How many cores of CPU do you really need?

[berianmol]

I know this question would have been asked many times, but i thought lets give it another try with all the new games coming to PC this year and the following. 

I am a first person shooter lover, so i loved the COD, BF, MOH series and many more. 

So my main question is 

How many cores would the modern games demand in the future? 



 

[WoodenMarker]

In the future? Nobody knows. I'm not even sure how far in the future we're talking about here.

 

For now? 4 will do.

[Xelithium]

Next-gen consoles have 8 core CPUs. That might give you a hint of what's to come. Worth noting is that the single core performance of these CPUs will be way worse than for example an i5 4670k. So you might still do great with 4 cores. It will be interesting to see if they really make use of the more powerful core performance on the PC side. 

[berianmol]

Next-gen consoles have 8 core CPUs. That might give you a hint of what's to come. Worth noting is that the single core performance of these CPUs will be way worse than for example an i5 4670k. So you might still do great with 4 cores. It will be interesting to see if they really make use of the more powerful core performance on the PC side. 

I was gonna go with 3570k but considering modern and new games may demand more than 4 cores, i am having doubts going with intel. 

 

[mvitkun]

@berianmol

Linus had a video where he showed that two cores (from a 3930K) were plenty for games like BF3.

so I'd say 4 cores is plenty for gaming with programs open.

[Xelithium]

I was gonna go with 3570k but considering modern and new games may demand more than 4 cores, i am having doubts going with intel. 

It totally depends on if the PC really becomes the main development platform. I really doubt that. You have to see it like this, a 4 core desktop CPU like the 4670k has way more power than the 8-core CPUs in next-gen consoles. Only if the developer makes use of the power that the desktop CPUs offer, will you see a difference.

 

@berianmol

Linus had a video where he showed that two cores (from a 3930K) were plenty for games like BF3.

so I'd say 4 cores is plenty for gaming with programs open.

Yea, and BF3 had the PC as main development platform. The Frostbite engine is very PC centric aswell.

[qwertywarrior]

quad core

or even better quad core with HT

the gpu will become be bottlenecked

(this is good enough)

[berianmol]

I think i am gonna go with 3570K though. 

Thanks everyone. 
@WoodenMarker
@Xelithium
@mvitkun
@qwertywarrior

[Vitalius]

It totally depends on if the PC really becomes the main development platform. I really doubt that. You have to see it like this, a 4 core desktop CPU like the 4670k has way more power than the 8-core CPUs in next-gen consoles. Only if the developer makes use of the power that the desktop CPUs offer, will you see a difference.

 

Yea, and BF3 had the PC as main development platform. The Frostbite engine is very PC centric aswell.

While you are right about the 4 core desktop CPU's, that's not the point.

8 cores means that games will utilize 8 cores. Speed of those cores being relatively irrelevant.

[Xelithium]

While you are right about the 4 core desktop CPU's, that's not the point.

8 cores means that games will utilize 8 cores. Speed of those cores being relatively irrelevant.

Yes, but that is just spreading the workload to more cores. That doesn't mean you will get better performance.

[Glenwing]

quad core

or even better quad core with HT

the gpu will become be bottlenecked

(this is good enough)

 

HT is no substitute for actual cores in games.  It gives same performance or sometimes worse, unless your CPU is really starved for cores (like a dual-core HT or something).

 

A true Sexacore like the 3930K would be good for the future as that has shown a good improvement in some games which have already been shown to benefit from more than 4 cores (meanwhile in the same game quad-core and quad-core HT performed equally)

 

However buying one now would be very expensive.  When it games start being more core heavy Intel will probably bring 6 cores into their mainstream lines, perhaps with Skylake (2015).  It will be much cheaper then and more powerful, and you won't really need it until then anyway.  If you want to buy one now and upgrade in two years it wouldn't be a bad plan.

[Vitalius]

Yes, but that is just spreading the workload to more cores. That doesn't mean you will get better performance.

True, but the bigger point is that games are now designed by default to utilize more cores. Which means the potential is far greater for you to actually get better performance, if they design them as such. It's more of a "increased possibilities" thing. That and I believe it's likely to happen that they do make it more useful for performance.

[calebp123]

It really depends. Amd has 8 core processor and some of them can't even touch some of intels 4 cores. It really depends how the cpu is built. It doesn't really matter how many (though more do help) but the build quality of the actual cores and chip.

[qwertywarrior]

HT is no substitute for actual cores in games.  It gives same performance or sometimes worse, unless your CPU is really starved for cores (like a dual-core HT or something).

