7 ms·

It is also in the comments, but the gaming benchmarks are really strange here. Every new Ryzen processor beats even the fastest Intel cpu in each and every game

• mping 9y ago
  On the comments: "Intel CPUs were tested with Meltdown/Spectre patches, that's probably the discrepancy you're seeing."
  • onli 9y ago
    So every other reviewer is not using those patches (isn't Windows installing them automatically?), and the performance impact is that huge that it completely negates every performance advantage Intel had for now almost a decade?
    • citilife 9y ago
      I'm not 100% sure about every other reviewer, but many times tests will be done with a base windows 10 install (as to avoid the need to look at comparisons between patches). Regarding performance impact, short answer is - yes. Basically, it removes most of the advantage of the cache for Intel.
      • blattimwind 9y ago
        > many times tests will be done with a base windows 10 install [without any updates/patches] So, even without Spectre & friends, these benchmarks are essentially meaningless?
        • jdietrich 9y ago
          It's a difficult problem. It's not practical to re-test all of the old CPUs or GPUs every time you review a new part. Either you test all components against a baseline OS and driver set, or you test components with whatever OS and driver releases are contemporaneous. Neither case is ideal. Reviewers have generally settled on the former option; OS and driver updates tend to increase performance, so testing with contemporaneous software might artificially inflate the apparent performance deltas in favour of newer components. Nobody wants to buy a new processor thinking that it's 40% faster than their old one, only to discover that most of the difference was just OS optimisations. You'd rather have your readers be pleasantly surprised than bitterly disappointed, so it makes sense to choose a benchmarking methodology that errs on the side of favouring older parts. Spectre is a weird exception to business as usual, because we saw a huge performance decrease in a single update that affects one particular optimisation in one particular processor generation. In this case, it probably makes sense for reviewers to re-run all of their old benchmarks and set a new baseline.
    • mtgx 9y ago
      > isn't Windows installing them automatically? I thought the OS update was only part of the patch and that OEMs also needed to update their BIOS, which means users have to manually update their BIOS.
      • floatboth 9y ago
        Microcode is indeed distributed through Windows Update as well. And packages on other OSes. And applied at boot time.
    • hajile 9y ago
      It takes a long time to run a comprehensive test suite against a single processor. Reviewers often have to ship the hardware back to the company afterward. The result is that they very frequently re-use the old benchmarks in newer tests. New software doesn't affect existing benchmarks.
  • bwat49 9y ago
    I could be mistaken, but I recall seeing benchmarks that came out during the whole meltdown/spectre fiasco showed that the effects on games were pretty negligible. I thought it was mainly workloads relating to virtualization etc... that were effected significantly
    • onli 9y ago
      Here are two benchmarks supporting this: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-does-patching-cpu-security-flaws-impact-gaming-performance https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-does-..., https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-meltdown-spectre-intel-amd,5457-5.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-melt.... I remember it like that as well.
      • citilife 9y ago
        There have been many more updates since (for instance the first article you linked was from 01/10/18): January 29th Microsoft had to revert the Intel patch discribed: https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-emergency-patch-microsofts-new-update-kills-off-intels-spectre-fix/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-emergency-patch-micros... There's also implementations in March for the Spectre variant 2: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-windows-patch-skylake-spectre-variant-2/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-windows-pa... There's much more in here.
        • bwat49 9y ago
          it looks like anandtech's methodology was flawed: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12678/a-timely-discovery-examining-amd-2nd-gen-ryzen-results/4 https://www.anandtech.com/show/12678/a-timely-discovery-exam...
  • dragontamer 9y ago
    Which is wrong. Video Games don't actually make very many kernel system calls. Meltdown / Spectre patches have virtually no effect on video games. The majority of DirectX stuff in the innermost-loops automatically DMAs to the video card without even needing a kernel call. Video games care a lot about performance and did their best to never touch kernel-space anyway. Compilers, Web Servers, Databases, etc. etc. were affected very strongly. Compilers open files. Web Servers open Sockets. Databases communicate with mutexes / semaphores. All of these are OS-level features and require a kernel-mode switch. Meltdown means that every kernel-mode switch clears out the TLB-cache. So each time a compiler opens a file (MMap or otherwise), it basically loses its entire TLB cache. Every. Single. System call. That's why its a big deal for servers, but not a big deal for video games.
