CPU Performance Database

[scribbleheli]

I began building my current computer in the summer of 08. Got a decent cpu (the i7 920), pittily amount of ddr3. A cheap video card (Ati 4850?). And dropped a chunk on my Mobo. So I could slowly upgrade it and "future Proof" myself.

I added some fans, did very mild overclock, and left it alone till roughly last year where I added a GTX 760 4GB windforce GPU, H100i Water cooler and upped the overclock. Then got some 64 &480GB ssds at different times.

my plan was to get better CPUs for this MOBO when the prices came down (moores law) but *&$#(%& changed sockets.

So, now I'm looking to start building my next PC. I think 7 years is pretty good run for a technology that is outdated every 6 months..

[kithylin]

I began building my current computer in the summer of 08. Got a decent cpu (the i7 920), pittily amount of ddr3. A cheap video card (Ati 4850?). And dropped a chunk on my Mobo. So I could slowly upgrade it and "future Proof" myself.

I added some fans, did very mild overclock, and left it alone till roughly last year where I added a GTX 760 4GB windforce GPU, H100i Water cooler and upped the overclock. Then got some 64 &480GB ssds at different times.

my plan was to get better CPUs for this MOBO when the prices came down (moores law) but *&$#(%& changed sockets.

So, now I'm looking to start building my next PC. I think 7 years is pretty good run for a technology that is outdated every 6 months..

You can get a 6-core 3.3 ghz i7 for that socket for about $380, they're very good chips and hold their own against most newer games, espically if you can overclock em to 4ghz (should be easy with water). A little pricey to spend on an older platform, but I had one before @ 4.6 ghz on a h110i and it was faster than the modern-day i7 chips, and it might be cheaper than buying a whole new system in your case. Chips are 970x, 980x, 990x by the way, if you go looking.

Edited January 22, 2015 by kithylin

[Arugela]

I wonder how these will all fair out if they ever get full multicore support for physics and whatnot.

Whole new tests will have to be done! 8) I have a weird hunch those amds that underperform will not be quite as bad any longer. But who knows.

[Akira_R]

So I know next to nothing about computer hardware, well I have some understanding of terminology and how everything goes together, you know the chip has to match the socket on the mobo, the slots on the mobo determine the kind of RAM you can get etc. But as far as what exactly to look at when choosing a chip and mobo eludes me, I get on new egg and such and look at things and I can't seem to figure out the functional difference between some stuff. I look at some chips and see numbers that look to me worse than this other chip but the chip with the worse looking numbers is more expensive. Which leads me to the conclusion that I have no idea what I am looking at.

I have been playing KSP on my little i3 powered laptop for years now and I am really getting tired of looking at crappy textures and low resolutions, plus the fact that there are all these other games I want to play that are just unplayable. I have wanted to build a decent gaming rig for some time now but always get intimidated once I start looking around at stuff. Also I am on a very limited budget so the most bang for your buck is essential.

Looking through this thread a bit I noticed people talking about buying used components for cheap, my question is where is a good place to do this, what I should look for, is this a good idea for a first time pc build, just basically what the hell should I do lol.

[DMagic]

I've never been big on buying used PC components, so someone else will probably have to help out there. There are some reputable places to get parts(HardForum is one, I sell all of my used stuff there, but I think you have to be a member for a while before you can use their 'for sale' forums), I've just found that it can be a lot of trouble and buying new with a manufacturer's and/or retailers warranty provides peace-of-mind.

I can sympathize about not knowing which components are better. Back in the day it was mostly a matter of looking at CPU clock speed, but now you can't really do that, clock speed has basically remained unchanged for desktop PC's in the past 10 or so years. In general, for KSP, or basically any type of PC gaming, a recent Intel i5 desktop CPU will be pretty good. Anything from the past four years (the i5 2x00, 3x00, 4x00 series) will handle games and most everything else well enough. The more expensive i7's don't really make a difference for games and normal usage, and the dual-core i3's probably aren't a good idea for any kind of long-term build.

A first-time PC build can be a little tough, since you need to buy basically everything. It's mostly a matter of figuring out your budget and going from there.

[Thomfrak]

Hi I am about to buy a new computer, but want to make sure I'll be able to play ksp with nice textures and resolution.

I am considering 2 options: could anyone tell me which one would be the best and if I can expect a lot of differences between the 2 configurations?

Config 1

Apple MacBook Pro (MD103C/A) Notebook - Core i7 2.3 GHz - OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion - 4 GB RAM - 15.4" wide 1440 x 900 - NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M

Config 2

Intel Core i7-4710HQ 2.5 GHz

8 GB DDR3L SDRAM

750 GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive

Windows 8.1,

15.6-Inch FHD (1920*1080)

NVIDIA GTX860M 2GB GDDR5

I would assume the second one is better but as the processors are quite similar, I was wondering if it would justify the 300$ I'd have to add for config 2...

