Ya, are newer 4 core CPUs good enough? Meaning gaming.

[Eric Kazer]

I have 10th Gen I3-10100F with a GTX 1660 on a Gigabyte B460M DS3H V2 with memory at 2666MHz. It seems to do very well for a entry level CPU. Seems like they are for a lot of games. GTA 5 seems to keep up well on this chip. I am just wondering how higher tier 10th and 11th gen do.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

GtaV is a old game at this point, it came out when 4 core was king

theres deminishing returns, but 6/12 cpus are the best mid-high end gaming cpus right now 

[Eric Kazer]

Upgradeability! I will consider a I5-10600KF in the future. It's meeting needs for 1920x1080 60Hz right now. Remember I said entry level. Also a nice way to get into Windows 11 with I3-10100F.

[Guest]

That is a great CPU for the $/performance.  

[RONOTHAN##]

The thing the higher tier CPUs bring are higher core counts and higher core clocks. A lot of games still don't use more than 4 cores, and the ones that do rarely use more than 6-8. If you're gonna buy a new CPU, I usually recommend the higher core count CPUs because of the way games are trending, as well as with how they help with multitasking (i.e. running a bunch of Chrome tabs and stuff in the background), though for the most part unless you're doing something that needs it, anything above 6 cores isn't useful. 

 

That being said, if it does what it needs you to do, it's a fine CPU. I'm not trying to say that chip is bad, if I needed a cheap system it would be one of my first choices.

[YoungBlade]

In most situations, yes, a modern 4c/8t CPU is enough for gaming. You won't be able to push max FPS in the latest and greatest games, but I've never seen a benchmark where a modern quad-core with HT can't get you at least 60fps on average with enough GPU horsepower. Honestly, your GTX 1660 is probably holding you back more than the i3 is.

 

And honestly, it isn't necessarily about the cores. Hardware Unboxed did a recent series of videos looking at core and cache scaling and found that, for gaming at least, cache tends to have more impact on FPS than cores do. Up to a point. The final video looked at quad-core performance and the worst performance by the 10105F was 73fps in SotTR. That's perfectly playable. And for some modern games, it doesn't matter at all. Shockingly, in AC:Valhalla, there was functionally no difference between the 10900K and 10105F, even when all 10 cores were left enabled on the i9.

 

[jones177]

40 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

And honestly, it isn't necessarily about the cores. Hardware Unboxed did a recent series of videos looking at core and cache scaling and found that, for gaming at least, cache tends to have more impact on FPS than cores do. Up to a point. The final video looked at quad-core performance and the worst performance by the 10105F was 73fps in SotTR. That's perfectly playable. And for some modern games, it doesn't matter at all. Shockingly, in AC:Valhalla, there was functionally no difference between the 10900K and 10105F, even when all 10 cores were left enabled on the i9.

 

I am not a fan of that video.

I recently got back my i7 6700k/1080 rig that was loaned out as a "work at home computer" and it is rough in games compared to a 6 core. The 6 core feels rough compared to an 8 core.

Just running a bench won't do it. You have to have your hands on the mouse and keyboard to feel the difference.  

 

AC:Valhalla is just strange. It is the only game that my Intel 6 core beats my Intel 10 core and it hates my 5800x since it scores lower than both.

 

As even HUB say in some videos. It is not all about the frames.  

[YoungBlade]

6 minutes ago, jones177 said:

I am not a fan of that video.

I recently got back my i7 6700k/1080 rig that was loaned out as a "work at home computer" and it is rough in games compared to a 6 core. The 6 core feels rough compared to an 8 core.

Just running a bench won't do it. You have to have your hands on the mouse and keyboard to feel the difference.  

 

AC:Valhalla is just strange. It is the only game that my Intel 6 core beats my Intel 10 core and it hates my 5800x since it scores lower than both.

 

As even HUB say in some videos. It is not all about the frames.  

Were you targeting 60fps gaming or higher?

