Ryzen vs Skylake Performance in XR/X4?

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Sat, 23. Sep 17, 18:21

CBJ wrote:...
In that context, the potential for AR in the space-game field is pretty limited, unless people start building cockpit-shaped gaming rooms.

Agreed.

However, the extent to which certain gaming and sim fans will go to create their own "AR" in their living/gaming room can't be understated.

I deleted a bunch of stuff nobody wants to read, so to sum:

AR is potentially huge, bigger than anything "gaming." It's destined to be bigger than television, bigger than the "smart phone", bigger than "books."

What we're looking at here is the infancy of true, realized, "expanded reality." The very first steps have already been taken. It's "already here" in so many ways. We've already accepted it and don't even think about how our lives are already incorporating it. And, as human beings, our imaginations will supply everything we possibly need to seamlessly integrate future elements into our own reality.

"Gaming" is just the tip of the iceberg and all the basic tech we need to create "AR" is already here. Whoever ends up breaking the current AR barrier and then successfully follows that up by firmly exploiting it will be the next "Apple", "Google", "Amazon", or "Microsoft." Truly.

Likely, it will be one of those companies that "wins" the AR game, at least at first. But, we must first come to grips with AR being ubiquitous before the full power of commercial exploitation of this technology can take place. (Consider the Google Glass experience and the cultural crap-storm that resulted from its release. We haven't figured out how to deal with it because it is really "that big of a deal.")

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Sun, 24. Sep 17, 08:29

Unfortunately I didn't word my question that well, and forgot to check my email because of work. >_< I am not currently concerned or all that interested with VR at this time so that is a non factor.

What I am trying to figure out is: While Intel has higher clock/ipc per core, Ryzen has more cores overall. Does XR take advantage of Ryzen's extra cores and perform better, or is there a limit to how many cores XR (and potentially X4) is designed to take advantage of, thus tipping the scales to Intel for overall performance?

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Mon, 25. Sep 17, 07:04

Honestly, if there is any difference, I strongly suspect you won't see it outside benchmark software.

Game engines have yet to go fully parallel, and when they do it will still be down more to how well the game code is written, not the power of the chip, as to how good your framerate is.

Post by **CBJ** » Mon, 25. Sep 17, 09:07

StormMagi wrote:What I am trying to figure out is: While Intel has higher clock/ipc per core, Ryzen has more cores overall. Does XR take advantage of Ryzen's extra cores and perform better, or is there a limit to how many cores XR (and potentially X4) is designed to take advantage of, thus tipping the scales to Intel for overall performance?

Some parts of the game engine lend themselves better to parallelisation than others. Those parts that do may make some use of extra cores, but the limiting factor will almost certainly be the speed of the cores running those that don't. So, the simple answer is that for these specific games you'll probably get more bang-per-buck from a faster CPU than you will from more cores.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Mon, 25. Sep 17, 20:31

Was there something about Vulkan? Does the choice of DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan have any effect on the possible amount of vectorization/threading -- theoretical level?

(Not that it really matters in the OP case.)

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Tue, 26. Sep 17, 03:15

CBJ wrote:
StormMagi wrote:What I am trying to figure out is: While Intel has higher clock/ipc per core, Ryzen has more cores overall. Does XR take advantage of Ryzen's extra cores and perform better, or is there a limit to how many cores XR (and potentially X4) is designed to take advantage of, thus tipping the scales to Intel for overall performance?
Some parts of the game engine lend themselves better to parallelisation than others. Those parts that do may make some use of extra cores, but the limiting factor will almost certainly be the speed of the cores running those that don't. So, the simple answer is that for these specific games you'll probably get more bang-per-buck from a faster CPU than you will from more cores.

Much appreciated for the info/explanation. Building a new system <6mo and trying to block out what to get/how much to spend. The last thing I want is a laggy X4

ezra-r · Post by **ezra-r** » Tue, 26. Sep 17, 09:25

I would not worry much in the socket wars between intel and amd, not until now AMD hadn't done anything of note in the last years and if you compare performance of the actual processors with those of 4-5 years ago, the difference is minimal.

The socket thing is just programmed obsolescence, they release new ones so they can make previous ones obsolete and try to make people buy the new ones when performance hasn't increased practically not much.

Why do I say this?

I'm still using x79, 2011 socket. The thing is not produced any more, marked as obsolete. I spent around 450€ in 2013 in a very good processor, the i7-4930k and which processors from today can beat it? Just a handfull and enterprise versions and some of the new Ryzen's just released, in fact, do you think you will buy anything now that will extract more juice out of Rebirth or X4 than my actual setup? Probably not, and if its better, probably not way better. So just get a good setup thinking in the long term, you'll be fine.

So at the speed of things, just get a good one with lots of cores, and you may have good use for it for many years.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Tue, 26. Sep 17, 21:05

I built my own new PC recently. I actually bought the bits for it last year, but my office was only recently finished for it to be installed into.

