Best CPU ONLY for the Total War Series.

[Barry Lyndon]

Let's assume that I want to buy a CPU only to play the Total War Series. The ones I have to choose from are: i7-960 Quad Core, 3.2Ghz or i7-980 Six Core 3.33ghz. How much of a performance increase is the latter compared to the first? Is six core better in total war games? will the extra ghz do much? I'm asking because there is a 300$ price difference between the two, and if the difference is small I will probably go for the cheaper one. What do you think? Thanks in advance.

[Freddie]

I doubt Total War is coded to make use of 6 physical CPU cores so you would be much better off getting the 960 and getting a decent cooler and overclocking that bad boy to give you even better performance.

[Barry Lyndon]

I doubt Total War is coded to make use of 6 physical CPU cores so you would be much better off getting the 960 and getting a decent cooler and overclocking that bad boy to give you even better performance.

Thanks for the support everyone. However, I don't do overclocking. Would you say that the extra ghz in the 980 will do much difference compared to the 960? Are we talking 5% better performance or less?

[Akaie]

Morning!

To be honest, Total War isn't all that optimized for multi-core CPU's. In fact, I constantly see Shogun 2 only making use of one of my four cores. I also don't think there exists a game that takes advantage of six cores.

Overclocking is always nice, and in practice may help you get a bit more out of TW games, but not that much.

If the price is $300 more, then you could invest that in a better GPU than the one you already have, assuming your rig could do better with it.

[Barry Lyndon]

I'm building a whole new computer, mainly to play TW games, I'm thinking ASUS GeForce GTX 580 1536MB PhysX CUDA PCI-Express 2.0, "MATRIX Platinum" together with the i7 960 quad core 3.2ghz, good combo?

[irishron]

For TW games, RTW and M2TW only use one core. ETW introduced multithreading into the Warscape engine but not optimized worth a damn. NTW and S2 are a little better depending on who you talk to from 100% on one core only, to 100% one core and 50% on second core to 25% on four cores and everything in between.

Read the forums, GD and Tech, here, .com and .org for further research.

[Akaie]

The GTX 580 looks to be an awesome card. I am also planning to spring for one, and any Intel quad core would do well for gaming, less the warscape total war game, to which irishron noted they are "not optimized worth a damn" (well put, BTW).

I can't give you a percentage. I can hook back into my first post by paraphrasing that the extra strength of the 980 will barely be seen in a total war game. If you are doing things like video encoding, that is where you will see a tremendous difference between the 980 and 960. Not in gaming, though.

[Barry Lyndon]

The GTX 580 looks to be an awesome card. I am also planning to spring for one, and any Intel quad core would do well for gaming, less the warscape total war game, to which irishron noted they are "not optimized worth a damn" (well put, BTW).

I can't give you a percentage. I can hook back into my first post by paraphrasing that the extra strength of the 980 will barely be seen in a total war game. If you are doing things like video encoding, that is where you will see a tremendous difference between the 980 and 960. Not in gaming, though.

many thanks, will consider going for the 960.

[Top-Tier-Tech]

many thanks, will consider going for the 960.

Wait.......... why aren't you buying a CPU from the new 1155 platform? The i5-2500k costs far less than the i7-960 and has more performance (3.7ghz. quad core). Getting a hex core CPU would be a waste of money for TW games BTW.

[Smokey]

Wait.......... why aren't you buying a CPU from the new 1155 platform? The i5-2500k costs far less than the i7-960 and has more performance (3.7ghz. quad core). Getting a hex core CPU would be a waste of money for TW games BTW.

This^

And don't forget the turbo boost on the new chips, this means the chip essentially overclocks & under clocks itself when needed, meaning you always get the optimum performance on single thread games.

[Barry Lyndon]

This^

And don't forget the turbo boost on the new chips, this means the chip essentially overclocks & under clocks itself when needed, meaning you always get the optimum performance on single thread games.

Sorry. The only CPU:s available for this particular build (I think) are: 960i7 3.2ghz, 980i7 3.33ghz and 990Xi7 3.46ghz.

This is the computer:
http://www.komplett.se/k/config.aspx...SystemId=10286

[Bolkonsky]

Want better performance for Total War? You're betting off spending the money on frequency over cores. Get a dual or quad core with a higher frequency (like 3.7ghz) rather than a 6-8 core with lower frequency.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

yea no point buying X58 1336 as its EOL,

1155 2600k if you need the threads but if your smart 2500k + Z68 can be had for at least USD wise $229 + $149 add in 8gigs DDR3 1600 for $45 = $423

So 2500k + Z68 + 8gb DDR3 = $423 usd

i7 960 + x58 + 6gb DDR3 = $540 usd

$120 more for less performance in Shogun 2,

its not just CPU speed or cores overall memory bandwidth matters in games with high end gpus

example 1600mhz DDR3 triple channel on X58 is SLOWER then 1333 Dual Channel on P67 / Z68 1155 setups some of the mainstream X58 builds i see hitting 18gb/s bandwidth p67 with stock ram stock cpu i get upwards of 22gb/s overclocking the cpu go me up to 24gb/s with dual channel ram thats cheaper. its a whole package situation

Architecture wise 1155 has better IPC aka better per clock performance then i7 1336 cpus has a better IMC in terms of bandwidth, runs a ton cooler,

a 2500k at 4.5-4.6ghz can be done with a standard air cooler on an i7 1336 platform youll top out at 3.8-4ghz the extra threads on the i7 help but are worthless in games so the cheaper cooler running 2500k will go further and play games better overall then a 1336 based system

better off starting with

http://bit.ly/qYNoFK

or

http://bit.ly/nkA9sH

i went with Link #2 the i30 system and just added what was neccesary.

