i5 Haswell to i7 Kabylake: A Stormblood Benchmark Comparison

So I went ahead and upgraded my CPU and Mobo to a i7-7700 Kabylake with the appropriate motherboard BIOS update. Wanted to share the benchmarks for people who want a general idea of what to expect. Same video card (GTX 1070) and same SSD (Samsung 850 EVO) on both. Same maximum setting but on borderless as FFXIV becomes unresponsive on my rig at fullscreen DX11 for some reason.

i5-4670 Haswell Benchmark:
http://i.imgur.com/pZiuzDp.jpg

i7-7700 Kabylake Benchmark:
http://i.imgur.com/cyk7K4K.jpg

This accounts for an overall 1000 score increase. The following observations were also made on the data not present on the general screen.

1. Overall increase in average FPS from 88fps to 96fps. Net 7fps gain all things being equal.

2. Almost no screen tearing, as the benchmark has no Vsync.

3. Overall reduction of loading times from 22s to 18s. Across all 6 scenes it's anywhere from 0.4s to a whole second.

My observations:

1. FPS performance gains are less than 10%, so overall the improvements from a CPU upgrade are negligible at best. From this POV a video card upgrade will be more cost effective.

2. I assume that the decreased screen tearing is due to a better performance match up between CPU and GPU. This could be a good thing for those wanting to really do a CPU upgrade, because maybe now we can turn off Vsync and expect better performance gains.

3. Since my mobo was the same and the adaptors are the same, we could account the loading time improvement squarely on the CPU and not on my SSD. 1 second loading speed reduction might be generally negligible unless you're in highly populated area.

Conclusion: Get a better video card even if it's more expensive. Despite MMO's being CPU heavy, FFXIV will run better on a comparative GPU upgrade than a CPU one. Any 4th gen Intel processor and presumably AMD equivalent will be more than suffice. I can't recommend a CPU upgrade alone for those wanting improved performance.

That's a fairly decent bump for just a CPU upgrade, granted the difference between the 4670 and 7700 is pretty big (clock speed/bus speed/L3 cache/4 more threads/etc), but I definitely agree with the conclusion. I wouldn't recommend upgrading either if you have at least an intel core i5 haswell (4000 series) CPU. Maybe from an i3 (any gen), or from Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge, but those are still good to run this game (if not quite at max settings in Stormblood). For me; I'll build a new PC eventually, but my i5 4690k and GTX970 will suffice for at least another year, probably :P

And some technobabble for those who might see the term "screen tearing" in the OP and not quite understand what it is: Screen tearing generally occurs because of the refresh rate of your monitor is faster or slower than the amount of frames your computer is sending to your monitor. LCD monitors draw frames from one the top of the screen down to the bottom in rapid succession. If the refresh rate is 60hz, the monitor draws 60 frames per second. A computer can pump more frames out than the monitor can fully draw per second (or less than) unless limited (by like VSync). Screen tearing occurs when the monitor is partway through drawing a frame and either A) the computer sends another frame for the monitor to draw midway through (say like with 60hz monitor and say PC is pushing 90FPS, half of the frames will be drawn something like the top half being part of one frame, and the bottom half being the next sent to be drawn), or B) the monitor refreshes faster than the PC can render so part of a frame will be on the screen longer than another part.

Anything from an i5 Sandy Bridge and above is good to go for Stormblood. Invest in a better GPU if you want a more significant upgrade unless you are planning to upgrade the whole system for other reasons.

I have a 144hz monitor, so I assume this would become more evident the higher you push your refresh rates. It became noticeable to me because I got some screen tearing before I changed my CPU.

At stock clocks my i5 only achieved scores around 13000 and that was paired with the 1080. However at an overclock to 4.5GHz the score increased to 17000.

The engine clearly responds well to higher clock speeds than anything your GPU is doing. I imagine a 1070 paired with a decently overclocked i7 could get around 17000 as well.

Solution: Overclock if you really want more performance in FFXIV

Well my i7 is a 7700 non-k and the board is an BIOS updated H170, so I can't OC the thing.

i7-4770k seems to get around the same result as i7-7770? Can anyone confirm this?