I'm not an expert on everything PC. I'm more into software than hardware, and what expertise I do have is generally in the area of clusters and really big computers, not gaming machines.

But I've been building my own computers for the last 25 years.

The bottleneck in performance is unlikely these days to be a chip in a multi core processor, not if you buy a decent one. Both the Intel and Ryzen are decent.

I wouldn't buy a Ryzen, but that's purely personal choice, not a hardware based decision.

Your bottlenecks are:

Ram: Is it fast enough? do you have enough? (you should always try to buy faster ram rather than lots of ram if it's down to a choice between the two things)

Motherboard: Unless you really screw up, bus speed unlikely to be an issue, but you if can, get a very good one. It doesn't need to be this years version, it's been a while since they've changed much year on year.

GPU: Get the best one you can afford, but as you go up the scale, the differences between models get smaller, so here it's best to be smart, the top of the range may not always be the best choice.

Soundcard: On board sound cards eat up CPU cycles, buying a dedicated soundcard with its own CPU and memory would ease system load and produce better sound quality.

And of course the game code itself can be badly optimised, thus running slowly anyway, so never base your build on performance for just one game.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Tue, 26. Sep 17, 22:01

jlehtone wrote:Was there something about Vulkan? Does the choice of DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan have any effect on the possible amount of vectorization/threading -- theoretical level?

(Not that it really matters in the OP case.)

On a comparison between OpenGL (ES) and Vulkan: Vulkan: Scaling to multiple threads

Yes.

mrbadger wrote:...Soundcard: On board sound cards eat up CPU cycles, buying a dedicated soundcard with its own CPU and memory would ease system load and produce better sound quality...

That's something I haven't considered in ages, not since I retired my old "Soundblaster" card. (It was probably a first-gen SB card, too!)

Most of these sorts of discussions about general PC builds and what to pay attention to aren't that different from the early days of home-pc building. I've built countless PCs over the years for myself and friends, so it's all sort of second-nature, a kind of "instinct" about what's important and what's not that important.

Besides all the stuff going on under the hood, new chip designs, sockets, multi-threading, OS considerations, etc, none of the focus in regards to general optimization has really changed in a long time.

The most radical, yet temporary, hardware shift/change I can remember was due to the introduction of the Voodoo piggy-back card, which handled 3d processing separately, taking the additional load from whatever standard card was there. It was... glorious.

(Darn cool name, too!)

Now, all that sort of stuff is on one card, more or less. SLI, is, perhaps, a recent innovation that should be considered, but it's really not functionally different, so doesn't require a lot of re-thinking.

IOW - When is the next, real, radical redesign going to come to the market that actually breaks the mold?

Post by **Terre** » Wed, 27. Sep 17, 09:16

People spend a lot of money on the CPU and GPU but neglect the most important component of any build, the PSU, buy the best you can afford.

Post by **korio** » Wed, 27. Sep 17, 09:24

Terre wrote:People spend a lot of money on the CPU and GPU but neglect the most important component of any build, the PSU, buy the best you can afford.

I was just going to post the same, for me the most important part is the PSU, buy the best you can get from the best manufacturer.

There is even a chart of the best PSU's regarding their components and manufacturer.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Wed, 27. Sep 17, 09:36

I always get the best PSU I can. The one for the PC I just built cost more than my motherboard and RAM combined.

Irreguler power throughput reduces componant lifespan.

I've had an entire PC die because of a cheap PSU (long time ago, before I knew better, in fact that's how I know better), not making that mistake again.

BigBANGtheory · Post by **BigBANGtheory** » Wed, 27. Sep 17, 10:25

StormMagi wrote: What I am trying to figure out is: While Intel has higher clock/ipc per core, Ryzen has more cores overall. Does XR take advantage of Ryzen's extra cores and perform better, or is there a limit to how many cores XR (and potentially X4) is designed to take advantage of, thus tipping the scales to Intel for overall performance?

I doubt the extra cores of Ryzen will translate to higher performance, an overclocked Intel is the better choice in 2017. Its XR VR you want to test though because that uses Vulcan API for rendering and will be closer to X4 than vanilla XR.

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Thu, 28. Sep 17, 06:47

korio wrote:
Terre wrote:People spend a lot of money on the CPU and GPU but neglect the most important component of any build, the PSU, buy the best you can afford.
I was just going to post the same, for me the most important part is the PSU, buy the best you can get from the best manufacturer.

There is even a chart of the best PSU's regarding their components and manufacturer.

That is not an issue. Been building/upgrading comps for ~20 years now and I haven't skimped on quality of anything in at least 15 years. First couple years didn't know any better =/ Just that, this round, I can finally afford to go past good mid range for good high range and water cool it w/ custom loop

BigBANGtheory wrote:
I doubt the extra cores of Ryzen will translate to higher performance, an overclocked Intel is the better choice in 2017. Its XR VR you want to test though because that uses Vulcan API for rendering and will be closer to X4 than vanilla XR.

