Choosing a Gaming CPU October 2013: i7-4960X, i5-4670K, Nehalem and Intel Update

To start, we want to thank the many manufacturers who have donated kit for our test beds in order to make this review, along with many others, possible.

Thank you to OCZ for providing us with 1250W Gold Power Supplies.
Thank you to G.Skill for providing us with memory kits.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with an AX1200i PSU and 16GB 2400C10 memory.
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with the AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit.
Thank you to ECS for providing us with the NVIDIA GPUs.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with the Corsair H80i CLC.
Thank you to Rosewill for providing us with the 500W Platinum Power Supply for mITX testing, BlackHawk Ultra, and 1600W Hercules PSU for extreme dual CPU + quad GPU testing, and RK-9100 keyboards.

Also many thanks go to the manufacturers who over the years have provided review samples which contribute to this review.  For this Intel update we would particularly like to thank Gigabyte for loaning the Haswell and Nehalem CPUs!

Testing Methodology

In order to keep the testing fair, we set strict rules in place for each of these setups.  For every new chipset, the SSD was formatted and a fresh installation of the OS was applied.  The chipset drivers for the motherboard were installed, along with NVIDIA drivers then AMD drivers.  The games were preinstalled on a second partition, but relinked to ensure they worked properly. The games were then tested as follows:

Metro 2033: Benchmark Mode, two runs of four scenes of Frontline at 1440p, max settings.  First run of four is discarded, average of second run is taken (minus outliers).
Dirt3: Benchmark Mode, four runs of the first scene with 8 cars at 1440p, max settings.  Average is taken.
Civilization V: One five minute run of the benchmark mode accessible at the command line, at 1440p and max settings.  Results produced are total frames in sets of 60 seconds, average taken.
Sleeping Dogs: Using the Adrenaline benchmark software, four scenes at 1440p in Ultra settings.  Average is taken.

If the platform was being used for the next CPU (e.g. Maximus V Formula, moving from FX-8150 to FX-8350), no need to reinstall.  If the platform is changed for the next test, a full reinstall and setup takes place.

How to Read This Review

Due to the large number of different variables in our review, it is hard to accurately label each data point with all the information about that setup.  It also stands to reason that just putting the CPU model is also a bad idea when the same CPU could be in two different motherboards with different GPU lane allocations.  There is also the memory aspect to consider, as well as if a motherboard uses MCT at stock.  Here is a set of labels correlating to configurations you will see in this review:

CPU[+] [CP] (PCIe version – lane allocation to GPUs [PLX])

e.g. A10-5800K (2 – x16/x16): A10-5800K with two GPUs in PCIe 2.0 mode

- First is the name of the CPU, then an optional + identifier for MCT enabled motherboards. 
 - CP indicates we are dealing with a Bulldozer derived CPU and using the Core Parking updates. 
 - Inside the circular brackets is the PCIe version of the lanes we are dealing with, along with the lane allocation to each GPU. 
 - The final flag is if a PLX chip is involved in lane allocation.

This one of the more complex configurations:

i7-3770K+ (3 – x8/x8/x8/x8 PLX)

Which means an i7-3770K (with MCT) powering four GPUs in PCIe 3.0 via a PLX chip

Common Configuration Points

All the system setups below have the following consistent configurations points:

- A fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Either an Intel Stock CPU Cooler, a Corsair H80i CLC or Thermalright TRUE Copper
- OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series PSU or Corsair AX1200i PSU for SP
- Rosewill 1600W Hercules for DP systems
- Up to 4x ASUS AMD HD 7970 GPUs, using Catalyst 13.1
- Up to 2x ECS NVIDIA GTX 580 GPUs, using GeForce WHQL 310.90
- SSD Boot Drives, OCZ Vertex 3 128 GB
- LG GH22NS50 Optical Drives
- Open Test Beds, either a DimasTech V2.5 EasyHard or a CoolerMaster Test Lab

CPU and Motherboard Configurations

Those listed as ‘Part 2’ are new for this update.

Our first port of call with all our testing is CPU throughput analysis, using our regular motherboard review benchmarks.