OneMoar, on November 13 2012 - 08:45 AM, said:
you don't need a 2500k to run UT3 its got `enough` graphics gunt to run it and the AMD quad cores are by no means ~slow are they as fast as a Intel chip nope not by mile are they more then enough for pretty much any game/cpu/gpu combo on the planet yep ....
Also, since it seems you missed that part, that was not on a 2600K, that was on a Core 2 Duo E6750. Your best at that time was a first-gen Phenom (not a Phenom II), which did worse, and obviously had no such thing as an APU for you to crutch on.
The Phenom II brought things up roughly to Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad levels of performance. Then Intel came out with the Nehalem i7s; it's been all Intel since then. It's pretty bad when it took the recent FX-8350 to finally gain performance over the long-time AMD best game performer... a Phenom II X4 965, released in August (140W TDP!) or November (125W TDP) of 2009. So 3, 3 1/2 years to finally gain performance in games... yeah, AMD isn't a choice for gaming, APU or not.
Lastly, guess which CPUs are having problems running Planetside 2, a game notorious for being both a CPU and a GPU hog_ That's right, AMD processors! Some people there are lucky to get 30 FPS even when paired with a real videocard, and that Fusion you're touting wouldn't have a hope in bunny hell of running that game even on low with satisfying performance. Meanwhile, some people on there took our advice to swap out their AMD processors for an Intel, and they got IMMEDIATE 20-30 FPS boosts!
There's a saying I like to use, "Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go_" You pay $350, you get $350 performance. It'll run, but it won't run smooth and consistently, with lots of frame spikes, and heavier action quickly bogging it and stuffing it.
On the other hand, you pay $500 or so for a good Intel CPU (i5-3550, $209.99) and a good videocard (GeForce 660 Ti, $309.99) and I can guarantee you that any gamer would be pretty damn happy with their performance. To me, that's worth the extra $150, easy. Maybe it's not to you - that's fine, but I'm not going to settle for half-baked performance based on a good IGP being stuck inside a ho-hum processor, and I'm going to do my best to point out that for a little extra money, they'll get considerably more performance. Some will go for it, some won't. That's their choice, but presenting an A10-5800K as the "be-all, end-all, cheap solution for your gaming needs" isn't going to fly, precisely because it's not a be-all, end-all, cheap solution for your gaming needs. It's certainly cheap, but that's about the only thing it is.
I don't want to act like an Intel Fanboy, and indeed, I have owned two AMD systems before. I had an original T-Bred 1 GHz, and I upgraded from that to an Athlon XP 3000+ back in 2004. This is back when AMD was giving far better performance for the money compared to Intel, making less heat and making their CPUs run games very competently. However, times have changed, Intel refocused, and while they could manage to keep up okay through the Core 2 line, since the i-series, for gaming value, it's been an Intel. You pay a bit more up front, but you also get a lot more mileage out of it, and never have to worry "will it run games in a year or two_" You know it will.
I go for the bang-for-buck metric. The AMD is cheaper, but for a little more money, the Intel CPU gives you way more bang for your buck. Therefore, of the two, it's the better choice even though it costs more.
OneMoar, on November 13 2012 - 08:45 AM, said:
now setting the APU aside for ~450 you could have a 6 "Thread" cpu and a middle of the road gpu and beable to play pretty much anything at 60FPS or better
Again, $500 will get you a good Intel CPU, and a good nVidia GPU. They're not the fastest in the line but they're more than enough. Obviously, this doesn't factor in other things (RAM, Mobo, case, PSU, etc.) but if all you need to do is replace CPU, Mobo, and Case, you can do it for about the same price, and get way more performance. If you need to upgrade the whole system, then it's more in the $750 range, but again, the performance gains are worth the extra money, I feel, as is the peace of mind in knowing that it will continue to play games for several years.
My CPU is already about 18 months old. I don't plan to upgrade until at least Broadwell in 2014, maybe even Skylake in 2015. Can you say you'll get 4 years of top-level, all-things-on-and-maxed, and (eventually once I buy the monitor) 2560x1600 gameplay out of that Fusion_ Obviously not. And obviously for the latter, you'd need a pretty good videocard, too - a REAL videocard, not that currently-two-generation-old Radeon in the A10-5800K.
OneMoar, on November 13 2012 - 08:45 AM, said:
Go ahead, check the picture resolution. I'll wait here. I've got nothing to hide.
Your "over 90 FPS @ 720p" is worthless, because I bet if I would've toned it down to that resolution, I probably would've been doing something like 120. Though then again, I've also learned that over 60 FPS is useless on LCDs, so while I'll never go for framerates that high, I'll have much smoother gameplay.
Are you still going to crow about a 15 FPS higher framerate when my monitor pushed basically two and a half times more pixels more than you did (on a old GTX 285 that's now retired, at that) for that slight loss, which was still well north of 60 FPS_ I doubt it.
OneMoar, on November 13 2012 - 08:45 AM, said:
Amd Phenom II 940@ocd to ... 3.4Ghz iirc
4GB DDR3 1333
ATI 4870
Yours ran UT3 at 90 FPS at 1280x720, on a quad-core CPU, presumably max details. Mine ran it at 75 FPS at 2048x1152, on a dual-core CPU, max details. I pushed 2 1/2 times more pixels than you did, on a CPU with half the cores of yours, that ran 400 Mhz slower than yours, for a net loss of 15 FPS compared to you.
1280x720, Max Details, 90 FPS vs. 2048x1152, max details, 75 FPS.
Which of those do you think most PC gamers, in 2009, would want_
OneMoar, on November 13 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:
at the end of the day AMD can still game just as well as intel and thats all that matters
its also rather Unfortunate that the devs picked UDK ... intends of something like UNITY
unreal 3 will always be a rather slow lumber clunky giant with really pretty lighting
Though, obviously, you have a better chance on an nVidia card (it is a TWIMTBP title after all) and an Intel CPU, for reasons I've already said.
Edited by DarkPulse, November 13 2012 - 11:27 AM.