Just recently, we reviewed the Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition graphics card. Though still not the single GPU solution for gaming at 2160p @ 60 FPS, GTX 1080’s performance was impressive at 1440p. What is even more impressive is it is faster than GTX 980 Ti while also drawing a lot less power. However, we used an Intel Core i7 4790K for that review and some gamers might be wondering if they can use a cheaper CPU and still get a high level of performance. For this preview, we will be testing at 1080p and use an Intel Core i3 6100. The reason behind it is that many gamers are still using 1080p monitors and Core i3 6100 is a popular gaming CPU. Also, there are already affordable 144-Hz 1080p monitors which GTX 1080 will be perfect for.
We would like to thank NVIDIA for providing the GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition used in this test.
How We Tested
The PC we used for testing is shown below.
Processor: Intel Core i3 6100
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VIII Formula
Memory: 8GBx2 DDR4 2133 MHz
Power Supply: Thermaltake Tough Power 1000 watts
Driver: GeForce 368.39
Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit
Frame rates and frame times of a 60-second game play were recorded using FRAPS. The test results are the average of 3 benchmark runs.
The games and corresponding image quality settings used are shown below:
Crysis 3
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Texture Resolution: Very High
Anti-aliasing: 2Tx SMAA
System Spec: Very High
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Motion Blur: Disabled
Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX11 mode)
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Anti-aliasing: SMAA
Texture Quality: Very High
Anisotropic Filter: 16x
Shadow Quality: Very High
Sun Soft Shadows: Very High
Depth of Field: Very High
Level of Detail: Very High
Dynamic Foliage: High
Ambient Occlusion: On
Pure Hair: On
Specular Reflection Quality: Very High
Vignette Blur: Off
Motion Blur: Off
Bloom: On
Tessellation: On
Screen Space Reflections: On
Lens Flares: On
Film Grain: Off
The Witcher 3
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate: Unlimited
Nvidia HairWorks: Off
Number of Background Characters: Ultra
Shadow Quality: Ultra
Terrain Quality: Ultra
Water Quality: Ultra
Grass Density: Ultra
Texture Quality: Ultra
Foliage Visibility Range: Ultra
Detail Level: Ultra
Motion Blur: Off
Blur: Off
Anti-aliasing: On
Bloom: On
Sharpening: High
Ambient Occlusion: SSAO
Depth of Field: On
Chromatic Aberration: Off
Vignetting: On
Light Shafts: On
Here are the areas of the game that we benchmarked. CPU gaming benchmark results are pointless if we don’t show what area of the game we benchmarked.
Test Results
We included the Core i7 6700K here as reference so we can measure how much performance loss there will be if you use a Core i3 6100. Also, as we have mentioned in our past article, we tested if there is a gaming performance difference between a real CPU and a simulated CPU. By disabling 2 CPU cores, disabling Turbo, and reducing the clock speed of Core i7 6700K to 3.7 GHz, we were able to simulate a Core i3 6100. The main difference between a simulated Core i3 6100 and a real Core i3 6100 is the L3 cache – 8MB for the simulated CPU and 3MB for the real CPU.
Despite being 3 years old already, Crysis 3 stays in our game list for benchmarking CPU’s and GPU’s. It’s still demanding on the current GPU’s especially if you use 4x SMAA. In this game, Core i7 6700K is about 140% faster than Core i3 6100. The increased L3 cache made the simulated Core i3 6100 faster than the real one by 15%. As shown by the frame times, the game is unplayable on the Core i3 6100.
In Rise of the Tomb Raider, Core i7 6700K was only 56% faster than Core i3 6100. The difference was smaller compared with what we saw in Crysis 3 but it is still a notable one. But the more interesting finding here is the performance difference between the simulated Core i3 6100 and the real Core i3 6100. The 5MB L3 cache advantage of the simulated CPU made it faster than the real one by about 30%. It seems Intel was right to cripple the L3 cache of lower model CPU’s.
Some review sites make The Witcher 3 appear to be as a game that is not demanding on the CPU. But based on our testing today, this game’s performance is heavily affected by the CPU. Although the game is playable on all CPU’s that we tested, Core i7 6700K is 79% faster than Core i3 6100. Like with the other games, the L3 cache helps and it made the simulated Core i3 6100 be 19% faster than the real Core i3 6100.
So, should I buy a Core i7 for a GTX 1080?
Like we have said earlier, this is just a preview of how the CPU affects the gaming performance of GTX 1080. We still need to test at 1440p and with more CPU’s to determine what CPU for the GTX 1080 will give the best value for the money. Hopefully, we can include Intel Core i5 6500 and AMD FX-8350 in our follow-up article on this topic. But based on the results we have right now, we can confidently say that Core i3 6100 is not a good match for GTX 1080 at 1080p.
On the topic of CPU simulation, we initially thought the L3 cache wouldn’t matter much in gaming. But today’s results proved that L3 cache helps in gaming, at least when the number of CPU cores is insufficient to drive the GPU at its maximum potential. The simulated Core i3 6100 with 8MB L3 cache was 15-30% faster than the real Core i3 6100 with 3MB L3 cache. Does this mean we would stop using CPU simulation in our benchmarks? That depends on the review we are doing. If we just want to find out how Hyper Threading and the number of CPU cores affect gaming performance, we might still use CPU simulation. But if, for example, we want to know how Core i3 6320 3.9 GHz compares to other CPU’s in gaming using a specific GPU, a real CPU must be used so we can give reliable results.
4 Comments
Thanks sa review boss 😀 nice info about the difference between simulated and real cpu! hope to see i5 6400 join the ranks to see how much of difference it has with the i3 6100, with more cores, lower clock but bigger L3 cache.
sa APU bossmac? AMD A10 7700K 🙂
Hmmm pwede naman, habol naten habang may ganyan CPU ako pero can’t promise binabawi na ni AMD haha
Sige ser para kung may graphics giveaway kayu pwede ko salpak dito hehe