[jones177]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

Were you targeting 60fps gaming or higher?

The only games that I target 60fps are old Bethesda games. 

All frames are over 60 with my setups now unless I use raytracing at 4k.

 

When I bought the i7 6700k in 2016 I did target 60fps at 4k with GTX 980 ti in SLI.

The 4 core had drops in games that did not exist when I upgraded to an i7 8086k.

The drops were in the 40s so not as severe as the ones I got with the i7 2600k that were in the 30s but I still felt them. Going to 6 cores was a big jump in emersion in games and 8 cores is so good that I can't play on a 6 core anymore. 

 

[YoungBlade]

13 minutes ago, jones177 said:

The only games that I target 60fps are old Bethesda games. 

All frames are over 60 with my setups now unless I use raytracing at 4k.

 

When I bought the i7 6700k in 2016 I did target 60fps at 4k with GTX 980 ti in SLI.

The 4 core had drops in games that did not exist when I upgraded to an i7 8086k.

The drops were in the 40s so not as severe as the ones I got with the i7 2600k that were in the 30s but I still felt them. Going to 6 cores was a big jump in emersion in games and 8 cores is so good that I can't play on a 6 core anymore. 

 

That's a bit surprising that you had drops that low, but that could also be a consequence of SLI.

 

As for the HUB video, I don't see why you have any issues with it. It does show that 4 cores struggles to get above 100fps in modern games. Since you target higher than that, you can see that you have to get at least a 6 core. It also shows that this isn't necessarily caused by the cores themselves. It looks like the Intel Sky through Comet Lake cores want 3-4MB of L3 cache each. Your 6700K only has 8MB shared. If it had 12-16MB, it would probably perform noticeably better in games, especially for the 1% lows.

[jones177]

18 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

That's a bit surprising that you had drops that low, but that could also be a consequence of SLI.

I did it with a single GTX 980 ti, GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 ti.

I had GTX 1080 tis in SLI with the i9 9900k that I am using now as well and only dropped it when it got the RTX 2080 ti. On games that did not like SLI it was off.

18 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

As for the HUB video, I don't see why you have any issues with it. It does show that 4 cores struggles to get above 100fps in modern games. Since you target higher than that, you can see that you have to get at least a 6 core. It also shows that this isn't necessarily caused by the cores themselves. It looks like the Intel Sky through Comet Lake cores want 3-4MB of L3 cache each. Your 6700K only has 8MB shared. If it had 12-16MB, it would probably perform noticeably better in games, especially for the 1% lows.

I have an issue with the video because CPUs with more cache wins. How many 4 core CPUs have high cache counts? The i7 7700k had 8mbs as well and the Ryzens have less.  Why were the Ryzen 4 cores not shown as well?

 

Going from a i7 6700k to a i7 8700k was not a big jump in frames at 1440p and 4k. It was a big jump in emersion.

 

If the i7 6700k had a large cache it probably would perform better but in tests it was Windows and background apps that were mainly causing the drops. 

 

My experience has been more that of the Tech Deals videos when it comes to cores. He thinks the 5900x is ideal.

 

I did give the video a thumbs up since I loved my i9 10900k and after giving it to my Son for video work I missed it so much I built another one with an i9 10900kf.

[Eric Kazer]

I am saying I5-11600k or kf in future to eventually get computer to keep up with 4k 60. 11th gen is also a option. Might be enough of a boost. Plus I have board already. CPU is on support list as of BIOS F20 on my Gigabyte B460M DSH3 V2 mainboard.  In fact I would like a I5-11600 KF or K for system with a beefy heatsink. I have BIOS F21  installed for great range of CPUs. 3.9 to 4.9 GHz on a I5-11600k or kf. Probably see 4.7GHz with that. 6 cores, 12 threads. Can support 2993 and 3200 MHz memory. I'll findout if main board is limited to 2666. Of course a I5-11600K will have a 125 watt TDP vs a standard I5-11600 with 65 watt TDP.

