CPU intensive games...

[dave4shmups]

So, how do you tell if a PC game is CPU intensive?  I was watching a low-end PC build yesterday, and the guy got Doom to run on it just fine, but he said that Crysis 3 will not run on the build, because it's "CPU intensive".  So how do you tell which PC games are CPU intensive, and which aren't, if you're doing a low-end build?

[Sahil10416]

You can tell it by software like MSI afterburner etc. that monitors your cpu as well as gpu while playing a game & by looking at the % of cpu or gpu use you can tell whether a game is cpu or gpu intensive.   

[Jay917536]

Umm, I think he means GPU intensive. What i means is the game relies heavily on the CPU ot GPU to run. Crysis is a very graphically demanding game. so it is GPU intensive. It still is just a heavy game to run overall. Simulation game tend to be more cpu intensive than a shooter game such as games like American truck sim or Cities skylines or the sims.

[jooroth18]

it depends on how the dev utilised the cpu

also crycis 3 isnt really that cpu dependant, more like cities skylines or sims 3.

[Mira Yurizaki]

You can't really tell because nobody has a database on CPU usage while they run their games. All you can do is look at the minimum requirements and hope for the best.

[Gonio]

Game reviews might help or for CPU reviews certain games are also mentioned in benchmarks. Understand with reviews btw how they meassure stuff, is it out of the box, max oc that sort of stuff.

 

Anyway it depends on the game. Simulation games tend to be CPU heavy. But even then CPU intensive might not cover the full load. By many CPU intensive games people look at total usage. However you must look at threads that are running (near) full capacity. This is where in many of these games the CPU bottleneck comes from.

 

Many times have seen people blame their GPU for an CPU bottleneck like for example: My CPU only runs on 30% so its not bottlenecking and ingame I have fps drops. So it is the GPU... Right?

Nope. Short said the issue is that games utilize threads and the thread that is doing calculations for the game might top out. What this means is that it is at his limit of performance and results in delay's that causes freezing and look like fps drops, or are actually fps drop because the CPU can't deliver the required info for the GPU that it needs from the CPU. In this example if you look at your taskmanager for you would see an30-40% usage on your quadcore in total. But then you check the specific threads 3 of them run very low % while 1 is peaking at the top.

 

Anyway a decent CPU goes a long way. But it really depends on what game you play.

[i_build_nanosuits]

1 hour ago, dave4shmups said:

So, how do you tell if a PC game is CPU intensive?  I was watching a low-end PC build yesterday, and the guy got Doom to run on it just fine, but he said that Crysis 3 will not run on the build, because it's "CPU intensive".  So how do you tell which PC games are CPU intensive, and which aren't, if you're doing a low-end build?

you ask me

witcher 3, crysis 3, watchdog (watchdogs 2), arma 3, dayZ, grand theft auto 5...cities skyline...those are the games that comes to mind when thinking CPU intensive games.

[dave4shmups]

16 minutes ago, i_build_nanosuits said:

you ask me

witcher 3, crysis 3, watchdog (watchdogs 2), arma 3, dayZ, grand theft auto 5...cities skyline...those are the games that comes to mind when thinking CPU intensive games.

Gotcha.  I just wonder why the new Doom worked on the build, and Crysis 3, which is older, didn't?

[Nena Trinity]

1 hour ago, Sahil10416 said:

You can tell it by software like MSI afterburner etc. that monitors your cpu as well as gpu while playing a game & by looking at the % of cpu or gpu use you can tell whether a game is cpu or gpu intensive.   

This! Also there are both poorly optimized games(using only 1 core or barely using the cores) and there are truly intensive games such as GTA V, Battlefield 1 & Overwatch that can max out older quad-cores!

[i_build_nanosuits]

6 minutes ago, dave4shmups said:

Gotcha.  I just wonder why the new Doom worked on the build, and Crysis 3, which is older, didn't?

Crysis 3 at the time of launch was BLEEDING edge...like the first crysis...they tend to do ''tech demo'' games where they are way ahead of their time and will push even high end hardware to their limits for years to come...it's EXTREMELY demanding and even with the rig found in my signature i can't still run it at max settings and get even 60FPS across the board...that's why.

 

Doom is fine...it's not very demanding i played through the game entirely the first week it came out and i was able to max out all the settings and get a solid 90FPS under open GL with my nvidia GPU....it's nowhere near as demanding as crysis 3

[DunePilot]

Some games (or resolutions) will use more cpu than others.  Bottlenecks would be capping out your cpu where your gpu is never able to run upper 90%s, your gpu is being limited by your cpu in that case. Why? Any number of reasons... API, coding, gameworks, resolution, etc.  The lower the resolution the more frame rates you are pushing, which means the more frame rates your cpu has to process which means often times 1080p is harder on the cpu than 4k. 4k is going to be a lot more taxing on your gpu than 1080p while not putting your cpu under as much of a load because your fps is lower at 4k than 1080p.

 

This somewhat answers your question and a whole lot of others at the same time which go hand in hand with what you are asking. I typed it fast since I'm at work so hopefully I didn't get anything wrong.

[dave4shmups]

Thanks for all of the responses!  Here's the build video that I was referring to:

 

[themctipers]

GTA v and minecraft 

[TallCarrot]

If I am only going to be doing PC gaming, what is the strongest CPU I should get that is also future proof?

