MSI 970 Gaming Motherboard Review: Undercutting AM3+ at $100
by Ian Cutress on January 22, 2015 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- AMD
- MSI
- Vishera
- AM3+
Gaming Performance
F1 2013
First up is F1 2013 by Codemasters. I am a big Formula 1 fan in my spare time, and nothing makes me happier than carving up the field in a Caterham, waving to the Red Bulls as I drive by (because I play on easy and take shortcuts). F1 2013 uses the EGO Engine, and like other Codemasters games ends up being very playable on old hardware quite easily. In order to beef up the benchmark a bit, we devised the following scenario for the benchmark mode: one lap of Spa-Francorchamps in the heavy wet, the benchmark follows Jenson Button in the McLaren who starts on the grid in 22nd place, with the field made up of 11 Williams cars, 5 Marussia and 5 Caterham in that order. This puts emphasis on the CPU to handle the AI in the wet, and allows for a good amount of overtaking during the automated benchmark. We test at 1920x1080 on Ultra graphical settings.
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite was Zero Punctuation’s Game of the Year for 2013, uses the Unreal Engine 3, and is designed to scale with both cores and graphical prowess. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Tomb Raider
The next benchmark in our test is Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is an AMD optimized game, lauded for its use of TressFX creating dynamic hair to increase the immersion in game. Tomb Raider uses a modified version of the Crystal Engine, and enjoys raw horsepower. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is a benchmarking wet dream – a highly complex benchmark that can bring the toughest setup and high resolutions down into single figures. Having an extreme SSAO setting can do that, but at the right settings Sleeping Dogs is highly playable and enjoyable. We run the basic benchmark program laid out in the Adrenaline benchmark tool, and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
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Stuka87 - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
I am actually in the market to replace my old Phenom II system (965BE @4GHz with an HD7950). And as nice as the price is for newer AMD stuff, even at the same price the performance is just not there for gaming. Too many games are poorly coded and only use two threads, so even with my current CPU two cores sit there doing nothing. With an 8320e, 6 cores sit there doing nothing. And the IPC improvements from Phenom II to current FX chips is marginal at best.Its just disappointing that gamers basically HAVE to go Intel to run any current games decently.
JarredWalton - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
It all depends on what you're trying to run. A very large number of games are going to be GPU limited, so much so that it really has no meaning what CPU you're running unless you're at medium to high quality settings in order to boost frame rates. We could also trot out Mantle and DX12, which should make the CPU matter even less -- but only on games that use those APIs, which is not the vast majority of games out right now or even coming this year.So yeah, if you're buying a new motherboard and CPU, it's hard to find a reason to buy an FX chip right now. If you already own one, you don't necessarily need to upgrade, but that's a different matter.
Stuka87 - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
Mantle is a huge boost. BF4 is near unplayable for me in multiplayer with DirectX, but runs "ok" in mantle (average 45fps, CPU limited with all four cores pegged). In that game an 8 core FX would help a lot. But then you go to a Blizzard game like Heroes of the Storm, and I am stuck with 2 cores pegged. A low end i3 outperforms my system (and FX systems) in these cases by quite a large margin.eanazag - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
Blizzard games always seem to be CPU heavy. It enables them to run the software decent on almost any kind of hardware. They build for Macs and many use the Intel IGP.Alexvrb - Thursday, January 22, 2015 - link
This is true and in some ways Blizzard's engines are very well optimized. They don't lean too hard on the graphics (at least at fairly moderate settings) and they look good even if you don't have a fast enough system to crank on all the eyecandy. They run well on systems with few cores, too. Both of these things tend to make them fairly laptop-friendly as well. But they're not very well threaded and the downside is that if you've got a system with relatively low per-thread performance and 4+ cores you're often going to have an unnecessarily poor experience as it simple can not take advantage of your setup.piteq - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
I will jump in here with a question. Considering myself a WoW player and AMD supporter (that's a weird combo for sure ;-) ), I look for some options to upgrade my Phenom II X4 965 (3,5 GHz, it's not OC-ing well) and Radeon 6790 /w 1GB GDDR5 (which is noisy…). I realize, the improvement won't be huge, but I think about: Vishera 8320E, some mobo (Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0? Or maybe there are better ones for the price) and some much more silent GPU (R7 265 / R9 270? Or maybe there's something not much more expensive and better?). Do you think I will notice some justifable difference? :)HappyHubris - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
From a X4 965 you really have no viable upgrade path.According to Anandtech's benchmark, upgrading from a X4 965 to FX 8320E would give you
HappyHubris - Friday, January 23, 2015 - link
From a X4 965 you really have no viable upgrade path.According to Anandtech's benchmark, upgrading from a X4 965 to FX 8320E would give you less than 10% improvement in average FPS:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/102?vs=698
It looks like a Haswell i3 would be quite an upgrade, based on the SB i3 performance vs. AMD parts:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/62
piteq - Monday, January 26, 2015 - link
Thank you! Eh, seems AMD marketing should never, ever show WoW results to anyone ;) Ineed, if not i3, then i5 seems to much more sensible path, especially it's not THAT more expensive thank 8320E. Well, it's just a weird, very bad for AMD case, still…FlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
Buy a GTX970, you're done.