Optimal number of cores for gaming

Hi, I am in the process of building my first computer and I was wondering what is the best number of cores required for games right now.

What games, specifically?

as a rule, SOME games CAN use up to four cores, games using up to 6 cores are not that far off.

Both new consuls sport 8 cores.

If the industry does not change and the majority of PC games are mere ports then the logical assumption based upon the recent history would be 8

I firmly believe the days of the i5 4c4t CPU being the prefered gaming chip are numbered

thideras said:

What games, specifically?

Click to expand...

I am looking for something that will work for most games

- - - Updated - - -

Witchdoctor said:

Both new consuls sport 8 cores.

If the industry does not change and the majority of PC games are mere ports then the logical assumption based upon the recent history would be 8

I firmly believe the days of the i5 4c4t CPU being the prefered gaming chip are numbered

Click to expand...

which two consuls support 8 cores?

vmekh said:

I am looking for something that will work for most games

- - - Updated - - -



which two consuls support 8 cores?

Click to expand...

PS4 and XBOX ONE are 8 core APU based machines.

Good choices for gaming right now include the AMD FX6300 and 8320/8350 and the Intel 4690K/4790K. Personally I'd go with the 4790K right now myself.

The gaming computer I would build right now within a reasonable budget would be-

i7 4790K or FX8350
ASRock Z97Extreme6 or Gigabyte 970AUD3P
2X4GB DDR3 2133
SeaSonic S12G S12G-650 650W
Samsung 840 EVO 256GB
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
Nvidia GTX 970
Your choice of ATX case with good air flow (My fav is Corsair 760T)
Corsair H100i or H110 (depending on whether said case supports 280mm radiators)

The AMD build would save you some money but most games show the 4790K with about a 5% advantage in framerate.

BTW you may be unaware but if you only plan to use 1 GPU you have the option of making a tiny computer with all the performance of a full size machine.

Swap the case for a Corsair 250D and the motherboard for a Z97-I by ASUS and you're on the way there. Sadly, no motherboards for the 8350 are the right size.

8 core or 8 thread

Most games still use 2 cores as a lot of games were designed for older consoles and prepared for multi platforms without bigger changes. Many use 4 cores but these are mainly new games. Almost no titles use more than 4 cores like you would expect. You can see all cores in use because of system load balance but performance isn't much higher on 4 and 6/8. There are single titles that can use more cores. A lot of software is not using HT at all.
There is too many games on the market to make one clear answer what is better but so far 4690K seem best option for gamers. Even if game uses more than 4 cores then it still base more on the graphics performance than the CPU.

If you compare AMD and Intel then only CPU will cost more if you decide on Intel 1150 platform. Still nearly all games have higher performance on Intel. Think that in most games something like 3.5GHz i3 will be as fast as 4 thread AMD @4.5GHz and price of both is nearly the same while AMD uses twice as much power and is harder to stabilize.

In games where is a lot of players ( most newer MMO ) AMD CPUs are too slow no matter how many cores they have. I had similar experience on i3 [email protected] as on [email protected] in couple of mmo games. Later I moved to A8 [email protected] and it was slower. Simply for me AMD is a fail if we are talking about gaming. If you won't compare it to newer Intels on more demanding games then you won't see the difference. I'm not saying about average FPS but random slow downs what really annoys while playing mmo with more players around.

I think it should be stressed that u are asking the wrong question. The number of cores just doesn't really matter, since gaming really takes advantage of so few cores, that most systems these days have more than is even used, so there's no reason to ever seek out a CPU based on its number of cores.

I didn't realize there were games that could put a good load on 4 cores. I've seen 2 cores maxed out, with a little here and there on other cores for audio/physics... and don't forget the OS/Drivers/Otherstuff likes to use something too. Point is, any CPU out now is really good enough in the core department (4 cores is good). Then the more clock speed u have the better. Then u can take these guys' advice on which exact models are the best bang for the buck these days for gamers..... but the number of cores, is the wrong question.

I still think it'll be a long time before the number of cores is important in this enthusiast world. Stuff is just not coded well. Mhz is king! lol

4 cores for a budget build and 4c/4t for most any other should be fine for the next couple of years. There is no way I would go dual core in this day and age, especially with the consoles out which should mean more CPU core use sooner rather than later. So core count is something to consider. Though not at the top of the list, I certainly wouldn't classify it as a 'wrong question', but one of a couple when deciding.