[Deivan8]

On 9/11/2016 at 1:44 AM, TallCarrot said:

If I am only going to be doing PC gaming, what is the strongest CPU I should get that is also future proof?

i5-6600k, if you need the maximum and you can spend 100 euro for just 1-15 percent increase of performance, get I7-6700k. For budget: I5-6500 is a good choice.

[Rohit Jackdaw]

10 hours ago, dave4shmups said:

So, how do you tell if a PC game is CPU intensive?  I was watching a low-end PC build yesterday, and the guy got Doom to run on it just fine, but he said that Crysis 3 will not run on the build, because it's "CPU intensive".  So how do you tell which PC games are CPU intensive, and which aren't, if you're doing a low-end build?

Was the guy Jayztwocents ?

[Gonio]

All from 6500 Upward is good enough to be futureproof for a while. The 6700K is the best gaming CPU, but also cost a bit while the 6500/6600K is a fair bit cheaper. HT is not really needed for gaming.

[DunePilot]

6700k is great along with 16GB or ram, 6600k you don't have hyperthreading otherwise they are essentially the same, If you have multi-monitors and want to multitask or stream then you want to go for the 6700k. Hyperthreading is the difference between the flagship i7 vs i5, other than that they are essentially the same, you have the same number of physical cores but twice the number of logical cores with the i7. If you can wait the 7700k will be out in a few months and will be the new king of mainstream and will be just slightly better than the 6700k along with a few updates from an updated chipset with support for future compatibility with things like 3D X Point which is new storage technology.

[TallCarrot]

On 9/10/2016 at 7:37 PM, Deivan8 said:

i5-6600k, if you need the maximum and you can spend 100 euro for just 1-15 percent increase of performance, get I7-6700k. For budget: I5-6500 is a good choice.

I see. Then does anybody know how often Intel updates their CPUs? Do they usually update them during a specific month every year?

[dave4shmups]

On 9/10/2016 at 9:56 PM, Rohit Jackdaw said:

Was the guy Jayztwocents ?

Yep, that's him.  What CPU would be good if I don't care about gaming in 4K or VR?  I have the same question about a graphics card.  As long as I can game at 720-1080p at about 60fps, that's good enough for me.

[Gonio]

A 1060/rx480 is good enough for that resolution at 60 Hz. If you build a new PC now would go with an CPU from 6500 and up. Gives enough headroom for future games I would say. The best for gaming is the 6700k, in case you wonder. Would suggest for increased usable lifespan you take an K CPU so you can OC if things would be bottlenecekd in the future.

[dave4shmups]

On 9/12/2016 at 10:39 AM, Gonio said:

A 1060/rx480 is good enough for that resolution at 60 Hz. If you build a new PC now would go with an CPU from 6500 and up. Gives enough headroom for future games I would say. The best for gaming is the 6700k, in case you wonder. Would suggest for increased usable lifespan you take an K CPU so you can OC if things would be bottlenecekd in the future.

An i7 or an i5 6500?  Also, what is the difference, in any graphics card, between a 4gig model and an 8gig model.  I normally think about gigabytes in terms of storage.

[Gonio]

14 hours ago, dave4shmups said:

An i7 or an i5 6500?

This depends on your budget and what you prefer, but in general for gamers all from the current gen i5 6500 and above (6600, 6700) is viable for gamers for a decent usable lifespan. Will recommend going for Z170 platform with a K CPU = unlocked CPU that you can OC if it would get edgy in the future. Not going unlocked now I find a bad investement overall, since this can be the difference between 1-2 extra years of usability. But some people still wish to let their current budget dictate heavy on their descision. As mentioned the 6700K is best gaming CPU, but is obviously also more expensive :).

 

14 hours ago, dave4shmups said:

Also, what is the difference, in any graphics card, between a 4gig model and an 8gig model.  I normally think about gigabytes in terms of storage.

Well 8 is more then 4 and you can see it like this. But Vram is used for constantly swapping stuff like the normal RAM for the CPU, so higher numbers = more headroom for constant swapping data. Mind you however that saying that 8 is better then 6 for example would be a false assumption. This argument is often used by less informed people that say that because of this an 1060 with 'only' 6 is worse then the 480 with 8 GB, what is obviously not the entire story to it. Here comes the efficiency and architecture around the corner and unless you compare between the same type, it's not an apple's to apple's comparison, but more like an apple's to banana's... Both fruit, but not the entire same thing.

 

You can do compare it however between same types. So for the 480 for example you gain a performance difference between 4 or 8 GB, but this is depending on the game and settings used. Overall it won't be a big difference, but it can happen you can notice it when you play a game on the limits of your card. Overall said you can say that on demanding resolutions with many graphical improvements the strain on the Vram grows and might get close to the 4 GB, but even if the numbers show that you use even more then 4 it doesn't mean it's full yet. This is because fo the constants offloading of data. But it's for sure and a fact that demands are increasing fast these days, so it is overall recommended to go for the 8GB in this example. It Just gives you more headroom for the future.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Crysis 3 is extremely cpu intensive because of the physics. It's one of the games where an i7 provides significantly better performance than an i5. Crysis 3 hammers both your gpu and cpu.