Post your FPS & CPU's scores - instructions how to measure included - 5950x + 12900k + now 5800x3D!!

[spookywatcher]

I slapped in a 5800x3d. It definitely made a difference. Performance was better than the 5950x. I didn't do any real testing to see by how much I just did a quick peek to see what it looked like. But the main takeaway for x4 is four sticks (sheesh that's a lot of 4's) of ram at any speed above 2666 mhz was better than 2 sticks at any speed that I could get to which was 4000mhz. This is on AM4 I have no idea about AM5 or alderlake.

And I agree with Berni...SC is my new favorite game. Even with all of it's bugs. And the 5800x3d w/ 4 sticks (32 gb is a MINIMUM) performs better than 2 sticks again just like x4.

[Berni]

The CPU would either not run near maximum boost or it would have a high pipeline stall percentage (lower effective frequency) if running near maximum boost.

I'm monitoring my clock speeds, my 13900K is running at 5,8GHz in X4

A Cinebench R23 Singlecore score of 2270 confirms that too.

[spookywatcher]

The CPU would either not run near maximum boost or it would have a high pipeline stall percentage (lower effective frequency) if running near maximum boost.

I'm monitoring my clock speeds, my 13900K is running at 5,8GHz in X4

A Cinebench R23 Singlecore score of 2270 confirms that too.

Are you certain that your "effective clock" is 5.8ghz? You can find that in hwinfo. You'll see clocks and effective clocks. Effective clocks account for clock stretching.

[Berni]

The 13900k is on average 10-15% faster in games like the 12900K!
But in no case deliver 400MHz faster ram clock about 15% more FPS!

[Imperial Good]

But in no case deliver 400MHz faster ram clock about 15% more FPS!

6000CL36 -> latency of 12 ns
5600CL40 -> latency of 14 ns

5600CL40 has a latency 14/12 or ~16.7% longer than 6000CL36.

That latency is the minimum possible length of time the CPU thread stalls during a cache miss. It is stalled even longer in practice due to other latencies in the CPU.

That 2 ns difference wastes 12 additional cycles at 5.8 GHz. If this happens frequently, which is does due to the cache bound nature of X4 at times, that is a lot of wasted cycles that the CPU core cannot execute instructions.

For reference DDR4 3200 with latency of 16 cycles, the sort that was used in some of the older benchmarks in this thread, has a latency of 10ns. The only reason DDR5 is even remotely competitive in this case is due to other feature improvements it offers over DDR4 that help compensate for the currently worse latency.

[Berni]

But in no case deliver 400MHz faster ram clock about 15% more FPS!

6000CL36 -> latency of 12 ns
5600CL40 -> latency of 14 ns

5600CL40 has a latency 14/12 or ~16.7% longer than 6000CL36.

So you really insist that a 6000CL36 Ram delivers 16.7% more FPS than a 5600CL40 Ram??


Here are a few examples 5600cl36 vs. 6000cl36

Cyberpunk 2077: 5600: 184fps - 6000: 188fps - ~ 2,1% slower

Horizon Zero Dawn: 5600: 216fps - 6000: 219fps - ~ 1,4% slower

God of War: 5600: 244fps - 6000: 246fps - ~ 0,9% slower

[Eyeklops]

But in no case deliver 400MHz faster ram clock about 15% more FPS!

6000CL36 -> latency of 12 ns
5600CL40 -> latency of 14 ns

5600CL40 has a latency 14/12 or ~16.7% longer than 6000CL36.

So you really insist that a 6000CL36 Ram delivers 16.7% more FPS than a 5600CL40 Ram??


Here are a few examples 5600cl36 vs. 6000cl36

Cyberpunk 2077: 5600: 184fps - 6000: 188fps - ~ 2,1% slower

Horizon Zero Dawn: 5600: 216fps - 6000: 219fps - ~ 1,4% slower

God of War: 5600: 244fps - 6000: 246fps - ~ 0,9% slower

Imperial Good wasn't implying there would be a 16.7% direct frames-per-second performance uplift, but simply that 16.7% is the latency difference (which can be some fraction of the performance delta).

The way any particular game utilizes a specific systems hardware to produce a bottleneck is wildly variable. My personal opinion (and possibly Imperial Good agrees) is that for your specific hardware, specifically for X4, the reason you didn't see any uplift in performance is because you're dancing a CPU and memory latency/bandwidth bottleneck and the notable decrease in memory performance offset the gains in raw CPU processing power.

Also, CP 2077, HZD, & GoW are not the best games to evaluate hardware performance deltas with regards to X4. Factorio is a much better fit (see THIS reddit thread).

