A10-6800K vs i5 for gaming

I am looking into the AMD 6800k for a value-oriented "good enough" gaming computer. When looking for benchmarks, I found this.

http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1180

I am not surprised that an i5 would perform better than the 6800k overall, and maybe even a little bit for gaming, but I am surprised at the vast differences shown in this benchmarking review. The i5-2500K he uses is at least 2 years older than the 6800k, and it has a substantially lower clock rate. Given that both of these processors are quad core, I would have expected to see more similar gaming performance.

The Bioshock Infinite results especially surprised me, given that Logan has often mentioned that the Unreal Engine 3 does not care about the CPU too much.

What I am looking for here is some explanation of these benchmark results. Are they reliable/accurate? If so, why does the 2500K walk all over the 6800K in game performance?

Number of cores, clock rate, and age do not mean a whole lot in the CPU market. There's more that goes on under the hood than these simple numbers. Their instruction sets are different as well as their architecture. The 6800K is an APU; whereas, the 2500k is a CPU. If you're seeking a more technical explanation, then hopefully someone with more knowledge will drop by.

And yes, those numbers are likely accurate. Look at this way: if we strapped a jet engine (HD 7970) to a tricycle (A10 6800k), we're going to have problems. It simply isn't an effective way of utilizing that engine's power. However, if we were to put a jet engine (HD 7970) on a jet (2500k), then everything will flow a whole lot smoother or at least that's what we expect. GPUs need specific instructions to function properly. The CPU must provide these instructions. If the CPU isn't providing enough explicit instruction, then the GPU will be restricted by the CPU. This is basically a bottleneck.

Are you going to use this CPU with discrete Graphics Card or not? Because AMD 6800k has better integrated graphics than i5: (Still for gaming purposes its better to have CPU and discrete GPU)

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_a10_6800k_review_apu,11.html

And for the price intel is about 50$ expensive. Usually for value oriented or low budget PC's go for AMD but depends a lot about your budget??? If you can fit Intel i5 for your budget, then go for it because its better gaming cpu. But if you cant then go for AMD like FX 4350/6350. Or Athlon x4 760K (which is the same than 6800K without integrated GPU).

And like DeusAres said for those AMD's that I offered dont go with 500$ graphics card because you get a JetTricycle :) That makes no sense for value oriented pc. Tell your budget and I will suggest a build?

The idea was that I could get away with just the iGPU in the APU for now and then probably upgrade to a good graphics card in the future (Like a year or more) and just use the APU for its CPU component, maybe overclocked. The budget would be around $300 or so, but when I started looking into the APUs I realized I might could get it for even less than that, given that I reuse some components from my old computer (HDD, PSU, case, etc.).

Since i5 tends to run close to 200 dollars, I really was not considering it very seriously, but that review I linked showed the 2500k beating the 6800k pretty strongly (in terms of FPS), and this surprised me, both because the 2500k is about two years older, and because I thought that as long as the CPU was at a "good enough" level of performance, it was not a huge factor in game performance - rather, the GPU was the determining factor. Yet, using the same GPU, the benchmarks seem to tell otherwise.

I completely understand that the i5 is a better processor, but I am really only concerned with game performance as I don't really do much of anything that requires a lot of power (other than games).

RenaldoMoon2: Your CPU suggestions have raised another question. What is different between the Athlon x4 and the fx4350? I would have thought the Athlon would be nearly as good, since they are both based on Piledriver architecture.

I'd like to clear up a few things here:

First, you do not necessarily need an expensive (more powerful) CPU like an i5 for gaming. Take a look again at the fps in this link: http://www.ocaholic.ch/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=1180&page=9

Notice that nearly all the games ran at well over 60fps regardless of the CPU. Anything over 60fps is basically undetectable to the human eye and when you run higher fps (70+) you'll get screen tearing, which looks nasty. The higher the frame rate, the worse the screen will tear. This doesn't happen on displays with frequencies higher than 60hz, but regardless, such refresh rates look just as smooth at 60fps as it does at 160fps. So does it really matter that the i5 can run one game at almost 200fps and the A10 runs the same game at 100fps? No. Typically most people run 60hz displays and if their GPU has substantial performance, you run with v-sync enabled which limits the frame rate to 60fps (matching the 60hz of the display) and the result is butter-smooth game play with no screen tearing.