Not possible for me, I don't have VR and I don't feel it is worth investing in quite yet. Would rather spend the money on a new HOTAS setup.

Post by **Tamina** » Thu, 28. Sep 17, 08:39

For me buying a Ryzen is a no brainer. More power, cheaper to buy, cheaper to maintain and more cores. Why buy an Intel?
I have no affiliation with any CPU manufacturer, besides my one and so far only PC and Ultra book both have an Intel CPU.

Although, it would be interesting to know which one is more suitable for the X-series.
@CBJ
Watching the news, some video game developers have increased their Ryzen performance by a whole lot (I think it was 30% or something like that) through code changes suggested by AMD.
Have you looked into this?

I find it very hard to find a suitable power supply unit. Some people tell you to buy 300 W, others 1000 W, in any case there are thousands of different manufacturers to choose from and the price tag goes from 10 € to over a 1000 €.
And when you think you have found one and ask others about their opinion and they tell you this unit does not have a dynamic Relais power link (invented right now) or something like that - or not enough cables or what so ever.
This is the most complicated topic regarding PCs.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Thu, 28. Sep 17, 09:43

I talked with some games lecturers on the subject of redirecting some games programming course students into my parallel programming module.

Apparently games programming just isn't at the point of using parallism enough really leverage things like the Ryzen and Intel offerings to their full extent, and won't be for some time. So for me it means at this time there's not much I can offer the gaming students that will be of use to them in the current job market.

In terms of game playing, not writing, at this point the core count matters less than the core speed. Someone has already said this.

I'm not a huge gaming expert, I just know some, I wavered pretty close to buying a Ryzen myself, those cores would have been nice for paralell programming coursework development. But I went with Intel because I've bought Intel since the early 2000's, and I'm honest enough to admit that 99% of the stuff I'll be doing on my Windows PC is gaming.

Post by **Tamina** » Thu, 28. Sep 17, 10:46

@mrbadger
I guess this is true for a high budget PC mainly used for gaming.
If I understand correctly, single-core performance for Intel CPUs increases with their price, while Ryzen has a steady single-core performance but core count increases.

Since Ryzen is a noticeably cheaper, it would be interesting to know at which price point Intel overrules Ryzen regarding gaming performance.
Like a line chart...

However I am not up to date. Did Intel already react to Ryzen, if at all?

Post by **Terre** » Thu, 28. Sep 17, 11:30

It's not just the game running, there are plenty of background tasks going on. I'm not sure those two extra frames are worth the cost penalty of an Intel system.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Thu, 28. Sep 17, 12:11

I only built my PC for gaming. I have a freaking massive system (that's a proper scientific term that is) for experiments at work, and a bigger one available for long term simulations, thousands of cores, and hundreds of GPUs. All of our HPCs (High Performance Computers) use Intel chips, but AMD haven't tried to get into HPC that I know of, or if they have no-one we deal with has taken them on.

I'd personally buy RISC over CISC (any intel type chip), as they have lower power usage and are slowly catching up in terms of speed. But they aren't really practical yet for gaming desktops. It won't be long though.

Both Intel and Ryzen are CISC, your phones and tablets have RISC. Those are much more efficient, and are in fact the dominent processor type worldwide.

I was hoping that Apple would switch to RISC chips for their laptops, but they haven't, and I needed to upgrade now, so I have another Intel based Macbook arriving today.

StormMagi · Post by **StormMagi** » Fri, 29. Sep 17, 03:31

Tamina wrote:For me buying a Ryzen is a no brainer. More power, cheaper to buy, cheaper to maintain and more cores. Why buy an Intel?
I have no affiliation with any CPU manufacturer, besides my one and so far only PC and Ultra book both have an Intel CPU.

Although, it would be interesting to know which one is more suitable for the X-series.
@CBJ
Watching the news, some video game developers have increased their Ryzen performance by a whole lot (I think it was 30% or something like that) through code changes suggested by AMD.
Have you looked into this?

I find it very hard to find a suitable power supply unit. Some people tell you to buy 300 W, others 1000 W, in any case there are thousands of different manufacturers to choose from and the price tag goes from 10 € to over a 1000 €.
And when you think you have found one and ask others about their opinion and they tell you this unit does not have a dynamic Relais power link (invented right now) or something like that - or not enough cables or what so ever.
This is the most complicated topic regarding PCs.

Newegg has a wattage calculator that is a good baseline.
https://c1.neweggimages.com/BizIntell/t ... Calculator
After that stick with known brands, personally I have used Seasonic for my last few builds. Enermax is another decent brand I have used. Haven't used them but Corsair and Silverstone are good as well from what I hear. Past that I stick with Gold/Platinum rated ones.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Ryzen vs Skylake Performance in XR/X4?