[Imperial Good]

So you really insist that a 6000CL36 Ram delivers 16.7% more FPS than a 5600CL40 Ram??

I said that the access takes 16.7% longer, not that it will produce 16.7% more frames per second. If the CPU has a lot of cache misses, then such performance difference could occur.

Most games, that do not try to simulate an entire universe, are designed to mostly fit inside the cache of CPUs at the time. This gives optimum performance but does limit their complexity. In such cases the performance difference between memory of different speeds, latency and even channel count will be small (6% or less is usual). However games or applications that have an active state set much larger than the CPU cache so have a high cache miss rate will become highly reliant on both memory access latency and bandwidth (as both are factors in total delay) for performance. In such situations performance differences of 15% are common.

This is why the 5800X3D can out perform the i9 13900k in some applications. Despite the CPU cores being a lot slower and it having fewer of them, the huge amount of extra cache can allow it to have significantly fewer cache misses in appropriate games and applications allowing it to stall less waiting for memory reads/writes and so averaging a faster execution rate.

With memory there are also other timings at play than CAS latency. As such the logic used to explain the issue above is quite simplified and there are likely other aspects which help contribute to slowdown. For example, memory writes are significantly slower for a processor than memory reads, meaning that an application that changes a lot of state will perform worse than an application that just reads a lot of state.

Here are a few examples 5600cl36 vs. 6000cl36

All of them are slower by some amount, which supports that memory latency, and memory timings in general, play a part in performance. They are likely less impacted than X4 due to having a smaller frequently used state set. For example God of War, the least affected title, is structured as a scripted action adventure game for Sony consoles and so has as good as no simulation outside the immediate player area and was highly optimised for consoles with very weak CPUs. Cyberpunk 2077 was the most affected because being an open world game set in a dense city it likely has the most complex, and so largest, state to track of those 3 titles. Cyberpunk 2077 is less affected than X4 likely because much of the background simulation is being faked, Elder Scrolls Oblivion/Skyrim style, rather than in X4 where the state of every single entity is tracked at all times.

Factorio mega factories should show similar scaling to X4 for the same reason. The only limiting factor to how big, and as a result how complex, a person makes their factory is how bearable the frame rate is. As such mega factories in factorio end up having tens of thousands of entities processing thousands of items per second, each being individually tracked to some extent with no trickery occurring to skip simulating parts of it.

[nemo1887]

CPU : 13900k 5.6 mhz
MEM : 32 Go 6000 mhz cl 40 DDR5
GPU: GTX 960 soon RTX 2080 Ti
Dense Emp : 24 fps

[Repli]

Hey guys, for those of you that are using laptops:

I7-12700H
Geforce 3070 TI (8GB, 150W TGP)
16GB DDR5 RAM (4800Mhz)

Empty: ~130 fps
with empire: ~60 fps
dense empire: ~20 fps

[LandogarX4]

[...], which supports that memory latency, and memory timings in general, play a part in performance. They are likely less impacted than X4 due to having a smaller frequently used state set. For example God of War, the least affected title, is structured as a scripted action adventure game for Sony consoles and so has as good as no simulation outside the immediate player area and was highly optimised for consoles with very weak CPUs. Cyberpunk 2077 was the most affected because being an open world game set in a dense city it likely has the most complex, and so largest, state to track of those 3 titles. Cyberpunk 2077 is less affected than X4 likely because much of the background simulation is being faked, Elder Scrolls Oblivion/Skyrim style, rather than in X4 where the state of every single entity is tracked at all times.

Here is some more evidence that memory speed and latency can make a big difference for a subset of games (of which X4 is likely one due to the massive number of simulated objects).

In The Riftbreaker, going from DDR5 6400 to DDR5 7200 results in a 11% increase in average frame rates, and a 15% increase in minimum frame rates. See this recent video by Hardware Unboxed: https://youtu.be/UNDxKQP1_FQ?t=528

[nemo1887]

CPU : 13900k 5.6 mhz
MEM : 32 Go 6000 mhz cl 40 DDR5
GPU : RTX 2080 Ti
Dense Emp : 33 fps

[Mountain_Puncher]

I feel like Mugatu from the movie Zoolander when he describes the lack of variance in the main protagonist's facial expressions. "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"
This game has one look, in my opinion, and that is of a snail.

I have gotten about the same fps results in this game regardless of graphic settings at 2560x1440 resolution. My hardware consisted of an i7 8700k with a 1080ti and 32gbs of ddr4 and then an i7 13700k with an rtx 4080 and 32gbs of ddr5 ram (6000mhz 32cl).

