A Broadwell Retrospective Review in 2020: Is eDRAM Still Worth It?
by Dr. Ian Cutress on November 2, 2020 11:00 AM ESTGaming Tests: Final Fantasy XV
Upon arriving to PC, Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition was given a graphical overhaul as it was ported over from console. As a fantasy RPG with a long history, the fruits of Square-Enix’s successful partnership with NVIDIA are on display. The game uses the internal Luminous Engine, and as with other Final Fantasy games, pushes the imagination of what we can do with the hardware underneath us. To that end, FFXV was one of the first games to promote the use of ‘video game landscape photography’, due in part to the extensive detail even at long range but also with the integration of NVIDIA’s Ansel software, that allowed for super-resolution imagery and post-processing effects to be applied.
In preparation for the launch of the game, Square Enix opted to release a standalone benchmark. Using the Final Fantasy XV standalone benchmark gives us a lengthy standardized sequence to record, although it should be noted that its heavy use of NVIDIA technology means that the Maximum setting has problems - it renders items off screen. To get around this, we use the standard preset which does not have these issues. We use the following settings:
- 720p Standard, 1080p Standard, 4K Standard, 8K Standard
For automation, the title accepts command line inputs for both resolution and settings, and then auto-quits when finished. As with the other benchmarks, we do as many runs until 10 minutes per resolution/setting combination has passed, and then take averages. Realistically, because of the length of this test, this equates to two runs per setting.
| AnandTech | Low Res Low Qual |
Medium Res Low Qual |
High Res Low Qual |
Medium Res Max Qual |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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In the first two resolution/settings combinations, the Core i7 and Core i5 are clearly high up, with the i7 beating AMD's Ryzen 3 Renoir CPU. In GPU limited tests, they match the rest of the pack.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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realbabilu - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
That Larger cache maybe need specified optimized BLAS.Kurosaki - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
Did you mean BIAS?ballsystemlord - Tuesday, November 3, 2020 - link
BLAS == Basic Linear Algebra System.Kamen Rider Blade - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
I think there is merit to having Off-Die L4 cache.Imagine the low latency and high bandwidth you can get with shoving some stacks of HBM2 or DDR-5, whichever is more affordable and can better use the bandwidth over whatever link you're providing.
nandnandnand - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
I'm assuming that Zen 4 will add at least 2-4 GB of L4 cache stacked on the I/O die.ichaya - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
Waiting for this to happen... have been since TR1.nandnandnand - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
Throw in an RDNA 3 chiplet (in Ryzen 6950X/6900X/whatever) for iGPU and machine learning, and things will get really interesting.ichaya - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
Yep.dotjaz - Saturday, November 7, 2020 - link
That's definitely not happening. You are delusional if you think RDNA3 will appear as iGPU first.At best we can hope the next I/O die to intergrate full VCN/DCN with a few RDNA2 CUs.
dotjaz - Saturday, November 7, 2020 - link
Also doubly delusional if think think RDNA3 is any good for ML. CDNA2 is designed for that.Adding powerful iGPU to Ryzen 9 servers literally no purpose. Nobody will be satisfied with that tiny performance. Guaranteed recipe for instant failure.
The only iGPU that would make sense is a mini iGPU in I/O die for desktop/video decoding OR iGPU coupled with low end CPU for an complete entry level gaming SOC aka APU. Chiplet design almost makes no sense for APU as long as GloFo is in play.