a large amount of AI swarming the streets. However, as we said the game is capped at 60FPS, so maxing out the setting to avoid the barrier was a necessity once again. This franchise has been notorious when it comes to optimization (well, not as bad as GTA, for example). It required powerful single core performance on one hand but it was completely rubbish when it comes to using CPUs with more cores. As with Starcraft 2, good per core performance in this game is imperative. Also check out our AC4 Benchmark.
AC4 Min-Avg-Max FPS
AC4 Average Frametimes
Improvements needed in optimization are evident and, although the i7 4770k performs as well as the i5 4670k we are glad to see that the days when all you needed is a dual core CPU for this game are over. The i5 4670k gives the best performance in this benchmark and we see a quite visible difference when you stop looking at Intel’s quad cores and you switch to i3 CPUs and AMD’s FX processors. The difference isn’t that big of a deal though. The frame rating in this game is just horrible to begin with so this is not a CPU issue. It’s either bad driver optimization or game optimization issues.
AC4 CPU Performance Value Index
When it comes to this game the FX6300, FX 4300 and i3 4130 again give the best value for the money. Although the i5 4670k gives the best overall performance, the high price tag is something that keeps it away from the best buy ratio.
Sleeping Dogs CPU Benchmark
Sleeping Dogs is another open world game where there is a significant amount of AI which requires your CPU do to heavy calculations. This game is somewhere in between AC games and mainstream games in terms of CPU dependency.
Sleeping Dogs Min-Avg-Max FPS
Sleeping Dogs Average Frametimes
Sleeping Dogs CPU Performance Index Value
All of the CPUs perform more or less the same, however Intel’s do provide around 10% better performance. The i7, i5 and i3 processors give the best performance and we see a slight drop when we switch to AMD CPUs.
Tomb Raider CPU Benchmark
Tomb Raider, although a graphically impressive game, is more of a mainstream title when it comes to CPU requirements. That’s why we chose this game in our benchmark, since it represents a vast proportion of today’s single player games.
Tomb Raider Min-Avg-Max FPS
Tomb Raider Average Frametimes
As with Sleeping Dogs pretty much any modern CPU can run this game at maxed out settings without any hits on performance, assuming the person has a good GPU that is. All of the CPUs are within a margin of error, and same things goes when it comes to frametiming as difference doesn’t really exist.
Tomb Raider CPU Performance Value Index
Again, i3 4130, FX 6300 and FX 4300 give the best value for the money. This scenario is something you should expect with most of the games on the current market as one decent quad core/thread CPU is all you need for the most games.
Battlefield 4 CPU Benchmark
This wouldn’t be a proper benchmark if we didn’t include Battlefield 4. This is probably the most demanding game and visually most impressive as well. Battlefield 4 is still in its prenatal phase where even a simple sneeze can cause a game to crash but that did not stop us from benching it.
Battlefield 4 Min-Avg-Max FPS
BF4 Average Frametimes
If you looked at our previous Battlefield 4 Benchmark you already know that i7 4770k doesn’t perform very well. In fact, you actually need to overclock it in order to catch up with the i5 4670 on default settings. Check out that benchmark if you want to know more on this issue. When it comes to AMD processors this is the first time we see the FX 8350 actually performing better than the FX 6300. 17 patches have come out since we last did the testing and we are glad that things are looking better in terms of optimization, but the difference between those two CPUs isn’t that great to be honest. However the big improvement might be with the FX 8350 though it still falls behind the i3 CPUs and only manages to catch up when overclocked.
BF4 CPU Performance Value Index
This is one of the rare games where having a better, more expensive CPU isn’t such a bad idea. When we say that we mean an i5 4670k since it does provide the best performance, as the i7 4770k is very expensive and under-delivers. For people on a budget the FX 6300, FX 4300 and i3 4130 are CPUs worth considering.
Average Performance Value & Conclusion
Best Price/Performance Gaming CPU
Quite surprisingly (for us at least) the overall winner of this benchmark is the FX 4300. This CPU is the cheapest in this line-up and provides the best performance for the money. Whether it’s enough is for the user’s end to decide. As we already mentioned in the beginning, and you were able to see as well, the i3 4130 gave the most consistent performance and if you are not into overclocking, this CPU might just be right for you. We do need to mention that when you plan overclocking your CPU, you better be sure to have a motherboard with a decent amount of power phases in order to get a stable overclock. However, motherboards with a higher power phase count are naturally more expensive, which increases the overall price when buying a new CPU and motherboard (if you don’t already have some old compatible parts).
