Gaming Performance Continued
Now we come to the interesting testing we are sure you all can’t wait for, we were also anxious to get to this part and see how it all ends up for gaming performance. We are testing only at 1080p, to isolate CPU performance. We are using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card with driver version 565.90. All games are being run in their “Ultra” game settings, at native 1080p resolution, and with no ray tracing. In some games, we have set the desktop also to 1080p for Windowed/Borderless Window games.
Importantly, we are using ALL manual run-throughs for every game here, not a single built-in benchmark was used, these are all manual run-throughs actually in the game, playing the game. We have also included testing on the 285K and 245K in the Windows 11 Power Mode profiles of “Balanced” and “Best Performance” as well, for gaming, since we found that it makes a difference in performance. Every other CPU comparison on the graph was tested in the “Balanced” Power Mode profile. In the graphs “Win11: PM” stands for Windows 11 Power Mode.
Cyberpunk 2077
The common pattern we explained on the previous page, shows itself again. Overall, it is clear to see where the Intel Core Ultra 200S series CPUs sit in this game. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at like-for-like Windows 11 Power Mode profile settings is 7% slower than the previous generation Intel Core i9-14900K. This puts it 11% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X on performance in this game. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 7% slower than the Intel Core i5-14600K and 9% slower than the 9700X and 9600X.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPUs take a commanding lead in performance. The AMD Ryzen 7 7950X3D is a whopping 29% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a scary 33% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K.
We also experienced odd performance degradation in Cyberpunk 2077 on both the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and Intel Core Ultra 5 245K. Simply put, there were sections in the game where performance would start to drag, down into the upper 60’s FPS on both CPUs and then would go back up into the 100’s out of those areas. It seems there are some sections of the game with heavy NPCs and the like, that cause a major drain on performance. We think it is related to how the game threads are being divided between P-Cores and E-Cores. We can confirm this because Cyberpunk 2077 has a game feature in the options menu that lets you select P-Cores as a preference. We tried it, and you’ll see the result below.
In the graph, we can see that enabling Cyberpunk’s special “Prioritize P-Cores” option it has in the Utilities menu, improves performance quite a bit in this game. We see a 9% performance increase using the Prioritize P-Core option, compared to leaving it on its default “Auto” setting. Indeed, in those scenes we talked about above where performance started to slow down, it no longer occurred when this option was enabled, proving that there are thread scheduling issues. At 152 FPS, performance now exceeds the 14900K by 2%.
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 reveals a familiar pattern. Firstly, in this game, there was a distinct performance difference between the “Balanced” Power Mode profile and “Best Performance.” We can see that the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 5% slower in the Balanced power profile mode, and the 245K is also 5% slower.
When we compare like-for-like power profile mode settings, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 6% slower than the Intel Core i9-14900K in its default BIOS power profile. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is therefore 7% slower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X. The Intel Core Ultra 9 245K is 11% slower than the Intel Core i5-14600K and a large 18% slower than the 9700X and 16% slower than the 9600X.
When we use the Best Performance power profile mode the 285K is still slightly 2% behind the 14900K, and 3% behind the 9950X. The 245K is 6% behind the 14600K and 14% behind the 9700X and 12% behind the 9600X.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D take the lead in performance by a great deal. They are 29% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at its best, and 48%!!!!!! faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K.
Hogwarts Legacy
In Hogwarts Legacy, we do see a difference once again between the “Balanced” and “Best Performance” Power Mode profiles. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 11% slower in Balanced and the 245K is 4% slower.
In like-for-like power profile modes, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 21% slower than the 14900K and 12% slower than the 9950X. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 6% slower than the 14600K and 9700X and 9600X.
In the Best Performance power profile mode the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K matches parity, sort of, with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X on performance. However, it is still slower than the Intel Core i9-14900K by 11%, which is quite large. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 2% slower than the 14600K and 9700X and 9600X.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPUs are the fastest. The Ryzen X3D CPUs are around 21% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at its fastest, and faster than the 245K by 24% at its fastest.
Starfield
We find AMD CPUs don’t do as well as expected in this particular game, especially dual-CCD parts. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K seems to be on par, or a frame slower on average, than the previous generation Intel Core i9-14900K. Since the Ryzen 9 9950X doesn’t do particularly well in this game, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, for the first time, ends up being 6% faster.
The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K suffers a lot, however, in this game. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K is 5% slower than the Intel Core i5-14600K. It’s on par, or parity with the Ryzen 7 9700X, but does offer a performance advantage over the 9600X at 7%, which is decent.
The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the fastest CPU in this game and ends up being 4% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and 17% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, which is quite a large range in this game.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Those are some dissapointing results for gaming, kinda leaves me at an annoying point, 9800X3D is only an 8 core providing it launches when it's rumoured to (early november) rest is early next year and I don't realy want to go previous gen.