    • lightedman 9y ago
      " Meltdown / Spectre patches have virtually no effect on video games." The amount of speculative-execution that games rely upon for many of their components is insane. With the patch applied, I went from a solid 60FPS at 1440x900 in GTAV down to about 48 FPS (as measured by the Steam FPS counter) on a 7th-gen i3.
    • localhost 9y ago
      I wonder if moving to a different file format for compilation might minimize the impact of this? For example, what if source code were stored as a single SQLite file? What impact would that have?
      • dragontamer 9y ago
        If anything, it'd be slower. SQLite locks the database file (which would be another OS-level system call). Simple files are more straightforward. You do one MMap and then there wouldn't be any other system calls made. I'd bet that compilers are "slow" because they have to make many, many, many mmaps to do anything. Each #include turns into another MMap, which Meltdown mitigations cause a full TLB flush each time.
        • 9y ago
• bratao 9y ago
  In the benchmark you sent (https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2018/cpus/2700x/review/civ-vi-r7-2700x.png https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2018/cpus/2700x/rev...) the Intel only beats the Ryzen on the Civilization game overclocked to 5GHz. In Stock clock it have the same results as Anandtech
  • onli 9y ago
    No, the 8700K also beats the AMD cpus in every other game they benchmarked, even without overclocking. Including the benchmark image you linked to? I got word on reddit that pc-per said they did apply the spectre/meltdown patches for their benchmarks. https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Ryzen-7-2700X-and-Ryzen-5-2600X-Review-Zen-Matures/Gaming-Performance https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Processors/Ryzen-7-2700X-and-R..., the results are as one would expect.
    • sunstone 9y ago
      Onli the lonely.
• fancyfacebook 9y ago
  There was some speculation back when the first Ryzen came out that Anandtech (among other reviewers) were pressured to not do the gaming benchmarks at all, or to do them last, since the gaming performance was so abysmal. I think they delayed those numbers for a few months. It's very suspicious when Ryzen 2 numbers are that far off and whilst they keep getting all this amazing access to AMD for trips and CEO interviews and new toys.
  • Covzire 9y ago
    Anandtech has nothing to gain if they're the only ones with invalid benchmarks. Edit: If the comments on the AT article can be believed, then Toms Hardware's Intel benchmarks didn't include the latest Meltdown/Spectre firmware patches because they didn't know that the X470 platform had them to begin with.
• dragontamer 9y ago
  > What is anandtech doing different? AMD's officially supported memory is 2933 MT/s. Intel's officially supported memory is 2600 MT/s. Other review sites overclock memory and run both systems at 3200 MT/s RAM (closer to reality: you may have to spend $20 on RAM but the faster speeds seem to be worth it these days). It seems like Anandtech prefers to run the system on default settings however. Its definitely a discrepancy. But I don't necessarily think Anandtech is in the wrong. It just goes to show how much these little decisions matter in benchmarking, and why its good to have multiple benchmarks from different sites. So, do you go for the "obvious overclock" with 3200 MT/s RAM, or do you actually follow the official recommendations from the manufacturers? Regardless, its good to see that different websites have tested the two different cases and leaves it up to the reader. See this line: https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-ryzen-7-2700x-2700-ryzen-5-2600x-2600/8 https://www.anandtech.com/show/12625/amd-second-generation-r... > As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency Personally speaking, I think running RAM at an overclock at 3200 MT/s is more fair to both systems. Both systems achieve 3200 MT/s easily, with Intel overclockers often hitting 4000MT/s or more (so really, Intel has the better memory controller). So its just... odd... that AMD would be equipped with better RAM. But Anandtech's approach is reasonable (although they probably should list the timings of their RAM in their setup page). After all, most computer builders probably don't know the finer overclocking details between the systems, and may instead just go for the officially supported numbers.
  • nqzero 9y ago
    > Personally speaking, I think running RAM at an overclock at 3200 MT/s is more fair to both systems at that point you're comparing a system that AMD doesn't sell to a system Intel doesn't sell
  • noir_lord 9y ago
    I like that they went stock. I build fast machines but I don't think I've ever overclocked one, I certainly can't remember. I value stability and longevity, my 2500K lasted til end of last year (it still works fine, it's just my laptop is faster).