Best Budget Gaming CPU
In that light at the end of the day the i3 4130 is the best CPU for gaming for users who are buying a new PC and do not want to spend a lot of money. If you already have an AM3+ compatible motherboard and have no intention in changing the whole system a FX 6300 or FX 8320 sounds like a good idea. AMD should really think about some price cuts for their FX 8xxx CPUs as, because of the price-performance, they are not competitive against Intel’s processors. On the other hand users who want more performance and are willing to pay for it should consider the i5 4570 or i5 4670k since they also provide good enough performance for the money and the i5 4570 provides even more since you do not need an expensive motherboard to use all of its features. With the i5 4670k buying a Z87 motherboard with a decent amount of power phases is a must if you plan to overclock your CPU. If you don’t then you have bought the wrong CPU.
Intel’s i7 4770k Is Not Worth It Right Now
To state the obvious for the end, the i7 4770k is a complete waste of money for gaming at this point in time and it doesn’t look likely that things will change in the future. Yes, the next-gen consoles will bring multi thread optimization but that is something we have yet to see since the old consoles still make up a vast majority of the market. So it is expected for the transitioning period to be slow and to take quite some time. Therefore it makes perfect sense to buy a CPU that provides the best performance for the money and that you can afford, instead of investing into something that should be around the corner but in reality isn’t, and who knows when it will.
Mantle Is Something You Might Want To Wait For
One more thing we have yet to see is AMD’s Mantle, the new alternative to Microsoft’s DirectX. This could be the last chance for AMD to (kind of) catch up with Intel, although from what we managed to find out so far, performance benefits will primarily come in the GPU department. However, as we said, it’s something we have yet to see.
Mantle should be released in the upcoming days and it will be directly patched to Battlefield 4 via the Origin update.We will conduct some extensive benchmarking concerning pre and post-Mantle Battlefield 4. We have also added a graphics card article with it’s own novelty for those looking to upgrade their GPU.
If you have any questions about the benchmark please ask in the comment section below and I will be glad to answer.
Watch Dogs 2, ARMA 3, Far Cry, For Honor
The Watch Dogs 2 results are a little confusing because despite all 16-threads being heavily utilized on the Ryzen CPUs, their performance isn't that impressive. The 6900K and 5960X crush the quad-core Core i7 chips and yet Ryzen doesn't enjoy the same gains. Obviously this is an optimization issue.
Ryzen isn't even competitive at 1440p in Watch Dogs 2, which is a shame. Again, hopefully something can be done to better support the new CPUs in this title.
ARMA 3 isn't a game I really like to test but in fear that you guys might burn this thing to the ground I have included it. Despite poor utilization, the 1800X actually looks good in relation to the 6900K, though unsurprisingly the higher-clocked Kaby Lake and Skylake chips offer much better performance in this title.
The 1440p results are much the same though the 6900K and Ryzen CPUs are more competitive with the Core i5s here.
Far Cry Primal isn't a particularly CPU-demanding game and it doesn't utilize a large number of threads. Despite offering smooth performance out of the box, the Ryzen 7 1800X and 1700X are slower than the Pentium G4560 here, though disabling SMT boosts performance by 14%, enough to put the 1800X on par with the 6900K.
The 1440p results are more competitive and again with SMT disabled the 1800X is able to rub transistors with the 6900K.
I told you guys I would get a For Honor CPU benchmark done -- this counts right? Like Far Cry, this isn't a CPU-intensive game. That said, the Ryzen CPUs do rather well here, beating out the 6900K.
Moving to 1440p we hit a hard GPU bottleneck with the Titan XP so the results are very much shaped here.
Article Index
Bohemia Interactive today announced their plans for the upcoming PC-exclusive tactical military shooter game, Arma 3™. From next week onward, Tuesday March 5th, all are welcome to try out the authentic military gameplay and assist in the game’s development by participating in the Arma 3 Alpha. The Alpha will feature a limited amount of playable and sandbox content, receive regular updates and remain accessible until Arma 3’s Beta starts – which is expected in the second quarter of this year. The full and final version of Arma 3 is scheduled for release in Q3 2013.