Im thinking of moving from PS4 to PC with a i5 7600k, 16GB 2800mhz DDR4, GTX 1060 6GB. Anyone with similar hardware that can tell me what kind of settings i can play? Obviously even High will be a hugely upgrade from playing on console

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Conclusion: Get a better video card even if it's more expensive. Despite MMO's being CPU heavy, FFXIV will run better on a comparative GPU upgrade than a CPU one. Any 4th gen Intel processor and presumably AMD equivalent will be more than suffice. I can't recommend a CPU upgrade alone for those wanting improved performance.

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Interesting data, here's my score with i7-4790k and GTX 1080.

http://i.imgur.com/2Zsgarm.png

Average Frame Rate: 114.252

Loading Times by Scene
Scene #1 1.960 sec
Scene #2 2.588 sec
Scene #3 2.201 sec
Scene #4 2.854 sec
Scene #5 5.287 sec
Scene #6 1.292 sec
Total Loading Time 16.183 sec

Rinuko, you should be able to crank every setting to maximum and still enjoy 1080p/60fps in dungeons/raids/24 man content. Only 72 man PvP and busy overworld locations such as city states may cause your fps to dip, don't be surprised to see 40 fps in Idyllshire for instance. With your k-model cpu you can OC which will make your performance even more stable and be beneficial if you are using a high refresh rate display (144Hz).
Knock HBAO+ and Real time reflections down a notch and you gain about 15fps or so iirc.

Did you overclock at all? It seems you should be doing better than that. With my 6600k @ 4.5ghz, i'm doing about ~13k@ 2k resolution at ~max settings (some unnecessary things turned off). At 1080p you should be doing better

We have the same GPU.

Hi!

I believe that:
- XIV runs on ONE core;
- the process dealing with other players benefits from all core/threads available.
- The benchmark can run XIV, but can't simulate overpopulated places and their servers' CPU requirements.

So I would believe that moving from your 4/4 i5 to your 4/8 i7:
- won't improve XIV much, thus won't give a much better benchmark score;
- but should help keeping a good FPS at overpopulated places.

Is this true? Do you notice a better stability of your FPS at places like Idyllshire?

I'm looking for a CPU capable of keeping 1080p60 anywhere. (No multi-tasking while XIV running.)
Would you consider getting your 4/8 i7 a good idea for someone aiming at 1080p60-no-more-no-less? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

i5 Haswell [3.40GHz] to i7 Kabylake [3.60GHz]...
increase in average FPS from 88fps to 96fps...
improvements from a CPU upgrade are negligible...
Get a better video card...

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I may tell the fps improvement was almost linear with the frequency improvement. But yes, unless playing a game that closes its eyes to the GPU, a better video card is a winning move to get substantial improvements. But with a grain of salt, because after you reach the bottleneck of cpu and mb video bandwidth, anything better goes nowhere, like slotting a 1080ti into a pci express 1.0

I upgraded from a i7 Ivy Bridge (3770k) to a i7 Kaby Lake (7700k). Difference was pretty negligence. 10% at best. I had the Ivy Bridge for a good 4 years, so it was about due if I wanted to keep up.

However, I got about 30% more when I switched from a 1080 to a 1080 Ti. I usually upgrade and resell my previous GPUs, but usually stay on "regular" X80 variants. I made an exception in this case. Still, after reselling my 1080, board, RAM and CPU, I spent about 850 canadian dollars. In two phases, the GPU being upgrade a month after the rest.

And that's because I made the move to 4K. It was already more than enough for 1080p.

With a 1080 Ti and 7700k, I get 61 average fps at High (Desktop) Settings, and about 55 fps at Max Settings. In 3840 X 2160 of course. Anything below that is overkill.

Before that, I averaged 40 fps with the 3770k and 1080 at 4K Max Settings.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

2. Almost no screen tearing, as the benchmark has no Vsync.

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No tearing without any kind of sync is impossibble by design.

The V in VSync stand for "vertical blank".

When VSync is used, the system waits till the current frame is completely drawn to the screen before exchanging it with the next frame.

When VSync of off, the current frame get exchanged with the next frame while it get drawn to the screen. The result is that the upper part on the screen is a different frame than the lower part. The visible "border" between these two parts is what is called tearing.

I was tell people to get* one of three processors (2 for laptop):

i7-4790K, i7-6700k, or i7-7700k (i7-6700HQ or i7-7700HQ for laptop)

Get the first 2 if they're $100 or more cheaper than the 7700k. If not get the 7700k. For the best bang for your buck.

