Intel Killed their OWN Product Lineup

[HiFlyer 9,343]

I had been idly musing about this off and on, lately.... Mainly wondering who was still purchasing the super expensive "business" chips and why?

 

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Devon,

That was fascinating even though I understood little of it.

What I would like to know is what is the difference (other than price) in the real life application with regards to P3Dv4. 

So many questions here.

Everyone says CPU speed is the King when it comes to P3dD or Xplane 11. I believe that Xplane handles multi core better (perhaps) but P3D is improving all the time.

In real terms, taking into account CPU speed and multi cores, are we going to be actually better off if we get a CPU with 16 cores and 32  threads clocked at 4.4 than with 8 cores and 16 threads clocked at 5.2 without overclocking the bejesus out of everthing. 

Is Vulcan going to make a difference with regard to the use of multicores.

In real terms what would be the FPS difference between the 4.4 16 core 32 threads and the 5.2 8 core 16 thread and is that FPS rate really significent if more cores provide better data input/out which, in turn, should provide better smoothness.

I would surmise that, in the future, at least, more cores will handle more information at better speeds than a faster CPU with few cores, IF, the Flightsims make better use of those cores/threads. 

Now I am an elderly chappie and have not got a vast technical data bank inserted into my brain so what I am suggesting or querying, may not make a lot of sense. I would just like some more perspective on this.  It is going to be increasingly pertinent to those of us considering hardware upgrades in the next twelve months. That is of course if P3D and Xplane both go Vulcan??

Regards

Tony

[HiFlyer 9,343]

My feeling is that while the sims claim to use extra cores, I don't get the impression that they do it very well, as in balancing the load evenly across cores... 

In other words, I think to a degree, the extra cores are kind of wasted on our legacy sims at a certain point.

Right now for instance, I have an 8700k (6 cores, 12 threads 5ghz) but in terms of fps, little has changed from my last system. It's the graphics card mostly, that has allowed me turn up the eye candy a bit, and this means my usual tech-lust for the next shiny toy (which would be the 9-series cpus) is very much dimmed by my growing conviction that the difference probably won't even be noticeable.

Certainly not enough to start again with a new motherboard/cpu.

It makes me wonder if things have plateaued for now, and what we are really buying at the moment is dreams.

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Devon,

Thanks for your reply.

I agree with you completely regarding the use of extra cores, BUT, things are improving all the time and I am very much hoping that v5 is going to change all that. I believe Xplane is hell bent on maximising core usage and is marginally better than P3D at the moment. This is a dim memory so please do not ask where I got that information.

I also agree with you on the GPU aspect.

When I upgrade, I will be going from core i7 2600k and that means Motherboard, RAM, CPU and, I suspect some water cooling. I think I will stick to my GTX1080ti for the time being at least. This upgrade (when I can afford it) I would think will be a significent improvement, whichever route I take, AMD or Intel.

Price will obviously also have some bearing but at my age, it will probably be my last computer upgrade. At this stage I am seriously eying off the AMD but I will be content to wait for both P3D and XPlane to adopt Vulcan before I do upgrade, unless of course something blows up in my current system.

And that, is what raised my query in the first place. If P3D and Xplane both give some more love to core/thread utilisation (ensuring that all cores get the same love and treatment ... some may be boys and some may be girls and we do not want any discrimination do we? LOL) is the number of cores/threads going to top the speed aspect which is what reigns at the moment?

Regards

Tony

 

[HiFlyer 9,343]

28 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

If P3D and Xplane both give some more love to core/thread utilisation (ensuring that all cores get the same love and treatment ... some may be boys and some may be girls and we do not want any discrimination do we? LOL) is the number of cores/threads going to top the speed aspect which is what reigns at the moment?

I think that's been the hope for just about forever. The simmer version of the promised land......

I don't think at this point that hardware is the answer anymore though, and as this video points out, the whole value-for-dollar price/performance framework seems to be in flux anyway.

I think it's the software that's the key, but as long as people cling to their investments in legacy addons, and nobody is willing to finally make a clean break, I feel like that software solution will be incrementalized nearly forever.

I'm actually feeling a bit bleak, even as people around me are celebrating the latest increment (s)

[Stavros 295]

In response the the earlier question, a 5.2ghz 8core processor will absolutely crush a 4.4ghz 16 core in P3D. All that matters for CPU performance in P3D, and frankly XP, is single core clock speeds. Since basically all modern processors now have at least 4 cores, Flight sims aren’t going to make use of more than that, and the clock speed is what really makes the difference.

 

this is why Ryzen, despite its great value proposition for basically everything else, is still not recommended over Intel for flight sim. Intel still hold the clock speed gauntlet, and for flight sim that really is the only number that matters.

 

in fact, core count matters so little that many people have reported a performance boost when disabling hyperthreading in P3D, since the chip will run cooler and possibly sustain a higher over lock at the expense of thread count.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

What matters here is single core performance, which is not the same as clock speed. Modern processors are more efficient for a given clock speed than older processors.

Other components , such as the GPU, also make a big difference to FPS. I collected a bunch of data when upgrading from a 970 to a 1080Ti, using P3D v4. The improvement was not subtle.

Do more CPU cores help in P3D? I think they help a bit - they do all get used by the program for something! I went with a hexacore (5820K) last generation, and have been very happy with it. I’ve got a 9900K coming in the post, so I guess I like lots of cores/threads.

