Principled Technologies Releases Updated Test Results

Principled Technologies issued an updated game testing report to respond to the controversy surrounding its recent gaming benchmarking report. As expected, the readjusted testing conditions resulted in better performance for AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X.

The original report, which was paid for by Intel, pitted AMD's Ryzen processors against the Intel's new lineup of Coffee Lake Refresh processors. A closer examination of the results revealed a few test conditions that obviously could skew the results in favor of Intel's processor, including using a less-capable CPU cooler on AMD's chip and disabling half the cores on an AMD Ryzen processor.

Principled Technologies released a statement about the new reports, stating that it had retested all AMD processors in Creator Mode. As expected, Creator Mode "yielded the best gaming performance on the 2700X." The Threadripper processors provided the best performance in the Game Mode testing used in the original report.

Intel also provided a statement:

“Given the feedback from the tech community, we are pleased that Principled Technologies ran additional tests. They’ve now published these results along with even more detail on the configurations used and the rationale. The results continue to show that the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K is the world’s best gaming processor. We are thankful for Principled Technologies’ time and transparency throughout this process. We always appreciate feedback from the tech community and are looking forward to comprehensive third party reviews coming out on October 19.”

Principled Technologies originally tested the Ryzen 7 2700X in Game Mode, which turns the eight-core processor into a quad-core chip. That would obviously punish the processors in many of the multi-threaded games. The second batch of testing includes both the original Game Mode testing and retesting with the 2700X's native Creator's Mode. This allows the processor to use the full heft of its eight cores and sixteen threads, which resulted in performance improvements in several of the 19 game titles. The report also includes testing of the Threadripper processors in Creator Mode, though we see the expected mix of performance improvements and regressions with the changes.

Enthusiasts also raised the alarm about the cooling solution the firm used on the Ryzen 7 2700X. As we know, less-capable coolers can impact performance, but the company stuck with the stock AMD cooler yet again in the retests, leaving the potential issue unresolved.

A beefier cooler on the AMD processor could improve performance by allowing it to take full advantage of its XFR boost frequencies. As we've proven in the past, improved cooling benefits both AMD and Intel's chips by allowing the processors to operate at their Boost frequencies more frequently, and then maintain the heightened clock speeds for longer periods of time. The company is leaving itself open to criticism for not retesting with a more capable cooling solution or providing test data to prove the cooler didn't impact the test results in its specific testbed configuration. The performance deltas attributable to the cooler can be slight to nonexistent with open-air benches, so it may not have impacted the results, but the issue can be more pronounced in cases with restricted airflow. We're reaching out to Principled Technologies for more detail.

We've seen misleading reports in the past from almost every vendor, so, as always, we advise readers to wait for reviews instead of plunking down their hard-earned cash based solely on vendor-provided or commissioned benchmarks. We'll publish our full review on October 19 at 9AM ET.