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Battlefield 4
We opted for Battlefield 4’s Ultra IQ preset and 1920×1080 resolution to make the most of DICE's well-developed first person shooter. Our frame rates are recorded using a repeatable indoors section of the game.
Unfortunately testing the CPU-heavy online modes is impossible due to an inability to create repeatable tests. It should be understood that the heavy player interactions on Battlefield 4's 64-person multiplayer makes for a demanding CPU load.
DICE's Frostbite 3 engine used in Battlefield 4 is well-designed to take advantage of multiple CPU cores. A close working alliance with AMD during the game's development means that a full set of threads can be utilised on the chip maker's 8-core parts.
As such, similar performance is delivered by both processors, despite the differing performance levels of their underlying architecture. Intel's chip does tend to offer slightly higher frame rates in our indoor test environment, however it was noted that the processor was also more heavily loaded in the benchmark run.
Add in further CPU stress in the form of character interaction in 64-player online maps, and the additional cores offered by AMD's Vishera chip may come into play. With that said, our (basic) internal testing with some older Intel CPUs also highlights Battlefield 4's affinity for clock speed when it comes to multi-player levels.
The test results show that either processor is a good choice based on Battlefield 4's campaign levels, however the Intel Core i5-6400 does have a slight edge.
Far Cry 4
Ultra quality settings are applied for Far Cry 4, with a 1920×1080 resolution. SSBC and SSAA are applied, rather than Nvidia's GameWorks features.
We record frame rates using FRAPS on a 72-second run early into the game campaign where the automated vehicle chase takes place. We use this section because it creates a demanding CPU load and is repeatable.
Far Cry 4's Dunia Engine 2 is able to put significant loads on a CPU, especially when interaction of objects in the large, open-world surroundings is taken into account. Our test section, which sees a fast-paced vehicle chase occurring down a mountain road, is able to stress all of the cores on AMD's and Intel's chips.
Performance from the CPU architecture is clearly important to Far Cry 4's Dunia Engine 2. Intel's Skylake Core i5-6400 comfortably outperforms the AMD chip both at stock and overclocked speeds. The results actually seem to highlight a dislike for AMD's chip by the Far Cry 4 game engine.
It's also worth pointing out that none of the CPU configurations saw their respective processors completely utilised during our testing. Even the stock-clocked Core i5 and FX 8370 hovered around 60-90% CPU utilisation, although the former consistently had its third core pinned at 100% usage. The GPU usage was sat at around 50-80% with AMD's CPU, despite being fully utilised on the Intel platform.
Whether the design of this game's engine dislikes AMD's hardware or if it is better optimised to take advantage of Intel's newer instruction sets is unclear. Either way, our test results show that Intel's Skylake Core i5-6400 is the better choice for gaming with Far Cry 4.
Grand Theft Auto V
We apply maximum settings in Grand Theft Auto V and a 1920×1080 resolution to push today’s hardware. MSAA is not applied due to the significant impact it has on frame rates. Our data was recorded using the built-in benchmark.
Grand Theft Auto V is another title that is built around a superb game engine with an ability to take advantage of multi-threaded CPUs. We have actually seen the game balancing load effectively across twelve CPU threads when used with a Core i7-5960X 16-thread processor.
But as is clear from our charted test results (and our internal testing), GTA V also has a clear liking for IPC from the CPU driving the game. Despite being pinned at 90+% CPU usage, to the point that the GTX 980 Ti is being bottlenecked, Intel's stock-clocked Core i5-6400 still comes out with a clear frame rate advantage over AMD's 8-core chip. The gap widens when the i5's clock speed is increased.
As was the case with Far Cry 4, GTA V does not pin the AMD processor at 100% usage, despite the bottlenecking GTX 980 Ti yearning for greater CPU performance. This again seems to be tied to the differing architectural performance from AMD's aging Piledriver cores, in addition to the way in which under-the-hood resources such as cache are shared.
If you like to play GTA V, Intel's Skylake Core i5-6400 is the better choice.
