More cores or higher frequency for gaming on 2019

[Wonka0998]

So I've been wondering, right now 4 cores 8 threads is pretty much the sweet spot for gaming in a price to performance ratio.

 

I know that with less cores, you can generally have higher clock frequencies. So say for instance that I have an AMD Threadripper 32/64 at I don't know 3GHz locked on all cores. This CPU is clearly for heavy multithreaded workloads like rending and so. I wouldn't expect it to game much better than an i7 8700K at 5GHz on all cores, but I'd spect it to crush the i7 in CINEBENCH or any other task that benefits from that insane amount of cores and threads.

 

Now, you can actually disable cores and not use them at all to the point where they don't even show up in Windows. So what if I had this CPU for profesional rendering or whatever, but also wanted to game on it (let's say I have an RTX 2080Ti and I'm gaming at 720p low settings, just to get that out of the way and make sure we're not GPU bottlenecked).

 

With the context set, these are my questions:

 

1) Could I just disable cores on the Threadripper and be left with 4/8 and bump the clock speed of only those cores to something like +4.2GHz, just when I'm going to game and get back to 32/64 at 3GHz when rendering again?

2) Would it actually cause a gaming benefit over the 34/64 at 3GHz?

 

That's the hypothetic scenario I've set to explain my point, but I'm interested because I've got an R5 2600 6/12 CPU and I'd like to know if I'd get a better gaming performance if I disable a couple of cores and bump up the clocks, generally speaking of course because I know that some games actually benefit from more cores and I believe that is what we should expect in the future as we move forward with CPU technologies and gaming development and optimization to make use of it.

 

I found this to be a very interesting topic to discuss and if someone can actually test it out and share the results, it'd be awesome. I plan on testing my 2600 whenever adult life gives me a chance lol

[GrockleTD]

High frequency 6 core is the current meta

[porina]

The turbo tables will vary the max clock depending on how many cores are in use. So even at 32 cores total, if only say 8 are in use, it should turbo higher than when 16 are in use. That would save you from switching it between use cases.

 

Actually, didn't AMD put in a "gaming mode" setting in the bios? I can't remember exactly what it does, but I think it does reduce cores/SMT to help with pure gaming.

[Wonka0998]

49 minutes ago, Grockle88 said:

High frequency 6 core is the current meta

Yeah I agree that having 6/12 at 4.2GHz would be better than 4/8 at the same clock speed. However, what if we had 4/8 at 4.4GHz or more. Would that clock difference be worth it for gaming or would it actually perform the same due to the core count difference?

[Wonka0998]

54 minutes ago, porina said:

The turbo tables will vary the max clock depending on how many cores are in use. So even at 32 cores total, if only say 8 are in use, it should turbo higher than when 16 are in use. That would save you from switching it between use cases.

 

Actually, didn't AMD put in a "gaming mode" setting in the bios? I can't remember exactly what it does, but I think it does reduce cores/SMT to help with pure gaming.

Let's put aside any turbos or CPU features like that "gaming mode". Let's say we're just setting up the clock speed manually.

What do you think then?

[porina]

1 minute ago, Wonka0998 said:

Let's put aside any turbos or CPU features like that "gaming mode". Let's say we're just setting up the clock speed manually.

What do you think then?

To manually set it for gaming, I would run 8 cores SMT off. If there are real cores available then they will always be preferred over using SMT. 8 cores is a good limit as I doubt any mainstream game will be effectively using more than that. Also I'd pick those 8 cores to be on the same die, if the bios gives you the option to do so. You will lose half the ram channels though. In effect, you just turned the TR into a 2700 equivalent.

 

Actually you say you have a 2600. I have one too. If you upgrade the cooler from stock, 4.2 GHz should be attainable on all cores, maybe a little more if you push to the limit. I never tried disabling cores/threads to get even more clock. I really doubt it will help you much but you can try if you want. Personally I would not disable cores, but if you want to push harder then try disabling SMT. I really do think 6c6t would probably leave you better off overall than if you went down to say 4c8t.

[Mister Woof]

Doesn't scale linearly. Gaming, assuming identical IPC/clocks, and generally speaking with some exceptions:

 

4/4 > 2/4 most of the time by a lot

4/8 > 4/4 sometimes by a lot, sometimes not at all.

6/6 > 4/8 by a decent amount, sometimes

6/12 > 6/6 sometimes by a little bit, sometimes not at all

8/8 > 6/12 sometimes by a little bit, sometimes not at all, sometimes worse

8/16 > 8/8 sometimes by a little bit, sometimes not at all.

 

8/16 > 6/6 sometimes by a significant amount, mostly only a little bit, but sometimes not at all.

 

I generally tend to look at the "floor" you need minimum of cores/threads to game well, and then after that IPC/frequency is more important. I feel 6/12 is the minimum configuration I'd buy today.

 

I'd take a 6/12 5ghz Intel chip over an 8/16 4.2ghz AMD chip

 

But I would take a 6/12 4.2ghz AMD chip over a 4/8 Intel 5ghz Intel chip

[xg32]

i'd say 8/8 is "meta" as it's repeatedly shown to be faster than 8/16, also consoles are very likely gonna be 8 cores, 6/6 is the minimum, for a new build i'd definitely go for 8/8 or 8/16, either 9700k/9900k or zen 2.

[Mister Woof]

1 hour ago, xg32 said:

i'd say 8/8 is "meta" as it's repeatedly shown to be faster than 8/16, also consoles are very likely gonna be 8 cores, 6/6 is the minimum, for a new build i'd definitely go for 8/8 or 8/16, either 9700k/9900k or zen 2.

Marginal difference between 8/8 and 6/12 at same clocks.

 

Might make a difference in 5 years but rn it's meaningless