Getting back to the benchmarks from the link; you'll notice there were only a few games that really stressed the system and frame rates dropped well below 60fps. Crisis 3 @ 1080p max settings, Far Cry 3 @ 1080p max settings, Sleeping Dog @ 1080p max, and Metro Last Light @ 1080p max settings. In all those instances, notice the frame rates are nearly the same, regardless of CPU. This is because, at those settings, the game is more GPU-limited, not CPU-limited.

Skyrim was a little different than the others. At 1080p max settings, the i5 was able to push 100+fps, while the A10 trailed at just over 60fps. But remember, anything over 60fps is going to look smooth regardless. So the A10 is still able to do everything the i5 can in terms of delivering close to or over 60+fps.

They used an HD7970 GPU in this test which is a fairly high-end card, even still today. The A10 was able to handle it just as well as the i5 in achieving 60fps+ and matching the i5 when the graphics were maxed.

It can be very misleading when you look at benchmarks like this. But when you look at the actual data that matters, the data that translates into what you actually use and experience, both processors deliver the same smooth game play. The A10-6800K does it for $50 less and the 760k does it for $100 less (half the price of an i5).  

Take a look at the following video. You'll see that the low and mid-range GPU's are still the main bottleneck of both systems. It's not until he steps up to the high-end GPU that the i5 system is able to significantly out-pace the 750k. But again, notice in most games with the high-end GPU, the FPS is over 60 with BOTH CPUs. That is what's most important. Not which had the highest fps. Crysis 3 is a tough one but even with the cheap 750k, frame rates were more than playable at 40+. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIT9uLDjZcg

 

delcolux, if you want to provide us with a list of parts you have and a budget you're willing to spend, we can help come up with a few build suggestions. Just understand that you don't NEED an i5 for great gaming performance. 

Biggest problem of the Athlon is that it misses L3 cache.

Core demending games like metro and arma are holding back by the cpu.

I had an A10-6800k with 2 radeon hd 7770's crossfired & I could run bf4 on low barely getting 60fps, I recently upgraded to an i5 4670k & can now play almost maxed out with rarely dropping below 60 fps

Yeah because the apu is not powerfull enough to run 2 discrete gpu´s in CF. you probably  had better numers with a single GPU.

Yup! & At first I was like 0_______o How is 1 better than 2... & then I found that out ^ but seriously I think the 4670k is worth every penny.

Yeah well if you realy on a tight budget, then an apu or athlon with a midrange card, would not be a bad choice. But if you realy want decent performance, i would say skip it and go for the raw performance of the AMD FX8350 FX8320 FX6300  or the intel i5.

But i have to say those new amd apu´s show some impressive things.

i5 if you have the money.  I have an i5-3570k and love it.  A10/760k for budget gamers.

Depends how you look at it. IMO the 4670k is over-rated and a little over priced. It lacks VT-d instructions and is only about ~2-5% faster than the 4570 in gaming and other tasks, yet costs $30-50 more (depending on where you live). Sure it can over clock, but that also requires the purchase of a better CPU cooler and a Z87 motherboard, both which add even more cost to the overall build. The gains from overclocking with Haswell, from what I've seen and read, are nothing special.

Depending on one's budget, that extra $75-100 spent on a 4670k + CPU cooler + Z87 motherboard (instead of a 4570 + H87 mb), is far better spent on a much stronger GPU, IMO. 

If it's within your budget, then by all means. :) 

I think the prevailing theme here is that in the games where there is a substantial performance difference in that benchmark link (Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, etc), it is because the 6800k can't quite feed the 7970 as well as the i5. If I am properly connecting the dots here, that gap would close substantially with a mid to upper-mid range card, like the 7870 used in the video. That is probably more in the range of what I would consider for a future upgrade for this system. It seems like the 2500k was and still is a fantastic processor, especially for gaming, but since I am going for a more value-oriented system here, I am convinced that the 6800k is the way to go, especially since I would not have to buy a GPU right away.

Your comments about the 6800k still getting 60+ fps seemed a little off-base at first because I was thinking that if I went for, say, a 7850 there would still be that 20%-40% performance gap on some games. Then the i5 would be getting 45fps (playable) while the same GPU with the 6800k would only get 35fps (playable, but noticeably worse). But based on the video I think the performance gap would shrink down small enough that I would not worry about it.

Thank you for your insight. As I stated previously, I was looking to spend around 300 dollars (or less), and since I have a case, PSU, HDD, DVD drive already, I think all I would need is a the APU, mobo, and RAM. Or in the case of an i5 or other CPU, a GPU too.

