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AotS: Escalation & Civilization VI
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation responds well to the addition of more host processing resources, and that's good news for Core i9-7960X's 16 cores and high IPC throughput.
The -7960X provides great performance at stock settings and even better results after some tuning. We did, however, encounter lower minimum frame rates from -7960X compared to the Core i9-7900X, though. The same behavior manifested on our -7980XE, so we suspect this issue is endemic to Intel's HCC die. You can see where the frame rates dip in our performance over time chart. This is accompanied by higher frame times in those problem areas.
AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 1950X lags behind, though it does achieve a higher minimum frame rate and 99th percentile measurement. The Threadripper models also don’t suffer as much during the latter stages of our benchmark.
Civilization VI AI Test
The Civilization VI AI test measures performance in a turn-based strategy game. Intel's Core i9-7960X offers middling performance at its stock settings, but benefits greatly from our overclocking efforts. It even outpaces an overclocked Core i9-7900X.
Civilization VI Graphics Test
Core i9-7960X trails most of the field, including a stock Ryzen 7 1800X, in its out-of-box configuration. Overclocking propels it to the top of our chart, though.
The tuned Core i9-7960X does encounter some turbulence during the opening stages of our Civilization VI benchmark, though, manifesting as a spike in the frame time variance chart.
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