Intel Ivy Bridge Guide for Gamers

[Redaktion]

A Core Question. Do modern gaming graphics cards require a quad-core CPU to show their full potential? Many gamers will be faced with this choice when it's time to buy a new notebook. To finally put the question to rest, we have tested Intel's current Ivy Bridge generation with various games. Keep reading to find out if high end GPUs also play well with a dual-core CPU.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Ivy-Bridge-Guide-for-Gamers.81855.0.html

[Meteorhead]

This guide is excellent and among the few that should be a little more emphasized to the less educated gamers. Just because the top-top-notch Intel processor costs 120$ more than "just" the second best that doesn't mean it will be 50% better, but infact 2% at most.

What I would like to see is to compliment these tests with Quad- and Dual-core AMD chips to see how much impact Intel strength in terms of CPU bring about a game. My guess is that the benefit would only be marginal and the stronger IGP of an AMD would come in handy a lot more times, than the extra ??% raw strength of an Intel CPU.

Waiting for the extension of this test!

[Hræsvelgr]

This test was run with an highend GPU - only for big, heavy and expensive Notebooks. All on Clevo Barebone.
But they all are still build on intel-mainboards. So there is no way to get a notebook with AMD-CPU and so, you cant run a comparable test with 680M and AMD CPU

In the List for Processor Benchmarks, you can see, top AMD only reach i3 or kower i5 Power.
But i dont believe, that there will be any way, to get a System with High end GPU (no matters if nvidia oder amd) with an AMD-CPU

[GD]

Using single player in BF3 is no meaning...multi-player is really cpu demanding

[Kristinn]

You failed to test the perhaps most important aspect here, physics heavy AAA multiplayer games such as Battlefield 3. The issue of inconsistency can be solved by joining servers running same map, with same amount of players (preferably full 64 people server), and taking averages over long games. A long conquest game can last from 40 minutes to an hour. Taking the average of the averages from 3 or 4 such games will ensure through the Law of Large Numbers that the result is consistent. Such information would be invaluable to see if it feasible to use dual core hyper threaded chips with a moderately capable graphics card.

[Florian Glaser]

You failed to test the perhaps most important aspect here, physics heavy AAA multiplayer games such as Battlefield 3. The issue of inconsistency can be solved by joining servers running same map, with same amount of players (preferably full 64 people server), and taking averages over long games. A long conquest game can last from 40 minutes to an hour. Taking the average of the averages from 3 or 4 such games will ensure through the Law of Large Numbers that the result is consistent. Such information would be invaluable to see if it feasible to use dual core hyper threaded chips with a moderately capable graphics card.

Sounds nice, but i really don´t have the time for such long tests. Other gaming-notebooks and gaming-articles are waiting as well. A whole day just for Battlefield 3 is not very efficient  :)

[ava]

Very good article!
However, you could have benchmarked several more games in this comparison and one more mid-range GPU (say GTX 660M or ATI alternative) to emphasize the point. Hardly any gamer will look to spend enormous amounts of $$$ on a GTX 680M and complement it with intel's i5. Those that do get an i5 will chose a less expensive GPU such as GTX 650M, 660 or ATI alternative..

[Zax]

Thanks again. With the recent trend of CPUs producing more heat than mainstream graphics cards it's nice to see that 4 thread CPUs are still viable.

[AlexJ]

Very good article!
However, you could have benchmarked several more games in this comparison and one more mid-range GPU (say GTX 660M or ATI alternative) to emphasize the point. Hardly any gamer will look to spend enormous amounts of $$$ on a GTX 680M and complement it with intel's i5. Those that do get an i5 will chose a less expensive GPU such as GTX 650M, 660 or ATI alternative..

Nice article, i think the same, how you can compare CPUs power if all the work is taken by the GPU?
Alex

[HTWingNut]

While FPS may not be too different between quad and dual core, more demanding games like BF3 and Skyrim can show hiccups or stutters during gameplay. Only when you use something like Throttlestop to force Turbo mode all the time will they go away, almost completely but not quite.

[Eduardo Ballesteros]

Hi, my question is Amd A10 and Amd7970m cause bottleneck?
Thanks

[Florian Glaser]

Totally fresh: http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-MSI-GX60-Notebook.85141.0.html

[Klaus Hinum]

The GX60 review will of course be translated soon, in short, yes it clearly impacts the gaming performance down to mid range levels of a GTX 660M (for CPU dependend games).

[Oche]

I am sorry to be the guy that comments on an old thread but I was wondering how the power measurment was done? Do you remove the battery of the laptops? If not, how do you account for the power that is used in charging the battery? Is it the case that when the battery is fully charged it runs just on mains?

[Florian Glaser]

The battery was fully charged during the tests. Normally that costs no additional power.