What makes a cpu better than other

[Qymero]

Hi, i just want to know what makes a cpu better than other because i saw a lot of cpus that idk, one has like 22 cores, 40 threads, but another with only 16 cores and 36 threads that gives more fps in games, idk if its because the Mhz, the Ghz or other factors.

 

[FalseControl]

Games don't care about how many cores it has because they only use a couple cores. Its more about the speed or the Ghz of the chip. Now if we are talking about rendering, the more cores and threads will obviously do better. An example is like having 22 workers do a job and 16 workers do the same exact job but maybe a little faster. The 22 workers are still gonna get done first. 

[Middcore]

15 minutes ago, Qymero said:

 Mhz, the Ghz or other factors.

 

 

1000mhz = 1 ghz

 

[aisle9]

14 minutes ago, Qymero said:

Hi, i just want to know what makes a cpu better than other because i saw a lot of cpus that idk, one has like 22 cores, 40 threads, but another with only 16 cores and 36 threads that gives more fps in games, idk if its because the Mhz, the Ghz or other factors.

 

Server CPUs are notorious for having 24 cores and a clock speed of 1.6GHz. That's great for server applications, but a game is going to use somewhere between 2-8 threads, for the most part. If there's an 8-core CPU running 16 threads at 4.3GHz, that's a bit of a difference. The game cares about the 8 threads it's using. The other 40 can just eff right off. So if a game's looking for eight threads and there's one CPU running them at 4.3GHz with a second running them at 1.6GHz, the first one will have better performance in games.

[brob]

49 minutes ago, Qymero said:

Hi, i just want to know what makes a cpu better than other because i saw a lot of cpus that idk, one has like 22 cores, 40 threads, but another with only 16 cores and 36 threads that gives more fps in games, idk if its because the Mhz, the Ghz or other factors.

 

 

There is no simple answer to this. Even in a reasonably narrow application area such as gaming there is no simple explanation.

 

As a general statement, what makes a cpu better than another is its ability to do a particular job faster and more cost effectively. Notice the reference to a job, one cpu may be better at one game or group of games but not with a different game or group.

 

Ultimately there are relatively few choices when it come to optimal gaming cpu choices. The choice generally boils down to budget.

 

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

The TLDR is that there is no universally best CPU, it depends on your workload (I assume it's gaming for you). As user, you should care about third party benchmarks on the games you play, and not how the manufacturers achieved a given score at a given price (e.g. don't buy Ryzen because of higher cache or Intel because of faster clocks, buy what achieves your target fps in your games at the best cost in your region with the least headaches).

 

What matters is how much work the CPU threads can do, how many threads there are and how the workload can split work between the threads. For gaming, which I assume is your use case, a CPU that runs an AMDx86-64 instruction set is better because most games target X86 (including consolles).

As for core configuration, games tend to benefit CPUs with fast single core performance, with high cache, low latency, high memory bandwidth and high IPC (instructions per clock) and fast clock speed. It's the engineers' work to balance all those design constraint to achive best overall performance for a given die area, TDP and process node.

 

For games, it's not like you need a given number of threads to run games. e.g. You may have the choice between a 2C/2T or 2C/4T or 4C/4T a 4C/8T or weird combinations with Alder Lake performance and efficiency cores. An old high core count CPU can be worse than a new low core count CPU in your workload. Benchmarks are key here.

 

For games, beyond a certain number of threads, you get no added benefit, because the work needed to run the game can only be divided in so many pieces, and the reminder of cores will be left IDLE anyway. Some games can use more threads than others. Server CPUs usually sacrifice single core performance to achieve high multicore performance.

 

High fidelity high resolution games are going to be GPU bound, CPU is going to matter less in those titles. You see that in benchmarks when lots of CPUs achieve the same score.

