Hardware How many CPU cores do games need?

Look we all know the same dam thing the 32nm budget chip is just around the corner. so intel high end marketing is not working, if any thing it makes you feel sick, of knowing what is on the way. The point is you need pin diameter even more than you need memory controller and number of cores because of the (potent) overclocking they have already promised.

 

perfect if you have to buy a new mb.. if you have a older socket though like someone has in the tech forum- it makes sense to just buy a chip than change over (otherwise your talking memory/mb/chip)

there's a lot of neat things builders can do to save money.. but it involves ocing and re tim everything.. airflow.. even water is getting cheap.. these are things your average doesn't do- I like to look at a lot of the builders I see, as merely guys with a lot of money and they go where they're led.. when I was back into building- seen a lot of guys who pretty much tried it all

I've done a lot myself so it's easier to sit back and see what works and what doesn't.. I'm all for people upgrading to the best, without them tech can't push forward.. I hate seeing people on a budget buy into it though.. there are better options if your willing to learn.. the new boards nowdays too- geez press a button xD you don't even have to understand what's going on anymore

 

Depends on the application. On a budget, an i3-530 @ 4Ghz on air with a superior GPU can make sense for gaming.

If it's just a media PC, then yeah, below an i5 is where it's at.

If you're just browsing the web and using office, again below is the place to be.

i5-750 is a great all round solution for a lot of people, but it's not always necessary and not everybody can afford it. Clearly, triple core was the plateau for most things, but people aren't buying AMD right now, so that makes it i5 or more. However, dual core wasn't significantly crap enough to be counted out altogether. That's the point. For a lot of people, it'll be good for a little while longer.

 

Greetings!

Forgot to put the gaming part.

"Is it even wise for someone who buys a new gaming system today to shop bellow an i5 750?"

 

Greetings!

Funny conclusion from AnandTech:
http://www.anandtech.com/print/3695

 

Didn't Valve claim to be making the Source engine all multi-threaded a few years back?

I'd like to see how some of the most recent source games perform with different numbers of cores.

 

yeah impar.. he's running stock speeds though- interesting it shows the only game at 1080p that differed was far cry 2.. you clock both those chips up =]

there is a point where your fps cap becomes totally gpu bound.. what you clock over that is cake

the 1440 res shows the cpu bound caps.. and if your running that res, there's no difference in a vsynced game running @ 60hz anyway

looking at it real world.. you clock any of these newer chips 3.6+ and your looking at the same experience

 

After reading this article I stated looking at task manager while running a couple of games and cpu usage was stuck at a 100% constantly, E6600 @2.4 ghz I overclocked it to 2.8 ghz and their was no difference.

Are pc cpu's generally weak ? Because this even happens with old games when my cpu would have been quite good.

Its stuff like this that makes me think pc's are not really cut out for gaming, the hardware is so expensive and never seems to be powerful enough.

I know you have I7 930's now, which can cope with any game, but how long ago was the 360 made ?, because your only playing ported 360 games afer all.

 

Seen this sorta article before

I multitasking too much for my own good, sins of a solar empire with mods uses 4 cores + 2-3G. Of memory

Gta4 is really badly optimised you need like 2gb of vram on one card to set it even at close to max settings, sup com 2 uses same engine as supcom last i checked.

What's really intresting is 1 5870 + duel core CPU gives nearly identical performance to quad + 5870.

Nice article

It tested what I'd consider the popular games, all source games will run on inboard graphics lol.

 

I really dont think gta4 is badly optimised. Its made for 2 consoles with a specific amount of ram and in those tries to fill that ram. If you want to run multiples of console level detail you will need multiples of their resources. If you want 10 times the detail distance something like 10 times the resources may be required. Or are Rockstar supposed to rewrite the engine for the pc? Have you even played it? have you played it with patch 1.06? 1.04 made a big difference, 1.06 was even better with a new shadow system.

The latest version is well optimised.

100% traffic density, London traffic style, and 60% of max details is a reality on a q6700@3.475ghz and a 512mb 4870 @1400x900

 

@Bindi - I like the fact that the article leans more towards practicality than an academic excercise. How about adding a few more CPUs with different architectures? Maybe that could bring forward some unforeseen results and conclusions.

 

Wow I wish people would stop saying how much better there 1333MHz FSB quads are than their old 800MHz FSB dual cores, your FSB was the bottleneck there bud :/

Very well done tests there Properly impressed you can select the number of cores you want with that setup. I was wondering about this recently as it goes.

 

Cheers for the info, this makes my decisions for a new PC easier!

 

the article is of real interest cause im going for the i5 750 and the gtx 470 ,but as a lot of the games in the article hardly use more than 2 cores, a 4 core cpu thats heavily overclocked is just a waist of juice and money especialy as a 2 core cpu heavily overclocked will do just great ,still im going 4 cores just in case

 

Singleplayer time demo's in Multiplayer games are useless. You're doing your readers a MAJOR disservice with those "Dual Core" recommendations for Bad Company 2.

A 32 person Rush campaign online pushed my 4Ghz E8400 past its limits. I experienced stuttering, sharply crashing minimum framerates, and an overall low FPS.

Popped in a 3.6Ghz Q9550 and all the stuttering went away. My FPS improved by about 30-40% too. Oh hey, look...I made you a graph too.

81% usage overall of a Quad Core

 

@Action_Parsnip.

I think you'll find that the latest GTA4 patch has made things a lot worse. The introduction of a newer shadow rendering system has given better image quality but vastly lowered performance. I've got a Q6700 @ 3.2GHz and a 5850, I'm running at 1680 res and I'm still struggling to get decent consistent framerates with lowered view distance.
It's not like as if GTA4 has fancy new lighting and effects, it's just a DX9 game; it should run like butter on the latest hardware and it doesn't so it's definitely not well ported. (To add insult, there isn't even FSAA support which is sorely needed in this game!)

 

"....Bad Company 2 uses the Frostbite game engine, and is the first PC game to use this engine. It’s DX11-compatible and uses tessellation...". Bad company do not use tessellation. There is not the first time when you misleading readers.

Frostbite 1.5 on PC is designed for DirectX 10 as a base

The primary uses of DX11 in Bad Company 2 is to soften all the dynamic shadows as well as to improve performance in general with a few smaller DX11 optimizations that we are using.

More details at the official blog "Bad Company 2 PC Graphics Details"

http://blogs.battlefield.ea.com/bat.../02/19/bad-company-2-pc-graphics-details.aspx

 

All our CPU reviews test architectural differences in games

 

I've always felt 2 cores was ideal and 4 cores overkill due to a lack of multi-threading. I only use 4 cores on my folding rigs.

 

I would have thought something like Sins of a Solar Empire running at full fast forward would tax a CPU greatly, and I THINK they coded it for expanding Cores?