Confusion intensifies

[LinusGayTips]

Hey people! Hardware newbie here. I've recently started watching linus's videos about gaming PCs and I can't find an answer to one of my questions about processors.
So if games don't really benefit from having more than 4 cores, but do from a higher clock speed, why do high-end CPUs have more cores and lower core clock? If you only do gaming is something like Ryzen 3 2200G (4* 3.5GHz) better than i7 8700 (6* 3.2GHz)? The latter is better at overclocking, yes, but if we only consider stock speeds. I can already probably tell that the answer is no, but why? 

[LukeSavenije]

4 minutes ago, LinusGayTips said:

So if games don't really benefit from having more than 4 cores, but do from a higher clock speed, why do high-end CPUs have more cores and lower core clock?

if they would. but they can use more

 

any other questions?

[191x7]

It's not true that games can't use more than 4 cores. Also, clock speed is not the only thing that matters. You can have two CPU-s with the same number of cores and the same clocks but one might be a few times stronger than the other - it all comes to the instructions, the transistor count and other parameters (commonly called "cpu architecture").

[Mephi00]

The 8700 has a boost clock of up to 4.7Ghz where the ryzen ends at around 4.1Ghz

[martward]

Couple of things:

- There is also the matter of the IPC, so just having a higher MHz doesn't mean it's actually faster (unless you're talking about two chips from the same series, kinda)

- Some games, but mostly some programs do use more than 4 threads, if you're a streamer you probably would use most or all of your cores when you have multiple programs and a game running at the same time.

- Also these CPUs often support technologies that lower end CPUs don't.

 

[LinusGayTips]

8 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

It's not true that games can't use more than 4 cores.

I've never said that they can't use more than 4, it's just that the difference between 4 cores and 8 cores is not nearly as great as a difference between 2 and 4.
 

 

8 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

You can have two CPU-s with the same number of cores and the same clocks but one might be a few times stronger than the other - it all comes to the instructions, the transistor count and other parameters (commonly called "cpu architecture").

Well, yes, sure, but theoretically, if we were to have two completely identical CPUs, but one had more cores and the other higher clock speed, which one would perform better?

[LukeSavenije]

5 minutes ago, Mephi00 said:

The 8700 has a boost clock of up to 4.7Ghz where the ryzen ends at around 4.1Ghz

that's because of the samsung's process, it should be better on the TSMC 7nm

[LukeSavenije]

Just now, LinusGayTips said:

I've never said that they can't use more than 4, it's just that the difference between 4 cores and 8 core is not nearly as great as a difference between 2 and 4

source? that graph looks horrible

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, LinusGayTips said:

I've never said that they can't use more than 4, it's just that the difference between 4 cores and 8 core is not nearly as great as a difference between 2 and 4.

Wow, you're making that claim based on DX11 API-overhead? That's rubbish! There's a lot more to games than the 3D-rendering API-overhead and you really should not be confusing overhead-tests with any sort of real-world performance. Games have all sorts of stuff going into them, like physics and AI, not to mention that an API-overhead says nothing about a game's 3D-engine -- the two are completely separate things.

 

EDIT: Decided to add some more to this. DX11 was never designed to be multi-threaded, so yes, it is disadvantaged when compared to APIs that have been designed with multi-threading in mind, like e.g. Vulkan or DX12, but the test here in question only measures the number of API-calls in a given timeframe -- just plain 3D-rendering involves a lot more stuff than just blindly calling the DX11 API, like e.g. you may have to manipulate any 3D-models, generate textures on-the-fly and all, and these things happen outside of the DX11 API, not in it.

[LinusGayTips]

7 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

source? that graph looks horrible

literally the first result from the google search https://www.gamingscan.com/how-many-cores-for-gaming/ , I don't really know about the credibility of this site, I just searched for whatever. However I do remember linus disabling some cores on a high end cpu and testing it against a low-end of the same series. There was a difference but nothing much.

[LukeSavenije]

1 minute ago, LinusGayTips said:

literally the first result from the google search https://www.gamingscan.com/how-many-cores-for-gaming/ , I don't really know about the credibility of this site, I just searched for whatever. However I do remember linus disabling a some cores on a high end cpu and testing it against a low-end of the same series. There was a difference but nothing much.

then it's old

 

gta can use 6 cores iirc

 

and most games these days can utilize 8 cores with ease

[Cereal5]

5 minutes ago, LinusGayTips said:

Well, yes, sure, but theoretically, if we were to have two completely identical CPUs, but one had more cores and the other higher clock speed, which one would perform better?

Depends. If you're comparing one core to 2 cores, the 2 core would. If you're comparing 4 cores to 6, it would probably depend on the game. Somewhere between 6 and 8 cores is when you start to see the tides change to clock speed. If you had asked the same question 2-3 years ago, it probably would be somewhere between 4 and 6 cores (all depends on the game though, some games, like Civilization, love cores, and others, like CSGO, love clock speed and IPCs). IPCs and architecture differences are another deal all together. They contribute to a CPUs processing power in the same way that cores and clock speed do, which is why an i5-2500K and i5-7600K at the same clock speed perform at different levels. It's the same reason why if you clocked an i7-8700K and R5 2600X at the same speed there would be differences between them still.

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

and most games these days can utilize 8 cores with ease

Not to mention that all the new upcoming consoles will sport a whole bunch of cores, so there's a good incentive for all future games to be as multi-threaded as possible. The importance of multiple cores is going to see a big rise in the next few years.

[191x7]

13 minutes ago, LinusGayTips said:

Well, yes, sure, but theoretically, if we were to have two completely identical CPUs, but one had more cores and the other higher clock speed, which one would perform better?

 

This depends on the use scenario.

If it were the same architecture, I'd rather have a 6-core running 3,33GHz than a 4-core running 5GHz.. Let's say that's i5 8400 vs i3 8350K.