 

A true Sexacore like the 3930K would be good for the future as that has shown a good improvement in some games which have already been shown to benefit from more than 4 cores (meanwhile in the same game quad-core and quad-core HT performed equally)

 

However buying one now would be very expensive.  When it games start being more core heavy Intel will probably bring 6 cores into their mainstream lines, perhaps with Skylake (2015).  It will be much cheaper then and more powerful, and you won't really need it until then anyway.  If you want to buy one now and upgrade in two years it wouldn't be a bad plan.

the thing is when games will be optimized for  8 cores

a person buying a pc now and not intending to upgrade

a 4 core with HT sounds better than a plain  4 core because u dont know

games might want as much threads as possible

[qwertywarrior]

Yes, but that is just spreading the workload to more cores. That doesn't mean you will get better performance.

it all has to do with how much the game wants

if ur GPU is pushing at 100% load then ur cpu is fine

but if ur gpu is at 70% cpu load

and its waiting for ur cpu then its better to upgrade

my GTX570 was at 70% load and my QX6700 at 3.2ghz was always at 100% load

now my i7-2600 is at ~80% load and my GTX 570 is at 100%

since future games will be optimized for 8 cores

the game u will be playing will know what to do with 8 cores instead of just balancing things out like what happened with quad cores in 2008-2010

[Glenwing]

the thing is when games will be optimized for  8 cores

a person buying a pc now and not intending to upgrade

a 4 core with HT sounds better than a plain  4 core because u dont know

games might want as much threads as possible

 

There are already games that use more than 4 cores, like Battlefield 3.  6-core CPU without hyperthreading performs demonstrably better than 4-core CPU with or without hyperthreading (they performed the same).  It has already been shown the even in those games there was no difference with the 4 extra threads from hyperthreading, even when the 2 extra physical cores helped tremendously.  Likewise when hyperthreading was turned on with the 6-core, it provided no benefit either.  Hyperthreading as a technology is just not useful for gaming purposes, this has already been tested and demonstrated.  Hyperthreading is no substitute for physical cores.

[RDilux]

9000 cores will be enough :P

[Darell3]

I would personally say 4 cores.

[qwertywarrior]

There are already games that use more than 4 cores, like Battlefield 3.  6-core CPU without hyperthreading performs demonstrably better than 4-core CPU with or without hyperthreading (they performed the same).  It has already been shown the even in those games there was no difference with the 4 extra threads from hyperthreading, even when the 2 extra physical cores helped tremendously.  Likewise when hyperthreading was turned on with the 6-core, it provided no benefit either.  Hyperthreading as a technology is just not useful for gaming purposes, this has already been tested and demonstrated.  Hyperthreading is no substitute for physical cores.

yes ofcourse physical> hyperthreading

im just saying we dont know what the future will bring for us and how optimization might help

 

EDIT

seems HT does make a difference a bit

http://chipreviews.com/main-feature/main-news/battlefield-3-revisited/

 

duel core

 

Quad core

 

quad core 

 

very intersting

as i said in the future we might see a bigger difference

[Glenwing]

Yes that's what people said during the first gen i7's... Hyperthreading has been around since Pentium 4, optimization isn't really going anywhere.  Even on the i3 where the chip is very starved for cores, the difference is only a little more than slight, which is what I said originally.

 

Hyperthreading decreasese performance:

 

 

Physical cores help, and hyperthreading decreases performance again:

 

[Guest Gazzer96]

I was gonna go with 3570k but considering modern and new games may demand more than 4 cores, i am having doubts going with intel. 

 

You can get 6 core Intel CPUs, like the 3930K with 12 threads or even over 8 cores with 16 threads, but those are server CPUs and cost over £3000. Also, Intel are planning on making 8 core CPUs for gaming machines in the later time 2014.

[ErickS89]

The answer to your question depends on what you want to do, are you video editing, music production? Editing large image files?

If you're just gaming 4 is fine.

[mgsstar]

4 cores will be enough but games are starting to use more cores so having 8 cores could help in the future.

[Homicidium]

As pretty much everyone said, 4 cores are still the way too go and plenty of performance.

[The Syndicate]

It all really depends.

like if you have an APU or just a CPU

If you have a CPU then its from 4 to 2 cores minimum, the rest is GPU dependent

If you have even a APU 2 cores if there is one, then that will do you just fine. all games are highly dependent on a GPU.

Look at phones, one iPhone had a single core processor and it ran some high quality games pretty well. like GTA for iOS.

It all depends on good the CPU or APU is.