If you spend all your time looking at frame rate counters and benchmarks the Intel chips are the clear winners. If however the game play experience alone is the thing the choice is a bit foggier. I did a build comparison of a 6800K vs an i7 470K with both at stock speeds. First I wanted to know if the APU would bottleneck a bigger card so for that I used a Sapphire HD 7970 Ghz Edition with 6 Gig and fired up 3D Mark. Now remember I am looking purely at GPU performance here to see if it bottlenecked so the only score I cared about was the GPU subscore. The result freaked me out, the difference between the i7 and the APU was only about 1%, in other words the APU was NOT holding back the 7970.

Next I built both system and did some blind gaming testing. For this I dropped the video to a 7950 (I had two cards). No frame rate counters where allowed, the graphics where set identical @ 1080 and high in game settings. The games we used where Skyrim, Borderlands 2, Civilization V, XCOM and BF3.

With the exception of Civilization V the people playing on the systems had NO noticeable difference in their gaming experience. In Civ V the difference was they did feel the AMD system ( they did not know which was which at the time) was taking a bit longer over the AI turns, but the playability was still great.

Now here comes the real interesting thing, was not testing this but everyone commented on the actual OS usage, the switching between games and such and felt that the AMD system was snappier than the Intel. They had the same HD (Kingston HyperX 3K 240 gig) and the same memory, Kingston Beast 8 gig kit running at 1600. We could not quantify the difference but the AMD system does feel quicker in general use.

In general I think for a stepper system the APU is the better choice. You can build a solid little system without a discrete card and still be able to game at lower detail and resolution levels. As your budget allows you can add a nice graphics card and enjoy the extra gaming power.

 

i enjoy my 4670k but i had a decent amount of cash to build with. granted i have to get my tax return before i can buy my GPU but it still plays nicely

 

If you go with a 7850, then an i5 makes even less sense because there would be almost no performance gap. At 1080p, nearly all games would be GPU limited and thus you'd get the same frame rate with an i5 or 6800k. By the sounds of it, you already know this. I'm just re-hashing a little.

But even with a higher end card like the 7970 used in that link, when playing at 1080p max settings, nearly all the games were still GPU limited on both systems. Both the i5 and 6800k yielded the same frame rates. Skyrim was the only game where the i5 clearly has an advantage, but again, because both CPU's were able to drive that game at 60fps+, it makes little to no difference in terms of the smoothness you experience. Especially if you run V-sync.

I believe you understood what I was trying to say, I just wanted to make sure people understand that you can look at benchmarks all day, but when you consider the data that really matters (can it run at or just over 60fps?) then you will see that you really don't have to spend an arm and a leg to get great gaming performance. 

Also I agree with you that a more mid-range card would be a better match with the 6800k as it would yield about the same results but cost far less.

Can the 6800k drive a high-end GPU well enough to the point where it really matters (getting 60+fps)? Yes. Does it make sense to pair them up? No. 

Very interesting and thanks for sharing this info. :)

This is exactly the point I was trying to get at in my earlier posts. If the end result user experience is basically the same, then why spend $100+ more on the CPU end? 

Call me a hypocrite, I'm running an i5-4570. lol. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the i5 as it's takes anything I throw at it and laughs. The only two things I've seen that actually makes it "work" is BF4 and Crysis 3 (specifically the fields of moving grass). I had enough in my budget for an i5, mind you I did save some by going with an H87 motherboard and the 2nd fastest i5 which was $200, not $240. The cost difference between the i5-4570 and A10-6800k in Canada, is not that much of a gap, so I still have no regrets going with the i5.

Benchmarks are very deceiving and tend to make most of the Intel core i5/7's seem like the holy grail of CPU's. But when you look at real-world use and more specifically; gaming performance, there really is very little difference. 

These new Kaveri APU's with HSA and mantle could give Intel quite the spanking in the near future. 

Then you start to throw turbulence (mods) at your tricycle-jet (6800k+7970). What happens next? The frame rate likely crashes and burns.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree to an extent. Just thought I'd throw that extra bit of info out there just in case the OP was planning on adding mods to his games in the future.

I definitely agree with you here. I really wished I would have went with something like the i5 3570 or 3470 instead of my 3570K. I could have saved quite a bit of money. However, I probably would have bought an aftermarket CPU cooler anyways. Stock coolers are somewhat inefficient and noisy.

If you're not overclocking and your case has adequate air flow, the stock coolers work just fine. Mine is not loud at all, in fact I don't think I've ever heard it. Always hear the three fans on the windforce 7950 instead. I can OC the GPU all day in the node 304 ITX case and even with all that hot air being blow around inside, the CPU temps always stay well within safe limits.