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Gamers appear to be the most avid and most vocal fans of any given computer technology (except maybe networking?). They're probably trying to ride the hype trai

Gamers appear to be the most avid and most vocal fans of any given computer technology (except maybe networking?). They're probably trying to ride the hype train. That said, you should always wait for third party benchmarks from a source you trust, with benchmarks that relate to your production workloads. I like Anandtech, Phoronix, and Gamers Nexus for such reviews. The last, despite the name, includes a decent swath of non-gaming benchmarks, and they are incredibly transparent about benchmarking methodology, which I appreciate. With the necessary caveat out of the way, some observations: If the IPC gains are there, and we're seeing similar or higher clocks (which seems to be the case), then you should expect a pretty good uplift to non-gaming performance. The cache architecture optimization should also be a boon to many workloads outside of gaming.

theandrewbailey 6y ago
> Gamers appear to be the most avid and most vocal fans of any given computer technology (except maybe networking?). Gaming is very sensitive with network latency. Bandwidth is less important, but helps for downloading and installing games.
- greggyb 6y ago
  I absolutely understand the importance of network performance in gaming. My observation was on how vocal gamers tend to be in their excitement about hardware. I see gaming media go nuts over CPU and GPU releases. There's excitement and detailed analysis of motherboards. I've seen in depth content on storage, and there's been a lot of hype over the PS5's new storage architecture. RAM gets attention. Obviously displays get lots of attention, both from a visual quality and refresh frequency perspective. There are endless buying guides for peripherals such as mice, keyboards, and headsets. I don't tend to see much content on networking, nor anything approaching the excitement I've seen for any of the categories above. These observations do not diminish the importance of the network in online gaming. I merely noted that networking hardware tends to generate less vocal excitement among gamers. Beyond networking equipment, I believe gamers lead in hardware excitement.
  - tssva 6y ago
    Network performance may be important but the reality is that for the most part those things which influence network performance are out of the hands of gamers. There is "gaming" network hardware out there but for the most part I would categorize it with the $500 coax cables sold to audiophiles.
    - greggyb 6y ago
      The biggest lever in the toolbox for a typical user to optimize network is good old ethernet. Wired vs wireless will typically reduce latency a little bit and massively improves on jitter, which is arguably more important for competitive gaming (within a reasonable range of latency). Outside of that, I agree.
fomine3 6y ago
Now Gamers Nexus is my #1 review site despite the name. Anyway most important thing is check a similar workload benchmark for your use rather than Cinebench(if you're not CG renderer).

theandrewbailey 6y ago

> Gamers appear to be the most avid and most vocal fans of any given computer technology (except maybe networking?). Gaming is very sensitive with network latency. Bandwidth is less important, but helps for downloading and installing games.

greggyb 6y ago
I absolutely understand the importance of network performance in gaming. My observation was on how vocal gamers tend to be in their excitement about hardware. I see gaming media go nuts over CPU and GPU releases. There's excitement and detailed analysis of motherboards. I've seen in depth content on storage, and there's been a lot of hype over the PS5's new storage architecture. RAM gets attention. Obviously displays get lots of attention, both from a visual quality and refresh frequency perspective. There are endless buying guides for peripherals such as mice, keyboards, and headsets. I don't tend to see much content on networking, nor anything approaching the excitement I've seen for any of the categories above. These observations do not diminish the importance of the network in online gaming. I merely noted that networking hardware tends to generate less vocal excitement among gamers. Beyond networking equipment, I believe gamers lead in hardware excitement.
- tssva 6y ago
  Network performance may be important but the reality is that for the most part those things which influence network performance are out of the hands of gamers. There is "gaming" network hardware out there but for the most part I would categorize it with the $500 coax cables sold to audiophiles.
  - greggyb 6y ago
    The biggest lever in the toolbox for a typical user to optimize network is good old ethernet. Wired vs wireless will typically reduce latency a little bit and massively improves on jitter, which is arguably more important for competitive gaming (within a reasonable range of latency). Outside of that, I agree.

fomine3 6y ago

Now Gamers Nexus is my #1 review site despite the name. Anyway most important thing is check a similar workload benchmark for your use rather than Cinebench(if you're not CG renderer).