CPU VS GPU Battle!
The Contenders are:
GMA 950, Core2 T2250 @1.73ghz, Core2Q Ex9650 and GTX280 OCX!!
Tonight ladies and gentlemen. The ultimate battle. We have a GMA 950 clocked at 400mhz in the left
corner and a Core2 Quad Extreme 9650 in right corner. In our next double header we have a Core2
T2250 and a beefy all time champ GTX280CX which is one of the undisputed, undefeated champions of
the worrrlllllddd! LETS GET READYY TO RUMMMMMBBBBBLLLLLLLEEEE!!!
This battle will hopefully shed some light on modent CPU 3D rendering power.
Have CPUs
finally caught up to gpus when it comes to acceptable rendering performance? Or will it be
a while before CPUs could finally catch up to the highly parallel processing nature of the gpu.
Intel's Larrabee which has a launch date of late 2009 early 2010, will be the first multicore x86
gpu architecture to ever hit the pc gaming market. The initial launch of the Larrabee will have at
least 16-x86 mini cores and as many as 32-x86 mini cores. According to Intel there may be as little
as 8 cores to be used as an intergrated graphics unit used on motherboards such as laptops and all
in one motherboards.
Thanks with the help from
Swift Shader this article can finally come to pass. Swift Shader is a high performance
software 3D renderer that can be used instead of the standard Direct3D implementation. It is the
world's fastest pure software 3D renderer with DirectX9.0 class features. Swift Shader performs
between 50 and 100 times faster than Microsoft's Direct 3D Reference Rasterizer in tests with
sample applications and can achieve performance that surpasses low end intergrated graphics
hardware in many cases. Swiftshader achieves unprecendented level of performance by dynamically
compiling highly optimized code special to an application's 3D rendering needs.
A little bit of background on the hardware being tested.
As many as you know the GMA 950 is Intel's second-generation Graphics Media
Accelerator graphics core, which was also referred by Intel as 'Gen 3.5 Integrated Graphics Engine'
in datasheets. It is used in the Intel 940GML, 945G, 945GU and 945GT system chipsets. The amount of
video-decoding hardware has increased; VLD, iDCT, and dual video overlay windows are now handled in
hardware[citation needed] . The maximum core clock is up to 400 MHz (on Intel 945G, 945GC, 945GZ,
945GSE), boosting pixel fill-rate to a theoretical 1600 megapixels/s.
The GMA 950 shares the same architectural weakness as the GMA 900: no hardware geometry processing.
Neither basic (DX7) hardware transform and lighting,[2] nor more advanced vertex shaders (DX8 and
later) are handled in the GMA hardware. Which means any vertex shaders are processed by the host
cpu.
---
Core Duo contains 151 million transistors, including the shared 2 MB L2 cache.
Yonah's execution core contains a 12 stage pipeline, forecast to eventually be able to run at a
maximum frequency of 2.33–2.50 GHz. The communication between the L2 cache and both execution
cores is handled by a bus unit controller through arbitration, which reduces cache coherency
traffic over the FSB, at the expense of raising the core-to-L2 latency from 10 clock cycles (in the
Dothan Pentium M) to 14 clock cycles. The increase in clock frequency offsets the impact of the
increased clock cycle latency. The power management components of the core features improved
grained thermal control, as well as independent scaling of power between the two cores, resulting
in very efficient management of power.
Core processors communicate with the system chipset over a 667 MT/s front side bus (FSB), up from
533 MT/s used by the fastest Pentium M. T2050 & T2250 have also appeared in OEM systems as a
low-cost option with a lower 533 MHz FSB and no Virtualization Technology.
---The Core2Quad Extreme was the first Intel desktop processor to use 45 nm technology and high-k
metal gates. Yorkfield features a dual-die quad core design with two unified level-two (L2) caches
of 6 MB each. It also features a 1333 MT/s FSB and clock rate of 3 GHz. The processor incorporates
SSE4.1 instructions and has total of 820 million transistors on 2x107 mm² dies. It has been
said that the Core2Quad has a total compute power equaled to 51 GFlops on a QX9775.
---The GTX 280 is nVidia's current fastest graphics card. It packs 240 processing cores, 1.4
billion transistors and 1GB GDDR3 of local texture storage. It has a total compute power equaled to
933 GFlops. With Cuda, nVidia claims it can achieve up to 7x faster computing than traditional
CPUs.
---Test Platform Setup
TP1-
HP DV6120US Core T2250 1.73Ghz
1.5GB DDR2 533Mhz Ram
Vista 32 Bit SP1
GMA950 (Intel 945 Express Chipset)
GPU Driver: 7.14.10.1504 6/18/2008
TP2-
Core 2 Quad 9650 Extreme
4GB DDR2 1066MHz Ram
BFG GTX 280 OCX (Core665/Shader1350/Ram1250)
GPU Driver: 180.43
XFX nForce 680I Lt SLI
3-160GB Seagate 7200.11 (Raid-0)
BFG 650 Watt PSU
Vista 32Bit SP1
Games and Benchmarks Tested:
3dmark03, Mafia, Swift Shader Benches, Condemned, Max Payne 2, COD4, and Need For Speed ProStreet
Demo. I tried my hardest to get Fall0ut3, FC2, COD5, and BiAWaW to work but unfortunately all I was
greeted with was either a black screen or a CTD message. I will be adding HL2, Lost Coast, Swat4,
and NOLF2 shortly.
Test Notes:
All benchmarks were captured with Fraps to determine the min, avg, and max for given framerates.
All tests were ran 3 times to capture accurate data. Games were played for atleast 10 minutes to
measure proper frames per second for consistent data recording.
Testing Philosophy:
Instead of doing a simple apples to apples comparison I wanted to make sure that I squeeze every
ounce out the hardware too see its maximum potential. My testing philosophy revolves around the
highest playable settings available for the hardware.
Testing Note Abbreviations:
WNR- Will Not Run
NWR- Not Worth Running
MaxS- Max Settings
LD- Lowest Details
Alright enough with the chatter lets see some numbers!
Here are the contenders!
Lets start with some 3DMark Comparisons:
As you can see the C2Q is that far away from the GMA 950.
Heres some Swift Shader Comparisons
Note All Swift Shader Tests are Apples to Apples Testing:
The GMA leads the pack while the GTX280 slaughters these sheep like its no ones business!
The C2Q finally beats the GMA.
Once again the C2Q beats the GMA while the Core 2250 trails.
Same story different bench.
Alright lets take a look at some games shall we!
Unfortunately the GMA nor the Core was able to run this game. THe C2Q is unplayable even though it
runs the game at the lowest settings.
The C2Q was able to "run" this game but not at optimal framerates.
Ok lets take a look a some games that support all these processors.
The GMA holds its own while the C2Q barely handles this game on the lowest settings.
Recommandations
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and reject those that you are not interested in
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