Thanks a lot for your help!!

[kithylin]

Hi I am about to buy a new computer, but want to make sure I'll be able to play ksp with nice textures and resolution.

I am considering 2 options: could anyone tell me which one would be the best and if I can expect a lot of differences between the 2 configurations?

Config 1

Apple MacBook Pro (MD103C/A) Notebook - Core i7 2.3 GHz - OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion - 4 GB RAM - 15.4" wide 1440 x 900 - NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M

Config 2

Intel Core i7-4710HQ 2.5 GHz

8 GB DDR3L SDRAM

750 GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive

Windows 8.1,

15.6-Inch FHD (1920*1080)

NVIDIA GTX860M 2GB GDDR5

I would assume the second one is better but as the processors are quite similar, I was wondering if it would justify the 300$ I'd have to add for config 2...

Thanks a lot for your help!!

Both would do well, one may be beter than the other. But I did a little searching on the macbook pro option #1, and I can not find specifically the model # of the processor it uses. There are quite a lot of different generations of i7 mobile now and one may be better than the other (sandy bridge, ivy bridge, haswell, etc). However, the option #2 I can tell it is indeed the latest generation haswell family cpu, so that's probably the best option all around, the haswell chips are the latest mobiles we have so far, and the best on performance and battery life. but it's your money, and the first one may just as well also be haswell, too, but I can't tell without knowing a model # of the CPU it uses.

Regardless, either one is going to do fantastically at KSP. The second one is superior though in many ways. A faster video card, a real 1080p screen, double the ram, slightly faster (based on pure core speed (Mhz / Ghz) alone), based on the hardware specs.

Edited February 25, 2015 by kithylin

[Thomfrak]

Thanks a lot for your comment!

The first processor is an Ivy Bridge

[kithylin]

Thanks a lot for your comment!

The first processor is an Ivy Bridge

The second one is going to be much better of an option though. Again it's your money but if you're going to buy a laptop today, it's usually a good idea to get the newer cpu's if you can, they're better on battery life and power usage.

[DMagic]

It's a bit tough to compare a MacBook to a Windows laptop, there's a lot more than performance that is different between the two, but I would say the Windows machine looks much better.

That looks like a pretty high-end mobile CPU, and the added RAM and the better GPU (and a decent resolution screen) will make a big difference; not just for KSP, but for everything. The spinning disk hard drive sucks, but there isn't much you can do about that without spending a lot more.

[kithylin]

I recently picked up a Patriot 60GB Sata-III SSD for $35 new last month, it's not too expensive to switch em to an SSD, although small one. Usually it won't void your warranty, as long as you keep your original mechanical drive somewhere in a closet, and if you need to send it in for factory warranty service, just swap the spinner drive back in and keep the SSD. That's at least what Acer said about my Acer laptop I own. If you buy that machine you may want to check with support department and get confirmation first though.

Edit: Also of note, according to this CPU database here, supposedly all haswell CPU's are the definitive best at KSP performance.

[sparkybear]

Intel i7 5960x @ 3.5GHz

64GB DDR4 2400 RAM

Solid State Hybrid Drive

1920x1080 Borderless

Logs are located here:

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bwz6qwYkoVltflFCOXhzeGhtODBJbzBraE85TTBtV3ZJbXMtckxjZFNfWTc4eTY5NzNCNkE&usp=sharing

[DMagic]

Thanks sparkybear, but it looks like you have V-sync turned on. You framerates seem to follow the even denominators of 60 frames pretty closely, 15, 20, 30 and 60 FPS.

Make sure you turn off v-sync and remove or set the framerate cap as high as it will go.

[sparkybear]

Sure thing, totally used the wrong installation when I ran the benchmark. I also ran into some other weird issues with my frame rate dropping on all launches from the launchpad, while launches from the runway and all vehicle assembly was fine. I think I've smoothed out the issues though. I'll re-run the test tomorrow, and re-upload them to the same link.

[DMagic]

Thanks for the updated files, I updated the first page. It seems your crazy high-end CPU is sadly underused by KSP, I even had to put it in with the outlier group.

Nevertheless, it does about as well as expected, pretty similar to any recent stock Intel i5 or i7.

[sparkybear]

Yeah, it's where I expected it to be. I'm glad it's up there and that I could contribute. I think I might re-run the test with an OC of around 4.5GHz when I get back to my house, just to see if that improves anything. I think most people think that price = speed for games and that higher is better, and that's just not always the case.