I perused this discussion and it caused me to recollect that I have been told this game is cpu intensive, gpu intensive, and now I read here that the game is substantially reliant on ram?

Was this game meant to be played? Am I too demanding to want to watch spaceships shoot at each other at a higher frame rate than 30fps? Wasn't there a questionnaire taken where egosoft touted the majority of participants were satisfied with performance? Who are these people? Does a chicken have large talons?

I suppose it is reassuring to know I wouldn't have achieved any better fps with an i9 or an rtx 4090, as my results are similar...

[nemo1887]

CPU : i9-13900k 5.6 mhz
MEM : 32 Go 6000 mhz cl 40 DDR5
GPU : RTX 2080 Ti
Dense Emp : 33 fps
résolution : 3840x2160 ;oui pas mal de jeux on du mal a cette résolution!
maintenant a plus de 30 fps il n'y a pas de lag !

[Wargear]

CPU: 5950X on X570 Master M/B
MEM: 64gig Corsair pro CAS18 XMP enabled 4000mhz
GPU: RTX 3090
Dense empire: 35-70 fps depends
Highway travel: 110-120fps
Resolution: 3840x2160 120mhz predator monitor

[nemo1887]

with 6.0 beta 1:

CPU : i9-13900k 5.6 mhz
MEM : 32 Go 6000 mhz cl 40 DDR5
GPU : RTX 2080 Ti
Dense Emp : 27-28 fps
résolution : 3840x2160

I started empire dense and 27-28 fps before 33 fps the loading of the savegame and faster, but I moved forward with the ship and bing x4 crashed! It promises bugs!

[Rinne]

Game: 3.3 with Split Vendetta / Linux version
CPU: Ryzen 5800X 65W Eco mode
GPU: Vega 56
Ram: DDR4 3600 CL18
Resolution: 2560x1440
Young Gun Empty: 150-160
Dense Empire: 23-27
Dense Empire Empty: 158-162

I also created a "Dense Empire Empty" savegame that is is compatible with 5.10 and all DLCs here: Test empty area with empire_fixed

(Just moved a bit to get the collision bug out of the way and saved again)

Game: 5.10 with Split Vendetta, Cradle of Humanity, Tides of Avarice / Linux version
CPU: Ryzen 5800X 65W Eco mode
GPU: Vega 56
Ram: DDR4 3600 CL18
Resolution: 2560x1440, FSR Performance
Young Gun Empty: 126-134
Dense Empire: 20-23
Dense Empire Empty: 81-88


Game: 6.00 beta 1 with Split Vendetta, Cradle of Humanity, Tides of Avarice / Linux version
CPU: Ryzen 5800X 65W Eco mode
GPU: Vega 56
Ram: DDR4 3600 CL18
Resolution: 2560x1440, FSR Performance
Young Gun Empty: 134-144
Dense Empire: 19-21
Dense Empire Empty: 81-97

I have a bit more indepth thread on my tests here:
viewtopic.php?f=146&t=451158

[lixlix]

I want to buy a new CPU to play X4. Currently I get between 15 and 20 FPS (Map, mid/end game) with a Ryzen 3600, 32GB RAM and a GTX2070.
I want to stick to AM4 socket.

So should I choose a CPU with a high base clock or with a high boost clock?

[kingsims]

I want to buy a new CPU to play X4. Currently I get between 15 and 20 FPS (Map, mid/end game) with a Ryzen 3600, 32GB RAM and a GTX2070.
I want to stick to AM4 socket.

So should I choose a CPU with a high base clock or with a high boost clock?

Grab yourself a Zen 3 5800x3d it will boost the minimum frames by a huge amount vs your 3600. It will last you for another 3 years of good gaming (It's nearly tied against Zen 4 7700x). Just do one thing first. Make sure you go to your motherboard support page, and check if the latest bios supports 5800x3d (Needs Agesa 1.2.0.7). Then before updating the BIOS, see if there is one in stock at the price you want. Its currently $336 USD from Amazon with free shipping.

Its currently $336.54 USD from Amazon US. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VCJ2SHD

[lixlix]

Grab yourself a Zen 3 5800x3d it will boost the minimum frames by a huge amount vs your 3600. It will last you for another 3 years of good gaming (It's nearly tied against Zen 4 7700x).

Okay I thought I would benefit more from a 5600 with a higher base clock (3,9 vs 3,4) or a 5600x with a higher boost clock (4,6 vs 4,5) while being 50%-60% cheaper than a 3800x3D.

The more performance is only needed for X4.

Its currently $336.54 USD from Amazon US. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VCJ2SHD

I'm in the EU. The current price for 3800x3D is about 370€. A 3600x costs about 170€....