Better for gaming 720 or 810??

[ibreakstuff]

I'm running a XFX 750a so I'm limited to a 95 watt processor. I'm wondering if the extra core on the 810 will make up for its slower speed and lower cache.

I'm running a 5600+ with 1 mb cache OC'd to 3.1G and it runs a few games (GTA) a little choppy.

 

[Outlander_04]

in what application?

Gaming you are better off with a 720 be because of the higher individual core speed .

Mutlitasking and multithreaded apps its going to be close

 

[The Third Level]

720 is much nicer.
Most games arent quad optimized so the extra core wont be huge.
I'd rather have the cache and extra OCing potential.

 

[bige420]

The 720 would be an easy overclocker, but you could also just overclock the 810 to a good speed and it would probably be faster than the 720 in non-game applications and about on par with the 720 in games probably.

 

[ibreakstuff]

I'm running a XFX 9800gt with 512M of DDR3. I can OC the video card on COD5 with no problem, but it overheats of GTA. When I run the benchmark in GTA it says the processor is running at about 96%.

COD multiplayer runs between 50-60 FPS on highest settings, Fallout runs at about 40 also on highest settings, and Crysis runs between 25 and 30 Fps on low settings.

GTA will give me 25 to 30 FPS but looks like crap compared to crysis.

For my OC I bumped the FSB up to 215MHZ with voltage set to auto. My temps get up to 60C when gaming, but it is hot down here.

The only other program that I run that puts any stress on the computer is Sketchup, but I don't think it's optimized for more than one core.

 

[Reynod]

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUSideBySide.aspx?id=522&id=523&id=525&id=526

Hope this helps you decide.

 

[ibreakstuff]

Thanks for the chart. Does the extra cache on the 720 make a difference for anything? I'm currently at 1Mb cache so I'm sure anything is an improvement.

I have GTA running at 1920 x 1080. At the lower resolutions it still looks choppy, but it also looks pixelated as well. It probably doesn't help that I play on a 46" TV.

I thought about going with ATI next time, but for now I have a mobo with sli, so I might pick up another 9800 if I catch one on sale.

I run the fan on the GPU at 90% with rivatuner and on some games it will get to about 80C under load. I'm not really worried about those temp because XFX has a OC friendly warranty.

 

[ibreakstuff]

Since my hard drive isn't sitting on my video card I'm not to concerned about the temps.

GTA is choppy at all resolutions, at 1920x1080 it's not much worse than at lower resolutions, it just has slightly better textures

Using the GTA benchmark tool:

1280x720
FPS 34.4
CPU 97%
System memory 71%
Video memory 76%

1920x1280
FPS 30.5
CPU 98%
system memory 69%
Video memory 87%

There's not point to getting a better GPU if the processor can't keep up.

 

[BadTrip]

Being that GTA IV is optimized for quad core, I think that the 810 will show you improvement.

 

[B-Unit]

Personally, id either get a 720 or wait till I could afford a 920 or 945?(not sure what the non-BE AM3 quad is called). I dont like the idea of cache-crippled chips for gaming.

 

[ibreakstuff]

I went out and got the 720. FPS improved in GTA to 44.5 on stock speeds and it runs cooler too.

 

[ibreakstuff]

My Mobo doesn't want to let me adjust my multiplier, but I was able to use my on board graphics for physx. It got me 3 fps in GTA by the game looks much smoother.