To be honest I don't play games much, my computer is mostly used as a workstation/sever, and the 5960 isn't necessarily designed to be as fast as the other i7s, it's designed to be more powerful. That power does translate into speed for a lot of the applications I use, but it makes sense for games that it's on par with an i5 or lower i7. One thing it does offer though is consistency, and the ability to chew through things without any stuttering or slow down, and that took me a while to find in a processor/ram setup. Anyways, again, glad I can contribute, and thank you for your contributions to the community. I thoroughly enjoy your mods and what they have added to the game.

[Switchblade88]

Any fresh news on this thread?

I've just bought myself an Alienware Alpha for AUD$600 and whilst it has an i3, it's a 4130T so I'm interested in the Haswell performance despite the lower speed.

Am I safe in assuming the most recent craft file is still valid for testing? Were there any significant changes affecting 1.0 that might skew results?

[DMagic]

Any fresh news on this thread?

I've just bought myself an Alienware Alpha for AUD$600 and whilst it has an i3, it's a 4130T so I'm interested in the Haswell performance despite the lower speed.

Am I safe in assuming the most recent craft file is still valid for testing? Were there any significant changes affecting 1.0 that might skew results?

I'm guessing it doesn't really work at all. It might fly if you keep it straight up, but the increase in the part-unload distance probably screws up the results.

I'm not really inclined to fix this until we get to Unity 5. The results under Unity 4.x seem pretty consistent, so I wouldn't expect a big difference anyway.

When KSP 1.1 releases I'll see about a total overhaul. Hopefully I'll be able to construct some 1000 part monstrosity to better test performance under Unity 5. I'll also probably distribute it with a plugin that will make capturing the framerate simpler, and maybe to shrink the part-unload distance for testing purposes. Anything I create will be similar to the logging plugin I made a while ago, it only runs when using this specific vessel, so it won't affect anything else.

[Switchblade88]

Alright, I won't bother with benchmarking at the moment then - I'll sit tight until we have progress!

[cantab]

The rocket flies fine straight up with RCS and SAS enabled from launch, aside from a couple of stages that burn out in the wrong order and a bit of SAS wobble in stage 8. Results won't be directly comparable to prior KSP versions both because of the extended physics range and the changes in part performance, however it looks to me like it's still useful for comparing the impact of setting changes or mods on your own install.

[DMagic]

The rocket flies fine straight up with RCS and SAS enabled from launch, aside from a couple of stages that burn out in the wrong order and a bit of SAS wobble in stage 8. Results won't be directly comparable to prior KSP versions both because of the extended physics range and the changes in part performance, however it looks to me like it's still useful for comparing the impact of setting changes or mods on your own install.

Yeah, the physics range changes really screw things up. I don't have any plans to fix this version.

But never fear, changing the unload range is easy (it will require a plugin, but that will allow for some other nice things, like a built in frame rate monitor, and maybe some limited autopilot to help reduce user differences) and work is under way...

[DMagic]

Just to check how things look in 1.0.4 vs 0.90 I reverted the vessel unload/unpack ranges to their 0.90 values and ran the test again. They are surprisingly bad in 1.0.4.

Results are lower across the board. And that dip starting around 150s is caused by the aero effects, which weren't so easily triggered before 1.0.

[cantab]

That result's no huge surprise based on what I've been hearing. I suspect the complex (and buggy) heating system is behind the worse performance.

As for the rocket, the above design with the planes up top looks flippy. I'd be worried that any changes Squad make to the aerodynamic model could render it unlaunchable, plus people might want to try it in FAR to see if that has any framerate impact.

[DMagic]

As for the rocket, the above design with the planes up top looks flippy. I'd be worried that any changes Squad make to the aerodynamic model could render it unlaunchable, plus people might want to try it in FAR to see if that has any framerate impact.

I'm not really concerned about people trying to measure the impacts of mods; that just complicates things. It would be nice if people ran it without mods, but I'm not overly optimistic about getting that many people to actually run things on a clean install.

That vessel is very stable though. It's a bit too slow to have any real problems. The planes are stable after detaching, too.

[Dakitess]

Mmh good that this thread already exists, I was about to create one to deal with FPS / CPU.

I'm currently about to buy a new CPU but do not know what is best... I'm running a i3 3220 / GTX660 / 8Gb RAM which correspond to a saaaaaad 2-4 FPS with a 450 parts thing on the runway. Really not satisfying, especially when I was 6-8FPS with 800 parts rockets at launch, in 0.90 !

So i'd like to buy a new CPU, about 250€, depending on how it is cost effective on KSP ! If you already have information, let me know, even if charts helps me !