select the 2500k but DO NOT select the P67 sabertooth, if your system isnt setup properly the sabertooth boards run to hot causing issues depending on case airflow due to the stupid plastic armor they put on the motherboard

either of those systems fully tricked out will be better for total war then the i7 system your looking at

fully setup i picked

Crucial 8gig 1333 cl9 kit will give you around 19gb/s memory bandwidth
2500k - for gaming no point in 4c /8t 2600k if the 2600k was real 8 cores id consider it but its not so 2500k it is
750TX psu - non modular but solid all the same will get the job done
6950 2gb - AMD gpus are well known to out pace nvidia in shogun 2, where 2x 6950 2gb gpus beat 2x 580s with relative ease
msi p67 GD 65 - does the job has better bios then gigabyte boards no plastic armor like the sabertooth
darkfleet case
crucial m4 128gb SSD
Western Digital 1tb Caviar Black HDD

need more performance buy another 6950 2gb later and crossfire it with the other card, eitherway thats what i would pick that and get a better cooler for the CPU, so it can be overclocked

total cost on komplett for what i picked out above is 13400 half the price of what you were looking at

[Barry Lyndon]

yea no point buying X58 1336 as its EOL,

1155 2600k if you need the threads but if your smart 2500k + Z68 can be had for at least USD wise $229 + $149 add in 8gigs DDR3 1600 for $45 = $423

So 2500k + Z68 + 8gb DDR3 = $423 usd

i7 960 + x58 + 6gb DDR3 = $540 usd

$120 more for less performance in Shogun 2,

its not just CPU speed or cores overall memory bandwidth matters in games with high end gpus

example 1600mhz DDR3 triple channel on X58 is SLOWER then 1333 Dual Channel on P67 / Z68 1155 setups some of the mainstream X58 builds i see hitting 18gb/s bandwidth p67 with stock ram stock cpu i get upwards of 22gb/s overclocking the cpu go me up to 24gb/s with dual channel ram thats cheaper. its a whole package situation

Architecture wise 1155 has better IPC aka better per clock performance then i7 1336 cpus has a better IMC in terms of bandwidth, runs a ton cooler,

a 2500k at 4.5-4.6ghz can be done with a standard air cooler on an i7 1336 platform youll top out at 3.8-4ghz the extra threads on the i7 help but are worthless in games so the cheaper cooler running 2500k will go further and play games better overall then a 1336 based system

better off starting with

http://bit.ly/qYNoFK

or

http://bit.ly/nkA9sH

i went with Link #2 the i30 system and just added what was neccesary.

select the 2500k but DO NOT select the P67 sabertooth, if your system isnt setup properly the sabertooth boards run to hot causing issues depending on case airflow due to the stupid plastic armor they put on the motherboard

either of those systems fully tricked out will be better for total war then the i7 system your looking at

fully setup i picked

Crucial 8gig 1333 cl9 kit will give you around 19gb/s memory bandwidth
2500k - for gaming no point in 4c /8t 2600k if the 2600k was real 8 cores id consider it but its not so 2500k it is
750TX psu - non modular but solid all the same will get the job done
6950 2gb - AMD gpus are well known to out pace nvidia in shogun 2, where 2x 6950 2gb gpus beat 2x 580s with relative ease
msi p67 GD 65 - does the job has better bios then gigabyte boards no plastic armor like the sabertooth
darkfleet case
crucial m4 128gb SSD
Western Digital 1tb Caviar Black HDD

need more performance buy another 6950 2gb later and crossfire it with the other card, eitherway thats what i would pick that and get a better cooler for the CPU, so it can be overclocked

total cost on komplett for what i picked out above is 13400 half the price of what you were looking at

Some damn good info here.

However, I have decided to up everything a bit:

MSI P67A-GD80 B3, Socket-1155 ATX, P67, DDR3, 3xPCIe(2.0)x16, SLI/CFX, SATA 6Gb/s, USB3.0, eSATA, FW, EFI

Intel® Core™ i7-2600K Processor Socket-LGA1155, Quad Core, 3.4Ghz, 8MB, 95W, Boxed w/fan

Kingston DDR3 HyperX 1600MHz 16GB Kit w/4X HyperX 4GB DDR3, CL9-9-9-27, 240pin

ZOTAC GeForce GTX 590 3072MB PhysX CUDA PCI-Express 2.0, GDDR5

Good setup for total war games?

[Dominicvs]

Extremely good for anything! You'd be looking at 100+ fps.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

avoid the 590 and 6990 get 2x individual gpus

590 is more expensive and slower then a 6990 and a 6990 is more expensive and slower then 2x 6950 2gb in Crossfire

essentially unless your country is ass backwards 2x 570s or 2x 6950s will be faster then 1 590 and 1 6990.

and again as for gaming a 2600k will give you 0% performance improvement

Bad Company 2 currently the best multi threaded game out, and a CPU whore on the extreme, has 0 fps increase from a 2500k to a 2600k at 33% cost increase, thats unacceptable if your doing 3d rendering, working with Adobe Premier Pro etc then fine if not dont be a dumbass and waste money on something that will give you 0 benefit,

its the same as the i5 750 vs the i7 back when 1336 and 1156 were the commonplace sockets an overclocked i5 750 performed the same in games as the i7 870 and i7 920 / 930 when overclocked they again all performed the same,

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...43&postcount=1

basically put

Q9650 @ 3.7ghz = 75fps with a 5970
2600k @ stock = 101fps with a 5970
2600k @ stock hyper threading disabled aka same as a 2500k = 100fps

thats in the best multi threaded game engine currently in use on mainstream titles,

Total War only uses 2 cores for the most part so a 2500k will be the same as a 2600k clock speed will matter more then core count.