Then get the best GPU you can afford. What this does is allows you to play any game, from any generation. I also tell them to avoid AMD. Now before anyone gets antsy about me saying this. Understand that historically I've been an AMD supporter. The Phenom II's were great processors (and I still believe that they are great up to about 2012-2014). But the newer gen AMDs after the Phenoms were hit and miss. When I played Planetside 2, I saw one and two generation NEWER AMD's perform WORSE than my Older AMD. That never made sense to me. And it came to be that certain AMDs would do certain games and other AMDs would do other games.

Intel has this issue too. Its not as pronounced but it does happen. But in my experience those three (and 2 laptop) CPU's do NOT have that issue. There's also about 2-3 i5's that are good enough especially with a small overclock, but I don't remember which ones off the top of my head. Not many games use Hyperthreading so its not a bad investment.

* Now this advice is given with the idea that you will be playing multiple games over multiple generations, from 1990s through the 2000s, and the 2010's. If all you are doing is playing FFXIV then yes a cheaper i3 or i5 will easily work. In fact if you are limiting your game experience to a small amount of games from one or two generations ago (in PC terms), then I recommend a i5 or possibly one of the new Rytens.

My guess is this game doesnt use more than 2 cores efficiently enough to matter. Even heavensward has a core 2 duo requirement. Having more threads wont matter much unless you are multitasking. You will only see improvements from increasing core (thread) speed and overall architecture performance improvements. Even then, most ppl could disable a core or two to achieve a higher stabler overclock. I only buy overclockable cpus, more bang for your buck.

A gpu upgrade is always going to be the better choice unless you are running a minimum requirement processor. There are game settings that affect proccesors but not as much as the gpu.

I'm running an I7-2600K (I built this system when the processor was fairly new). And have only ever upgraded the GPU (1070), I firmly believe that the game is definitely GPU dependent above everything else:

edit: Also, when i'm in game, I rarely ever see any noticeable Frame rate drops while in populated cities such as Idyll etc.

https://preview.ibb.co/jtGxBQ/ffxivbenchimg2.png

Overclocked my i7 5820K from 4.0Ghz to 4.5Ghz and got 400 more points. It was already overclocked from 3.3Ghz to 4.0Ghz.

Usually the CPU is what lasts longer in your system, so there's no real need to upgrade unless you're into video editting and need that extra power to finish the work faster!

Anyone with an i5 2500K and above should not worry about a CPU upgrade for this particular game. It doesn't even use more than 2 cores. If you worry about your performance upgrade your GPU and/or overclock your CPU for a free performance bump (assuming you know how to do it ofc).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by yotsuffy

Hi!

I believe that:
- XIV runs on ONE core;
- the process dealing with other players benefits from all core/threads available.
- The benchmark can run XIV, but can't simulate overpopulated places and their servers' CPU requirements.

So I would believe that moving from your 4/4 i5 to your 4/8 i7:
- won't improve XIV much, thus won't give a much better benchmark score;
- but should help keeping a good FPS at overpopulated places.

Is this true? Do you notice a better stability of your FPS at places like Idyllshire?

I'm looking for a CPU capable of keeping 1080p60 anywhere. (No multi-tasking while XIV running.)
Would you consider getting your 4/8 i7 a good idea for someone aiming at 1080p60-no-more-no-less? :)

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My i5 7600k + Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 performed around 15k without any overclocking of any kind on the benchmark. Additionally, I don't overclock my PC atall purely to keep the fan speed low as it annoys me, and I see 140-170 fps in dungeons and low population areas, while I get 80-100 in Idyllshire. This includes HBAO+ and real time reflections on and settings at maximum. I haven't done any hunts with hundreds of people, but even in Quarrymil where the millions gather for potd, I never drop below 60 fps. This is all at 1080p, although I have a 1440p monitor coming next week if you'd like an update on my performance at that resolution.

Additional specs are:
8GB DDR4 RAM 2400 MHz.
MSI Z270 Pro Series mobo
WD M.2 2280 SSD (load times are soooo good.)

TL;DR, I don't think the extra ~$150 you're going to spend on the i7 7700k is worth the relatively small increase you'd see from the i5 7600k.

EDIT: Additionally, I run a program that shall not be named in the background, which is one of the more CPU intensive programs you can utilize while playing.

Im looking to ugrade my RX480 4gb when Vega comes out, or if Vega tanks, get a gigabyte Auros 1080ti. I scored a 10660 at maximum full screen @1080 (i7-7700). Looking to breach 15k when I get the new gpu