Intel vs AMD Processors in PC Games (TESTS AND RESULTS)

The CPU must prosecute 100 percent of the images that the graphics card will create. In other words, the CPU needs to be able to "feed" your graphics card. If it does not, you have a problem. On the one hand, for your money that you invest in your graphics card, you will not get what you have, and secondly, this condition causes breakdowns in smoothness while playing. FPS is not just about quantity but also about quality. A theme? AMD vs. Intel processors in the test. Already know? For more about the best gameplay processor for 2017, see the article.

Intel i5 vs AMD Ryzen 5 and Intel i7 vs AMD Ryzen 7

Model	Ryzen 5 1600 X	Intel Core i5 7600 K	Ryzen 7 1700	Intel Core i7 7700K
Number of cores	6	4	8	4
Basic frequency	3.6 GHz	3.8 GHz	3.0 GHz	4.2 GHz
Boost frequency	4.0 GHz	4.2 GHz	3.7 GHz	4.5 GHz
Multi-Threading
Integrated graphics
L3 Cache	16 MB	6 MB	16 MB	6 MB
Unlocked multiplier
TDP	95 W	91 W	65 W	95 W
IHS brazed chip
Required DELID for OC
Selling price	7 546 Kč	6 494 Kč	9 523 CZK	9 921 CZK

Test kits

Choosing a comparison, which is what I tested in the game environment, is not the easiest to compare with the specifications, so I decided to compare it according to the purchase price. Until recently, Intel did not compete with gaming machines. With the advent of AMD Ryzen processors, its largely monopolistic position has changed, so it is necessary to look again and detail the whole situation and test the best AMD and Intel processors as accurately as possible. The question of whether Intel or AMD for games is our joy again on the agenda of the day!

i Are you wondering how desktop processors work and what do their important parameters mean? Read our article "What is a processor?" .

What games have we tested?

Testing methodology or how we measure performance in games

In keeping with objectivity and accurate results, very specific measurement procedures must be followed. When comparing the performance of multiple processors in games, we need to set the conditions and environment for each platform so that it's just fair. So whether we measure the Ryzen 5 1400, the stronger Ryzen 5 1500X or the Ryzen 5 1600 or the more powerful Ryzen 5 1600X from AMD, the Intel Core i5 7600K and the Core i7 7700K, we have the same terms and conditions as the hardware and motherboards. So the same graphics card, the same SSD disk, the same source, preferably the same memory. On the software side, it's important to have the same operating system including updates, preferably having a purely installed OS on disk format, the same version of the graphics card drivers, and more importantly, it's important in the game.

We measure games using the Fraps tool and log frametimes that record how long it took for a graphics card to draw one frame after another. With MSI Afterburner, we record several other values, such as graphics card usage, CPU usage, temperature, frequency, and more. Logs from both programs synchronize in the final and are ready for snapshot analysis. The most important part of the whole process is the identical way of measuring right in the game. It is important to choose the right scene that will be consistent and which we will repeatedly measure the same result. If we were to measure scenes with great variability, we would never have done anything. For this reason, for example, it is not possible to count in multiplayer. When we have the scene we are going to measure, we have to find out how long the scene takes to keep the same time. Most scenes need to be replicated because shaders are compiled during the first scenes, textures are loaded, etc. For these reasons, we usually measure the second or third waveforms.

We are in a somewhat paradoxical time at the turn of the graphics card start to be so big that even the best processors are slowly stopping to shoot powerful graphics cards in full HD resolution, but the performance on smooth UHD gaming with full details is not enough. It is true that the higher the resolution, the smaller the processor demands. In short, in the near future, with a powerful 4K resolution graphics card, we can handle a cheap and less efficient processor. And since the performance of CPUs in the 3840x2160 game environment is no or very low, we will compare only 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, where the power of the processors can still be reflected.

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation is a popular real-time strategy from the Stardock studio running on the Nitrous Engine. At the same time it is one of the first natively supporting DirectX 12 games. The game is part of AMD's Gaming Evolved program. This is one of the most challenging CPU games and therefore I ranked it first in our CPU Testing Methodology. I measure two resolutions, 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, where there is still a possibility of displaying a CPU bottleneck. Frametimes are measured with a built-in benchmark for 180 seconds. The default setting was Extreme preset in both resolutions.

Setting Ashes of Singularity: Escalation for tests

Ashes of Singularity: Escalation

Performance of Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen processors

The CPU power will give us the full HDD resolution throughout this article. As you can see, AotS: E benefits mainly from power at the maximum possible frequency on the kernel. The Ryzen 7 1700 has 8 coins, but the main role plays the final processor clock and there is no Intel i7 7700K in conjunction with the four cores and HyperThreading competition.

Fallout 4 is a sequel to the legendary postapocalyptic RPG cult. The game comes from Bethland Game Studios and runs on Creation Engine, which is well known from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Although it is - to put it mildly - a pre-flood engine, the game is still very popular and often played around the world. There is no current game to know CPU and DRAM performance just like Fallout 4. The game is measured by Fraps for 80 seconds at a location called the Boston Commons that I chose to process CPUs. Since it is unlikely that another part of Fallout will run on the same engine, we will continue to keep this jewel in the test methodology. The game was set to Ultra preset.