Also like I said in the other thread, the ultra 9 and 5 are already sold out at some outlets around here. intel still going strong (or no stock to speak off)
There are people who will buy Intel even when they have no logical reason to do so. I work with a guy like that. He won't buy anything else because of the reputation non-Intel CPU's had in the 1990's.
Gotta know supply to gauge demand...
My take: This is a transitional product that lays the ground work for future releases. This isn't remotely the first time Intel has done this. The Wilamette Socket 423 Pentium IV's were such a product. It introduced RAMBUS memory and they were often out performed by their Pentium III counterparts, especially Tualatin CPU's. The socket Northwood Socket 478 stuff was a lot better. The Prescott core CPU's were also kind of transitional as these were built with even deeper pipeline stages to ramp the clocks up even more. Their EM64T extensions were present on the core but weren't enabled (excluding one model) until the transition to LGA sockets.
Unfortunately, the only real benefit to these is that they shouldn't have any degradation and stability issues in games where as the 13th and 14th generation CPU's did prior to microcode updates and BIOS updates were created to mitigate them. Assuming your CPU wasn't degrading to start with.
Not competitive, high price, a short lived platform and Win 11 is a mess. Nothing ever works as intended at launch. What is wrong with these companies? Fumbling the ball at the 1-yd line seems to be the norm. Bush league overall...
@Brent_Justice - what I'm seeing about is that by decoupling the memory controller from the compute die, Intel has added latency to main memory access. Do we know if this is reflected in say AIDA64?
@Dan_D - looks like we're going to have to see if Intel can overcome the above latency issue the same way AMD did when they went to chiplets with Zen.
I think they can. How they would be able to mitigate this is unclear to me but this is the type of thing Intel is typically good at engineering their way through historically. Generally speaking, Intel's CPU's have not been effected by latency to the same degree as AMD's. AMD for one reason or another has always dealt with that to some degree. AMD's answer for the most part was simply to throw L3 cache at the problem which doesn't work in all scenarios.
Though throwing L3 cache at the problem is a simple fix, but its a costly one.
AMDs use of stacking for the L3 cache on a CCD, which in turn they can use for gaming SKUs as well as enterprise (which they originally created them for), is genius.
Imagine slow(er) Zen 3 and Zen 4 cores (both clockspeed and IPC vs. Alder/Raptor P-cores) not only outrunning them but also doing so at 1/2 the power draw for gaming.
Now imagine Intel P-cores backed up by enough L3 cache to make memory latency irrelevant.
I think Intel needs to copy AMD here (or emulate? imitate?) and find a way to get that cache in a die with broader market appeal (i.e. also usable in Xeons). Their chiplet setup should enable them to do so.
One thing that's been sticking in my mind with the Arrow Lake release is that this is the first time Intel has decoupled their memory controller from their compute dies since... Core 2? At least in the consumer space (so not talking about buffered DIMMs). AMD did with Zen 2 IIRC. Intel has been using IMCs since Lynnfield in the i7 870 from 2009, 15 years ago!
I'm not sure that this is even possible. I think there are probably scenarios where simply adding cache doesn't help.
Well, AMD had an integrated memory controller since the Athlon 64 days. However, Intel's Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad were the last CPU's to have an off-die memory controller. Though it was in the chipset at the time and not anywhere on the CPU itself.
I believe its two things:
1. Consumers buy products that suck on the promise that they will be fixed later
2. Development practices that involve the term: MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Number 2 combined with number 1 just continuously lowers the bar for number 2.
Thanks, @Brent_Justice for the very detailed review of these CPUs and extra testing with both power modes. It's a shame that APO isn't supported for the games reviewed, especially since they are popular titles that users are likely to have in their libraries. I wonder if Intel will be able to provide updates later on which might improve those results. Really interesting how CB2077 has a prioritize P-core option that only further proved there are other potential gains to be had.
A lot to unpack with these and obviously Intel is experimenting with a number of strategies with them.
I will have more information in an upcoming review, but installing some DDR5 CUDIMMs 8400, but running at 8200 MT/s currently, AIDA64's Cache Mem latency result is 88ns this is at 8200MT/s CL40-50-50-128 CR2. I will have some memory comparison data in an upcoming article at 6400, 8200, 8400 and 8600 on this motherboard with this RAM kit, so stay tuned. But my first reaction is that this isn't bad latency, I think it was worse at the beginning of all this, but as new BIOS's have come out, latency has improved. MSI's fix notes state XMP and memory performance optimization with the new BIOS releases I'm using.
I really want an all P-Core option, an 8-Pcore only or 12-Pcore only CPU would be a great option for gaming.
I am NOT a fan of big.LITTLE / hybrid architecture on x86 desktops. Intel please give us P-core only options!
I would prefer only p-cores too, but due to the lack of HT would we not require like at least a 10 or12 core if you need 8 for games already.
I mean testing conditions is one thing, but a real everyday use system usually has more running in the background then just the bare minimum.