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So... great benchmarks but they couldn't even gain more than +2 average fps in most games compared to last gen 7700. The title makes you believe that it has so

So... great benchmarks but they couldn't even gain more than +2 average fps in most games compared to last gen 7700. The title makes you believe that it has some serious gains over previous gens but nope. I wonder how much Intel paid for this review...

epmaybe 9y ago
The title? "The best gaming CPU you can buy". Not sure how that indicates "serious" gains, but you keep on telling yourself that Intel influenced them into use that title.
- vogon_laureate 9y ago
  ArsTechnica is hardly 'pop tech'. Their technical analysis is reliably high calibre, they do excellent benchmarking and thorough testing, and they also do some stellar long-form science journalism. I can't really see how you could say that.
  - pitaj 9y ago
    Think you replied to the wrong person.
- dabockster 9y ago
  Some games have microcode optimizations that specifically target Intel processors. So it makes sense that, as things stand currently, Intel has the advantage. Give it a year or two for AMD to solidify Ryzen in the consumer market, and we should see the real playing field emerge.
  - piyh 9y ago
    Microcode optimization looks awfully similar to better single threaded performance.
- AriaMinaei 9y ago
  A sentence can be technically accurate and practically misleading at the same time. I would think twice before defending something on technicality alone.
  - epmaybe 9y ago
    I guess I just don't see how this title can be practically misleading, unless you're intentionally primed to think that "best" means "significant gains". Further, let's look at some of Mark Walton's other processor review titles: 1. Intel Core i9-7960X review: It beats Threadripper, but for a price 2. AMD Ryzen 3 1300X and 1200: True quad-core CPUs for just $130 and $110 3. Ryzen 5 review: AMD muscles in on Intel’s i5 sweet spot 4. AMD Threadripper 1950X review: Better than Intel in almost every way 5. Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti review: The fastest graphics card, again If Mark Walton or the editorial staff are being paid by Intel, they're doing a bad job of drinking the kool-aid. I included a GPU review as well, to demonstrate another title that could be labeled as "technically accurate and practically misleading", but that I think is completely fine. On another related topic, what does the word "best" mean? Some may think that it is the best on price, others may think performance, etc. I do think a more descriptive term could be used in the title, but that doesn't imply that I believe that Ars is a corporate shill working with Intel.
    - AriaMinaei 9y ago
      I appreciate that you took the time to take a deeper look at this. The five titles that you mentioned seem to hint at the nuance necessary for a reader to interpret them. But the title in question though, just doesn't. "The best" is an overwhelmingly positive description for something that is only a marginal improvement. Does that mean the article is influenced by a PR effort on the part of Intel? Not necessarily. (Admittedly I should've clarified that.) But as a journalist, it is your responsibility to put things into perspective for your audience. If a monopolistic market leader is moving at snail speed while holding the market back, it is your job to make that fact clear for your audience. Don't get them excited about a tiny improvement. Get them disappointed by it. Compare these tiny gains with what could've been if such and such experimental technology was industrialised. I suppose the enthusiast segment of the market would be receptive to such information, and they'd be less happy with throwing money every year at incremental products and demand something more.
- marze 9y ago
  The title is true even if the part is 1% better than the next fastest part.
make3 9y ago
these pop tech websites are really starting to let go of all pretence of integrity and just go fast and loose with their clickbait crap titles
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Ars in particular has been shoveling shit interspersed with bursts of quality for a couple of years now, while Kotaku has just given up (not even including political issues) entirely.
untog 9y ago
> The title makes you believe that it has some serious gains over previous gens Eh? The title is "the best gaming CPU you can buy". It seems like the stats back up that assertion. The title is not "throw out your current gaming CPU because this new one is going to blow it away".
Veratyr 9y ago
There aren't going to be significant gains if the CPU wasn't the bottleneck in the first place.
- zanny 9y ago
  In very few circumstances could you bottleneck on a well-overclocked 2500k even in most titles, especially with Vulkan. And its not like Intel is holding the industry back - games are almost always bottlenecked on the GPU, and GPUs have gotten a lot faster since 2012, and Intel doesn't have a discrete card anyway. That being said, I'm sure if the average users CPU was substantially beefier developers would take advantage of it, but we have been in a nigh golden age of affordable PC gaming for the last 5 years - you could have anything dating back to Phenom 2 or Nehalem and still be running the latest titles very well as long as you have a beefy OC and a good GPU.
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    > That being said, I'm sure if the average users CPU was substantially beefier developers would take advantage of it I don't think so. We've had multi-core CPUs for many years and developers haven't been taking advantage of those.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Single player Games and Multi-core don't really work well together. The problem is you generally need the results of step 1 before starting on step 2. Further, using more cores makes each of them slower due to heat and memory bandwidth issues etc.
      - oblio 9y ago
        Couldn't they be using those extra cores for some better AI?
        Retric 9y ago
        People generally don't want particularly smart opponents in games. So, companies often reduce AI intelligence in the name of fun. Anyway it depends on the game, Factorio as an example tried multi core and going from 1 core to 4 gave a 30% speed boost at the cost a lot of additional complexity. In part because the game has basically zero AI load.