Featured in the Arma 3 Alpha are four showcase missions (Infantry, Vehicles, SCUBA and Helicopter), a limited subset of weapons and vehicles, two multiplayer scenarios, the powerful scenario editor and modding support. The 20 km² island of Stratis, which is positioned right off the coast from Arma 3’s main destination ‘Altis’ (270 km²), will form the backdrop of the Arma 3 Alpha.
To participate in the Alpha, people can purchase the Arma 3 Alpha (24.99 EUR/19.99 GBP/32.99 USD) or Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition (39.99 EUR/34.99 GBP/49.99 USD) on Steam. Extras in the Digital Deluxe Edition include a digital soundtrack*, digital maps*, digital tactical guide*, and a Steam Gift of Arma: Cold War Assault (formerly known as Operation Flashpoint™: Cold War Crisis). Both versions include access to the Arma 3 Beta plus a digital copy of the complete game upon release. The price of each edition will increase once the Arma 3 Beta and final game become available.
Those who would like to sponsor development further, also have the option to purchase the Arma 3 Supporter Edition (69.99 EUR/59.99 GBP/91.99 USD) from Store.bistudio.com. Besides the additional Arma development support, this edition ships with all the extras from the digital deluxe edition, a Steam Gift of Arma X, all future Arma 3 DLCs, a special forums medal and the opportunity to have their names featured in the game’s credits. The full overview of editions, and their conditions, can be found on Arma 3’s new website.
Last but not least, Bohemia Interactive also intends to release a free, limited version of the Alpha, named Arma 3 Alpha Lite. The Alpha Lite will be available one week after the initial Alpha release, on Thursday March 14th, and does not include a multiplayer component and modding support. Access to the Alpha Lite is invite-only and can be obtained from people who have purchased the Arma 3 Alpha. Invites will also be randomly distributed via the Arma 3 social channels and as giveaways by selected media outlets. The Arma 3 Alpha Lite expires on June 15, does not provide access to the Arma 3 Beta and does not include a copy of the final game.
The Alpha has been announced and yet again we go to war, both in-game and trying to get the game running smoothly. Some people had massive performance issues with ArmA 2 whilst others had very few. The engine does suffer from a lot of performance issues however the users also have a few misconceptions regarding the performance issues like seriously underestimating how CPU heavy the game is. Hopefully we can work out most of the issues and help people get a pleasant experience.Featured in the Arma 3 Alpha are four showcase missions (Infantry, Vehicles, SCUBA and Helicopter), a limited subset of weapons and vehicles, two multiplayer scenarios, the powerful scenario editor and modding support. The 20 km² island of Stratis, which is positioned right off the coast from Arma 3’s main destination ‘Altis’ (270 km²), will form the backdrop of the Arma 3 Alpha.
To participate in the Alpha, people can purchase the Arma 3 Alpha (24.99 EUR/19.99 GBP/32.99 USD) or Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition (39.99 EUR/34.99 GBP/49.99 USD) on Steam. Extras in the Digital Deluxe Edition include a digital soundtrack*, digital maps*, digital tactical guide*, and a Steam Gift of Arma: Cold War Assault (formerly known as Operation Flashpoint™: Cold War Crisis). Both versions include access to the Arma 3 Beta plus a digital copy of the complete game upon release. The price of each edition will increase once the Arma 3 Beta and final game become available.
Those who would like to sponsor development further, also have the option to purchase the Arma 3 Supporter Edition (69.99 EUR/59.99 GBP/91.99 USD) from Store.bistudio.com. Besides the additional Arma development support, this edition ships with all the extras from the digital deluxe edition, a Steam Gift of Arma X, all future Arma 3 DLCs, a special forums medal and the opportunity to have their names featured in the game’s credits. The full overview of editions, and their conditions, can be found on Arma 3’s new website.
Last but not least, Bohemia Interactive also intends to release a free, limited version of the Alpha, named Arma 3 Alpha Lite. The Alpha Lite will be available one week after the initial Alpha release, on Thursday March 14th, and does not include a multiplayer component and modding support. Access to the Alpha Lite is invite-only and can be obtained from people who have purchased the Arma 3 Alpha. Invites will also be randomly distributed via the Arma 3 social channels and as giveaways by selected media outlets. The Arma 3 Alpha Lite expires on June 15, does not provide access to the Arma 3 Beta and does not include a copy of the final game.
