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Hitman, Project CARS & Metro: Last Light
Hitman (2016)
Hitman scales well during our benchmark, obviously responding to clock rate and core count. The Ryzen 7 1800X receives a boost when we disable SMT, but it still lags the field under the influence of a slight overclock to 3.8 GHz.
The FX-8350, which experiences severe frame time variance, highlights how far AMD has come in a few short generations on the performance front.
The Core i7-7700K takes the lead with a fixed 3.8 GHz frequency, but Ryzen closes the gap as resolution increases. The 1800X at its stock clock rate shows up well behind Intel's Core i7-6900K, but to keep things in perspective, you get 87% of Broadwell-E's performance for less than half of its price with Ryzen 7 1800X. Conversely, you can opt for the $350 Core i7-7700K and enjoy more performance than AMD's 1800X in many popular titles.
The gap narrows even more between Ryzen and Intel's processors as we shift to 2560x1440. The Core i7-6900K and -7700K are still faster, but the utility question surfaces again: if you specifically need an eight-core processor for content creation, you can go with the 1800X and give up some gaming alacrity, or, if high frame rates are top priority, buy the Core i7-7700K knowing it won't be as fast elsewhere.
Project CARS
Intel's Core i7-7700 takes a big lead during our Project CARS testing, followed by the Core i7-6900K. AMD's Ryzen 7 1800X with a fixed 3.8 GHz frequency slides past the SMT-disabled results, suggesting the game works well with AMD's SMT implementation.
Project CARS delivers similar maximum frame rates, even at a higher resolution, which illustrates just how CPU-constrained the game is. The 1800X without SMT and the 1800X under Microsoft's High Performance power profile swap positions on the chart, but are only separated by 0.1 FPS.
The FX-8350 suffers significant performance variation, while Ryzen 7 1800X provides a smoother experience using the High Performance profile. Intel's Core i7-7700K continues to impress with a beastly lead over the other processors, including the -6900K overclocked slightly.
Metro: Last Light Redux
The Ryzen 7 1800X averages 91+ FPS during the benchmark, and only lags the Core i7-7700K by 2.8 FPS.
The FX-8350 falls to the bottom of our chart, and though it trails the rest of the field by a marginal average frame rate, it experiences much more frame time variance.
In all four configurations, the Intel processors are separated by a scant 0.2 FPS during the graphics-intensive workload. The Ryzen 7 1800X offers nearly the same performance as the leading CPUs.