[Eric Kazer]

YoungBlade,

CPUs are less in cost than GPUs. 

[Eric Kazer]

Yes quad with hyperthreading seem to be enough in gaming. My I3-10100F with a GPU is enough with a GTX 1660. 16GB@2666MHz. It will do it. Will struggle in newer games. Will still run them in medium normal settings.

[Eric Kazer]

I will still go with a I5-10600k or kf in the future.

[Eric Kazer]

11600k or kf is better.

[Stahlmann]

14 hours ago, Eric Kazer said:

I am saying I5-11600k or kf in future to eventually get computer to keep up with 4k 60.

The higher you go with your resolution, the less important the CPU gets. You'll probably not even notice a big difference between 10100f and the 11600K in that usecase.

7 hours ago, Eric Kazer said:

Yes quad with hyperthreading seem to be enough in gaming. My I3-10100F with a GPU is enough with a GTX 1660. 16GB@2666MHz. It will do it. Will struggle in newer games. Will still run them in medium normal settings.

If you're CPU limited you can typically use higher settings without losing much - if any - performance.

 

7 hours ago, Eric Kazer said:

11600k or kf is better.

The KF is exactly the same CPU as the K, but also has integrated graphics. If you don't have a GPU this can be a huge value add, but since you have a 1660, you don't really need it. So go for whichever is cheaper.

[Eric Kazer]

It's a tough argument, because GPUs are unaffordable to me and many of us. CPUs kina still are. Also higher clocks matter. 10100 is a slower chip than 10600 or 11600. Also catches matter.

[Mark Kaine]

On 9/19/2021 at 8:44 PM, Eric Kazer said:

YoungBlade,

CPUs are less in cost than GPUs. 

But not by much... 

Here's my honest answer, yes,  4 cores is "good" enough,  but generally the more cores the better (at similar speed) its also more future proof...

Lots of people are saying now 6 cores is enough, but this is imo quite shortsighted as for multi tasking more cores surely is better,  not just in the future but already currently. 

 

So tldr, 4 cores are good enough,  with exceptions, but its surely not great and I would advise getting a modern 6c/12t processor minimum. 

 

 

[chrome_wheels]

On 9/17/2021 at 4:08 PM, YoungBlade said:

Shockingly, in AC:Valhalla, there was functionally no difference between the 10900K and 10105F, even when all 10 cores were left enabled on the i9.

 

 

On 9/17/2021 at 5:00 PM, jones177 said:

AC:Valhalla is just strange. It is the only game that my Intel 6 core beats my Intel 10 core and it hates my 5800x since it scores lower than both.

 

As even HUB say in some videos. It is not all about the frames.  

 

I was playing Valhalla without SMT enabled for a bit. My average framerate was around 60~63 and maxing out to 80. When enabled SMT now, my FPS are averaging around 72 and noticed the maximum 113. I do have a 3440x1440 resolution on Samsung Odyssey G5 with 165Hz refresh rate on. I was expecting more framerates at this point but multi-core doesn't show much of an improvement. I just think that Assassin's Creed: Valhalla isn't properly optimised for PC.

[jones177]

4 hours ago, chrome_wheels said:

 

 

I was playing Valhalla without SMT enabled for a bit. My average framerate was around 60~63 and maxing out to 80. When enabled SMT now, my FPS are averaging around 72 and noticed the maximum 113. I do have a 3440x1440 resolution on Samsung Odyssey G5 with 165Hz refresh rate on. I was expecting more framerates at this point but multi-core doesn't show much of an improvement. I just think that Assassin's Creed: Valhalla isn't properly optimised for PC.

I don't think it is optimized for high core count anything. 

 

Here are my results with a stock i9 10900k and a i7 8086k at 5ghz all cores.

The game does not use the preferred Intel cores on my i9 10900k to feed the GPU. Cores 1 and 2 are preferred and will hit 5.3ghz. AC:Valhalla uses core 6(thread 11) that runs a 4.9ghz every time the game is loaded.