Set up Fallout 4 for tests

Fallout 4

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a continuation of the cult genre according to the book by writer Andrzej Sapkowski. The game comes from the CD Project RED studio and runs on the RED engine. At the same time, it belongs to NVIDIE The Way It's Meant to Be Played and has GameWorks libraries. The scenes in this game are quite challenging, so I chose an 80-second circuit in the city called Novigrad for CPU testing. This part of the wanderer has already ended, respectively. there will be no more datadis, but I still keep it in the processor testing methodology, as it is a very popular game that has recently been caught by Netflix and is getting its serial form, so it is quite possible that you want to play it.

Set The Witcher 3 for Tests

The Witcher 3

Crysis 3 is a legendary post-apocalyptic first person shooter from the Crytek development studio running on CryEngine 3, which is part of the AMD Gaming Evolved program. This game is still timeless with its technical design, not only in terms of graphics and visual, but also in terms of the ability to use hardware to the maximum. For CPU measurements, I have a different scene chosen than for the GPU: I measure the 130 second sequence in the "Welcome to the Jungle: Disable the Minefield" section where the processor's greatest load is due to counting grassland physics.

Set up Crysis 3 for tests

Crysis 3

Tom Clancy's: The First Person RPG Post-Kocalyptic Genre Shooter by Ubisoft Massive running on the Snowdrop engine. The game belongs to NVIDIA's The Way It's Meant to Be Played program. Snowdrop engine is very good, both graphically and technically, graphics card support is not a problem here, as you can see on the charts, there is no difference between the number of cores and work threads, and at a lower resolution, any GPU will handle a powerful GPU. Frametimes are measured with a built-in benchmark for 93 seconds and the graphics setting is selected on Ultra preset.

Setting up The Division for Tests

Tom Clancy's: The Division

Battlefield 1 is the latest part of the popular action series that will welcome us this time around the world on the verge of a devastating war. The game comes from Electronics Art in collaboration with the DICE studio and runs on the Frosbite engine. Battlefield 1 supports DirectX 12, although it is worth mentioning that the latest patches have rather hurt the game and the game does not work as it should and how it worked. A part of the Avanti Savoia! Single-player campaign, which is 54 seconds long, is selected as a scene for frametimes. The game has been set in both resolutions to Ultra Pre-Temporary Alignment (TAA).

Set up Battlefield 1 for tests

Battlefield 1

Rise of the Tomb Raider is the latest piece of legendary adventure game with Larou Croft. The game came from Crystal Dynamics and runs on the Horizon engine. The game is part of the NVIDIA The Way It's Meant to Be Play program and fully supports DirectX 12. The game scene for processor measurement is again different from the graphics card scene. Geothermal Valley location is very demanding on the processor, and if somewhere in this game the processor will limit the graphics card, it will be here. The frametimes measurement section is 100 seconds long and the game is set to Ultra details with SMAA smoothing in both resolutions.

Set up the Rise of the Tomb Raider game for tests

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Conclusion or is it for better AMD or Intel?

The answer to the question of what processor you can play better, or the processor that supports your graphics card , is unambiguous. It's a bit of an individual matter, where the main question is how you play the game and how strong you have it. Tests clearly tell us that where there is more work for the processor than the graphics card at 1920x1080, Intel is reigning with its i5 and i7. Where the processor no longer qualifies for this (higher resolution, better engine games), Intel's Kaby Lake processors equalize AMD Ryzen. Even though the GTX 1080 graphics card is sufficient in 2560x1440 resolution with full details without compromise, exceptions such as Fallout 4 or simply eSport and playing games where more FPS is always better are possible. If you are interested in how to build the new Intel Basin Falls x299 platform benchmark and PC games, you'll learn this in our Intel Skylake-X and Kabylake-X Test . The ASUS PRIME X299-DELUXE motherboard , which is a great candidate for the new Intel processors, also deserves a stand-alone test.

Other circumstances in the processor's choice are financial options, and hand to heart, not always after the construction of new game PC finance for a quality monitor with a resolution of 2560x1440. Some - and in particular - profi players also prefer a higher resurfacing frequency of the monitor than higher resolution - here is a claim to more FPS and therefore it is desirable to stay in Full HD resolution.

i Intel Core i5 and i7 processors are for sure and even less resolute with a strong graphics card for pure gaming purposes. They are more user-friendly because there is not much need for clocking (especially memory), as with competing AMD Ryzen.

The key factor for the "FPS shooter" profi player is then the high number of frames per second. But this is not due to the mistakenly and often recalled inputlag, but simply because the higher frame rates are faster and more sharp. The more FPS you have, the more accurate (less pixels) you target the enemy's mouse cursor. That's why Intel Core Kaby Lake processors are the right choice for players.

My name is Michal Mikle, I'm an overclocker and I enjoy performance. Where there is the possibility of squeezing the last drop of power from the hardware, I must not miss it. I love adrenaline and pushing the limits of the components myself and myself. To this wealthy activity I mainly use liquid nitrogen, compressor methods, but I like to play with water (sometimes undercooled) and do not heat or quality air cooling.

Processors