epmaybe 9y ago

The title? "The best gaming CPU you can buy". Not sure how that indicates "serious" gains, but you keep on telling yourself that Intel influenced them into use that title.

vogon_laureate 9y ago
ArsTechnica is hardly 'pop tech'. Their technical analysis is reliably high calibre, they do excellent benchmarking and thorough testing, and they also do some stellar long-form science journalism. I can't really see how you could say that.
- pitaj 9y ago
  Think you replied to the wrong person.
dabockster 9y ago
Some games have microcode optimizations that specifically target Intel processors. So it makes sense that, as things stand currently, Intel has the advantage. Give it a year or two for AMD to solidify Ryzen in the consumer market, and we should see the real playing field emerge.
- piyh 9y ago
  Microcode optimization looks awfully similar to better single threaded performance.
AriaMinaei 9y ago
A sentence can be technically accurate and practically misleading at the same time. I would think twice before defending something on technicality alone.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  I guess I just don't see how this title can be practically misleading, unless you're intentionally primed to think that "best" means "significant gains". Further, let's look at some of Mark Walton's other processor review titles: 1. Intel Core i9-7960X review: It beats Threadripper, but for a price 2. AMD Ryzen 3 1300X and 1200: True quad-core CPUs for just $130 and $110 3. Ryzen 5 review: AMD muscles in on Intel’s i5 sweet spot 4. AMD Threadripper 1950X review: Better than Intel in almost every way 5. Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti review: The fastest graphics card, again If Mark Walton or the editorial staff are being paid by Intel, they're doing a bad job of drinking the kool-aid. I included a GPU review as well, to demonstrate another title that could be labeled as "technically accurate and practically misleading", but that I think is completely fine. On another related topic, what does the word "best" mean? Some may think that it is the best on price, others may think performance, etc. I do think a more descriptive term could be used in the title, but that doesn't imply that I believe that Ars is a corporate shill working with Intel.
  - AriaMinaei 9y ago
    I appreciate that you took the time to take a deeper look at this. The five titles that you mentioned seem to hint at the nuance necessary for a reader to interpret them. But the title in question though, just doesn't. "The best" is an overwhelmingly positive description for something that is only a marginal improvement. Does that mean the article is influenced by a PR effort on the part of Intel? Not necessarily. (Admittedly I should've clarified that.) But as a journalist, it is your responsibility to put things into perspective for your audience. If a monopolistic market leader is moving at snail speed while holding the market back, it is your job to make that fact clear for your audience. Don't get them excited about a tiny improvement. Get them disappointed by it. Compare these tiny gains with what could've been if such and such experimental technology was industrialised. I suppose the enthusiast segment of the market would be receptive to such information, and they'd be less happy with throwing money every year at incremental products and demand something more.
marze 9y ago
The title is true even if the part is 1% better than the next fastest part.

make3 9y ago

these pop tech websites are really starting to let go of all pretence of integrity and just go fast and loose with their clickbait crap titles

QAPereo 9y ago
Ars in particular has been shoveling shit interspersed with bursts of quality for a couple of years now, while Kotaku has just given up (not even including political issues) entirely.

untog 9y ago

> The title makes you believe that it has some serious gains over previous gens Eh? The title is "the best gaming CPU you can buy". It seems like the stats back up that assertion. The title is not "throw out your current gaming CPU because this new one is going to blow it away".

Veratyr 9y ago

There aren't going to be significant gains if the CPU wasn't the bottleneck in the first place.

zanny 9y ago
In very few circumstances could you bottleneck on a well-overclocked 2500k even in most titles, especially with Vulkan. And its not like Intel is holding the industry back - games are almost always bottlenecked on the GPU, and GPUs have gotten a lot faster since 2012, and Intel doesn't have a discrete card anyway. That being said, I'm sure if the average users CPU was substantially beefier developers would take advantage of it, but we have been in a nigh golden age of affordable PC gaming for the last 5 years - you could have anything dating back to Phenom 2 or Nehalem and still be running the latest titles very well as long as you have a beefy OC and a good GPU.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  > That being said, I'm sure if the average users CPU was substantially beefier developers would take advantage of it I don't think so. We've had multi-core CPUs for many years and developers haven't been taking advantage of those.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Single player Games and Multi-core don't really work well together. The problem is you generally need the results of step 1 before starting on step 2. Further, using more cores makes each of them slower due to heat and memory bandwidth issues etc.
    - oblio 9y ago
      Couldn't they be using those extra cores for some better AI?
      - Retric 9y ago
        People generally don't want particularly smart opponents in games. So, companies often reduce AI intelligence in the name of fun. Anyway it depends on the game, Factorio as an example tried multi core and going from 1 core to 4 gave a 30% speed boost at the cost a lot of additional complexity. In part because the game has basically zero AI load.