The thread will run through the Alpha, Beta and then we should have some solid experiences to work from come retail release in Q3 2013.
Enjoy.
________________________________________________________________
OS: Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 SP1
CPU: Intel Dual-Core 2.4GHz / AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz
GPU: Geforce 8800GT / Radeon HD 3830 / Intel HD Graphics 4000
GPU Memory: 512 MB
DirectX: 10
RAM: 2GB
HDD:
![Is arma 3 cpu intensive program Is arma 3 cpu intensive program](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123777945/706065512.jpg)
HDD ( Alpha ): 10GB
Other: Internet connection and Steam account to activate
OS: Windows Vista SP2 / Windows 7 SP1
CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 / AMD Phenom II X4 940
GPU: Geforce GTS 560 / Radeon HD 7750
GPU Memory: 1GB
DirectX: 11
RAM: 4GB
HDD: 25 GB
HDD ( Alpha ): 20 GB
Other: Internet connection and Steam account to activate
Game is extremely CPU intensive and Steam can take up a few CPU cycles, here's how you squeeze more out of your CPU;
about performance drops caused by STEAM and how mitigate them
from my own experience this is what eats most CPU from highest to lowest
1. STEM friend-list (even while online, just closing friend-list saves most CPU usage)
2. STEAM chats (the more of them active the worse the overall load)
3. STEAM updating (as uses checksums it needs some CPU and I/O, so make sure nothing is updating)
4. STEAM overlay
5. STEAM IM (switch yourself to OFFLINE for lowest CPU usage)
6. STEAM website (if you keep website open and minimize, it still keeps playing the flash animations for example, so ideally you visit e.g. your profile page as last)
+ then set STEAM to lower priority than arma3.exe
Potential performance fix for some:from my own experience this is what eats most CPU from highest to lowest
1. STEM friend-list (even while online, just closing friend-list saves most CPU usage)
2. STEAM chats (the more of them active the worse the overall load)
3. STEAM updating (as uses checksums it needs some CPU and I/O, so make sure nothing is updating)
4. STEAM overlay
5. STEAM IM (switch yourself to OFFLINE for lowest CPU usage)
6. STEAM website (if you keep website open and minimize, it still keeps playing the flash animations for example, so ideally you visit e.g. your profile page as last)
+ then set STEAM to lower priority than arma3.exe
This is not guaranteed to work for everyone. For me personally it gave me a nice 10-15FPS boost on average, others also report a 10FPS boost while some don't see any difference.
On my 3930k, my performance in the main village went from 30-40FPS to locked 60 and a slight dip when looking at the airfield. It also removed my stuttering when doing quick turns. It didn't work on my friend's i5 2500k.
So I'd like some feedback on the fix, which CPU, is HT enabled and did it help the FPS at all.
Disable CPU Parking: http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility
Restart PC.
Try the game.
So I'd like some feedback on the fix, which CPU, is HT enabled and did it help the FPS at all.
Disable CPU Parking: http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility
Restart PC.
Try the game.
How to install ArmA on a RAMDisk: ( Thanks to BadTaste105 )
Game does a lot of loading off the HDD, which in some cases can cause stuttering or LOD thrashing - If you don't have a RAID / SSD setup, a RAMDisk might be a solution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CKbbqOpeIE
• Recommended System Memory - 10-12GB+
• ArmA 3 must already be installed on one of your HDD's
Other performance suggestions:
- View distance is the game's biggest killer. A touch of the slider can mean the difference between 60 and 40FPS. A good tip is to find a spot where you can see lots of mountains then open the Video options and drag the slider down to a view distance you find acceptable. Those massive view distances are rarely ever used, as they are far beyond engagement ranges. That will net you a nice FPS boost.
- Lower some of the options that has to do with the island itself, ground detail etc. just a notch or two. The difference is minuscule in some cases but will net you a nice 3-5FPS. Remember you can find a nice view and tweak the options 'live' as in settings change immediately.
- Don't lower the shadow detail. In some cases it can actually cause a performance hit.
Official ArmA 3 Site
Screenshot Gallery
Video Gallery
BIS Forums
Buy the Alpha (From BIS - Do that, they see maximum amount of the profit and you get a Steam key!)
Alpha Hub ( Place where the update information regarding the Alpha, patch releases etc. )
Revisions:
1.1 Added white stroke on text for NeoGAF Dark Theme users