Gaming Benchmarks
In the past we looked at gaming benchmarks through slightly rose colored glasses by utilizing two basic resolutions: 720P and 1080P. Due to Haswell-E’s targeting of enthusiasts who want to push their systems to extreme lengths, we upped the ante this time around and moved on to 1440P. With the advent of 4K into more affordable price points, many are predicting 1440P monitors will soon become as popular as their 1080P counterparts. Whether or not that comes to pass remains to be seen.
At 1440P with every single possible detail setting at its highest value, the GPU will likely take precedence over the processor unless a game truly supports multi threaded performance optimizations. However, with these things being said, we feel this will give you an accurate idea of how the i7-5960X stacks up against the competition in a critical metric. We are using a GTX 780 Ti for these comparisons.
Another addition here is Futuremark’s newest iteration of 3DMark.
We may as well discuss 3DMark right away. This program once again puts the onus on the GPU but it also gives higher marks to higher core count processors which is slightly erroneous. As can be seen by the actual in-game results, clock speeds have more to do with in-game performance than core count.
Speaking of clock speeds, they are what ultimately leaves the i7-5960X flat footed. Intel’s latest CPU just can’t compete with their own Haswell chips and Z97 motherboards when using a single GPU and this will likely carry over into multi GPU domains as well. The current crop of games doesn’t take advantage of more than six concurrent threads so most of the i7-5960X’s potential goes to waste.
Gaming Benchmarks
In the past we looked at gaming benchmarks through slightly rose colored glasses by utilizing two basic resolutions: 720P and 1080P. Due to Haswell-E’s targeting of enthusiasts who want to push their systems to extreme lengths, we upped the ante this time around and moved on to 1440P. With the advent of 4K into more affordable price points, many are predicting 1440P monitors will soon become as popular as their 1080P counterparts. Whether or not that comes to pass remains to be seen.
At 1440P with every single possible detail setting at its highest value, the GPU will likely take precedence over the processor unless a game truly supports multi threaded performance optimizations. However, with these things being said, we feel this will give you an accurate idea of how the i7-5960X stacks up against the competition in a critical metric. We are using a GTX 780 Ti for these comparisons.
Another addition here is Futuremark’s newest iteration of 3DMark.
We may as well discuss 3DMark right away. This program once again puts the onus on the GPU but it also gives higher marks to higher core count processors which is slightly erroneous. As can be seen by the actual in-game results, clock speeds have more to do with in-game performance than core count.
Speaking of clock speeds, they are what ultimately leaves the i7-5960X flat footed. Intel’s latest CPU just can’t compete with their own Haswell chips and Z97 motherboards when using a single GPU and this will likely carry over into multi GPU domains as well. The current crop of games doesn’t take advantage of more than six concurrent threads so most of the i7-5960X’s potential goes to waste.