By the way, X-plane is also single core performance dependant. It will still be after Vulcan is implemented, until OpenGL support is dropped for,good.

[shivers9 1,174]

11 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

I don't think at this point that hardware is the answer anymore though

I tend to agree with you on that point and especially for those of us who are simming our way through retirement.👽 That is code for old farts. LOL The days of hardware taking hugh leaps in performance every year is for now a thing of the past. That don't mean that it is stagnant. We are just pushing the limits of current tech. Having said that...my recent upgrade from 3770K/GTx 980TI to 8086K/1080TI is a huge improvement. So progress is still there. It is just not going to happen every 6 month to a year. All in all I think there is reason to be very hopeful because I think there is much more headroom today in the area of coding improvements than hardware. The result I predict will cause us all to be pushed, kicking and screaming like a little girl, into the 21st century...finally!

[Ted Striker 338]

I am in the process of upgrading from a 3770k to an 8086 and looking forward to the results. Like the 3770k, which has served me well, I expect to be on the 8086 for quite a few years.

Two things I could not find an answer to when deciding on new hardware was:

A) What is the optimum number of cores for P3D? I have read at some point the resources required to operate the extra cores actually offsets the benefits. I have seen any data regarding how many cores this is.

B) I believe HEDT products have more bandwith for data transport between CPU, RAM, and GPU. How beneficial is this to P3D vs. Z370/Z390 boards?

I never could find the answers to these questions so I am proceeding with a 6 core 8086 build. If it turns I out a need more cores I can install a 9900k on my motherboard in this system in the future after the prices come down.

Ted 

[vortex681 806]

12 hours ago, StAgre said:

In response the the earlier question, a 5.2ghz 8core processor will absolutely crush a 4.4ghz 16 core in P3D. All that matters for CPU performance in P3D, and frankly XP, is single core clock speeds.

Although I agree with you in principle, I think "crush" is a bit of an exaggeration. Performance seems to scale fairly linearly with clock speed in flight sims so a 5.2GHz processor is going to give about 15-20% better performance which, for most of us, probably amounts to a lot less than 10 FPS extra.

4 hours ago, OzWhitey said:

What matters here is single core performance, which is not the same as clock speed. Modern processors are more efficient for a given clock speed than older processors.

Not necessarily so (but it does depend on what you consider to be a "modern processor"). See https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_core_i9_9900k_processor_review,7.html and look at the IPC / Single thread chart. They test all processors at the same clock speed to give a more accurate assessment of their real single thread performance. At the same clock speed, there's less than 4% difference between the i9 9900k and the i7 6700k (which I wouldn't consider to be that modern) - even less if you compare it to an i5 7600k or i5 8600k. One factor that makes newer CPUs do significantly better in single thread benchmarks is that they tend to have a higher stock clock speed.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

52 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

Not necessarily so (but it does depend on what you consider to be a "modern processor"). See https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_core_i9_9900k_processor_review,7.html and look at the IPC / Single thread chart. They test all processors at the same clock speed to give a more accurate assessment of their real single thread performance. At the same clock speed, there's less than 4% difference between the i9 9900k and the i7 6700k (which I wouldn't consider to be that modern) - even less if you compare it to an i5 7600k or i5 8600k. One factor that makes newer CPUs do significantly better in single thread benchmarks is that they tend to have a higher stock clock speed.

That's actually one of the articles that convinced me to upgrade to the i9 9900K.

I've got my 5820K running at 4.4 Ghz - a very decent overclock - and it scores 136 in the Cinebench R15 single-processor benchmark.

That page you linked shows the i9900K scoring 216 without an overclock. That suggests that I'm currently only getting 62% the performance of standard i9900K, and I'm going to overclock my i9900K to just about melting point, so I should do better than that!

This suggests - as I mentioned - that there's a lot more to single-core performance than just raw clock speed measured in MHz.

Now, I'm not going to get too excited until I've seen how X-plane and P3D perform, but I'm definitely looking forward to putting the sim through its paces with the new processor/memory/MoBo/M.2 SSD etc

 

[vortex681 806]

9 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

That's actually one of the articles that convinced me to upgrade to the i9 9900K.

...

That page you linked shows the i9900K scoring 216 without an overclock.

But that was with the 9900k running at the stock speed. If you overclock another processor to the same speed, according to the IPC / Single thread chart in the link, you should get very similar performance. Granted, with the 9900k you have the potential to get to a higher clock speed. However, the fact remains that clock speed is still the most important factor as it's primarily the higher clock speed of the 9900k which is giving it the better performance.

Edited December 2, 2018 by vortex681

[cspeicher 0]

Sorry, but what is Vulcan?

Edited December 2, 2018 by cspeicher
Typo

[HiFlyer 9,343]

10 minutes ago, cspeicher said:

Sorry, but what is Vulcan?

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

15 hours ago, HiFlyer said:

My feeling is that while the sims claim to use extra cores, I don't get the impression that they do it very well, as in balancing the load evenly across cores... 

I think that you're probably right, but keep in mind that mainstream video games heavily utilize both the rendering and computing power of the GPU, so those developers don't really care all that much what Intel does with its CPU lineup. LM has said explicitly that they have been gradually offloading as much as possible from the CPU to the GPU and LR has probably stated that also, but I just don't remember reading it.