I'd say 4 cores Intel.

Some games start struggling with 21 cores only.

Link:
metro redux
http://www.techspot.com/review/878-metro-redux-benchmarks/page4.html

watchdog
http://www.techspot.com/review/827-watch-dogs-benchmarks/page5.html

batman arkham origin:
http://www.techspot.com/review/733-batman-arkham-origins-benchmarks/page5.html

I would suggest you go for 4 cores. If you buy 8 core now and expect to take advantage of it in future. In that situation sorry to say you can't take full advantage of it. How many times it happen when you throw away hard cash to be future proof. May be in coming years there will be more devolved version of 8 core and then you will realized it was not worth to spend on 8 core. My piece of advice is buy what is in main stream upgrade later. Finally if you have money to throw away then go for 8 core.

Markwinstanley said:

I would suggest you go for 4 cores. If you buy 8 core now and expect to take advantage of it in future. In that situation sorry to say you can't take full advantage of it. How many times it happen when you throw away hard cash to be future proof. May be in coming years there will be more devolved version of 8 core and then you will realized it was not worth to spend on 8 core. My piece of advice is buy what is in main stream upgrade later. Finally if you have money to throw away then go for 8 core.

Click to expand...

Why would you necro a thread from October?
I think it's a safe bet to say that the OP has purchased a system now, some 90 days later

Wow, I didn't know AMD chips are THAT bad for gaming.

Looking at those results in Metro: Redux and I am astounded.

An Intel Core i7 4770K @ 2.5 GHz will yield 56 fps while the AMD FX-8350 @ 4.5 GHz yields 53 fps. And in Watch Dogs an i3 (2 cores) is just about as good as a quadcore AMD which has higher clocks. Clock for clock Intel is a lot better and AMD is rubbish.

A lot of forum necrophiliacs in this thread..

Theocnoob said:

A lot of forum necrophiliacs in this thread..

Click to expand...

Yeah, why would I make a new thread while this is the same subject? What does it matter anyway?

It was like the tenth thread starting from the top on the first page..

I like to joke around. That's why I included the emoticon. You don't have to take it personally.

Don't worry I wasn't offended or anything I just thought you were serious but I was mistaken.

Theocnoob said:

PS4 and XBOX ONE are 8 core APU based machines.

Good choices for gaming right now include the AMD FX6300 and 8320/8350 and the Intel 4690K/4790K. Personally I'd go with the 4790K right now myself.

The gaming computer I would build right now within a reasonable budget would be-

i7 4790K or FX8350
ASRock Z97Extreme6 or Gigabyte 970AUD3P
2X4GB DDR3 2133
SeaSonic S12G S12G-650 650W
Samsung 840 EVO 256GB
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
Nvidia GTX 970
Your choice of ATX case with good air flow (My fav is Corsair 760T)
Corsair H100i or H110 (depending on whether said case supports 280mm radiators)

The AMD build would save you some money but most games show the 4790K with about a 5% advantage in framerate.

BTW you may be unaware but if you only plan to use 1 GPU you have the option of making a tiny computer with all the performance of a full size machine.

Swap the case for a Corsair 250D and the motherboard for a Z97-I by ASUS and you're on the way there. Sadly, no motherboards for the 8350 are the right size.

Click to expand...

That's a very good suggestion, I just upgraded my AMD 6 core 1090T to the 4790K and being blown away is an understatement. My specs are very similiar to your build list and my WOT framerate went from 55-60 to 95-115 FPS @ 1680x1050. I understand WOT really only uses 60 FPS but could be mistaken, granted this is with a 670 not a 980. If you have a Micro Center near you the bundle deal is the way to go.

I've seen the Stalker Call of Pripyat benchmark use all 6 cores of my i7-5820 AND all hyperthreading cores to a noticeable degree. It was unbelievable because the normal game only uses two.

I've seen Bioshock use all 4 cores of my i7-3820 as well as all the hyperthreading cores.

Since both the XBone and PS4 have 8 core AMD's I think games will be going increasingly multi-core. I read an article about a AAA game being developed for the XBone and PS4 that will make use of 5 cores.