[Qymero]

16 hours ago, aisle9 said:

Server CPUs are notorious for having 24 cores and a clock speed of 1.6GHz. That's great for server applications, but a game is going to use somewhere between 2-8 threads, for the most part. If there's an 8-core CPU running 16 threads at 4.3GHz, that's a bit of a difference. The game cares about the 8 threads it's using. The other 40 can just eff right off. So if a game's looking for eight threads and there's one CPU running them at 4.3GHz with a second running them at 1.6GHz, the first one will have better performance in games.

I mean, i was planning to buy 2 intel xeon e52699 wich u can turbo boost and make them like 3.5 GHz

[Middcore]

Just now, Qymero said:

I mean, i was planning to buy 2 intel xeon e52699 wich u can turbo boost and make them like 3.5 GHz

 

Why 2?

[Qymero]

Just now, Qymero said:

I mean, i was planning to buy 2 intel xeon e52699 wich u can turbo boost and make them like 3.5 GHz

but i just dont know if is worth buying 2 xeon e52699 (v3) wich costs like +300 eur total, or to just buy another cpu, the thing is that i want the best performance for gaming with low budget, im searching for cpu only. Another thing is that when i think of buying one cpu, i just feel that is not enough for idk, having 144 fps on rust for example with only 300 eur, so i just think of buying a dual cpu thing, because of that, idk its better having 2 xeon e52699 v3 or having a really good cpu. Anyways, my budget is very low, maximum is 300eur and idk if i could have a good performance cpu fo having 4k rust at 144 fps. Im a bit demanding on this but is cuz im just sick of my current cpu, it is so fricking slow and it crashes frecuently, and normally it goes like 60º with just google chrome opened idk if thats normal. It is a xeon e3 1220 i think.

[Qymero]

7 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Why 2?

power, and its cheap

[Middcore]

Just now, Qymero said:

power, and its cheap

 

Except in very specific workstation tasks, there is no benefit to dual socket. No game in the world can take advantage of two CPU's. 

[Qymero]

1 minute ago, Middcore said:

 

Except in very specific workstation tasks, there is no benefit to dual socket. No game in the world can take advantage of two CPU's. 

is the same as having 2 gpu's?

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Qymero said:

is the same as having 2 gpu's?

 

Your phrasing is ambiguous but multiple GPU's (SLI/Crossfire) is also pointless now for games and has been, mostly, for several years. 

[Qymero]

9 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Your phrasing is ambiguous but multiple GPU's (SLI/Crossfire) is also pointless now for games and has been, mostly, for several years. 

then what u recommend with that budget to have the best performance

 

[Middcore]

4 minutes ago, Qymero said:

then what u recommend with that budget to have the best performance

 

 

What parts of the PC is your 300 Euro budget supposed to include? 

[Qymero]

2 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

What parts of the PC is your 300 Euro budget supposed to include? 

a cpu

[brob]

21 minutes ago, Qymero said:

im searching for cpu only

 

Not an optimal approach. One has to consider cpu, motherboard, and memory together to get a good handle on potential performance with a given load.

 

If you already have the motherboard and memory, the choice is quite simple. Buy the highest performance cpu for the motherboard that fits the budget.

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Qymero said:

a cpu

 

The CPU you want determines what motherboard you will need, which could also in turn mean different types of RAM. Setting a budget for just a CPU in a vacuum doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

What, if any, parts do you already have? Do you have a graphics card?

[Qymero]

2 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

The CPU you want determines what motherboard you will need, which could also in turn mean different types of RAM. Setting a budget for just a CPU in a vacuum doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

What, if any, parts do you already have? Do you have a graphics card?

i mean, i have a gpu, ram, but not motherboard

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Qymero said:

i mean, i have a gpu, ram, but not motherboard

 

What GPU and what RAM?

[Qymero]

7 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

What GPU and what RAM?

1050 ti 16 gb ram

 

[Middcore]

5 minutes ago, Qymero said:

1050 ti 16 gb ram

 

 

Argh. DDR3 or DDR4? I am presuming DDR3?

 

It would be so much easier for people to help you if getting information from you wasn't so arduous. 

[Qymero]

6 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Argh. DDR3 or DDR4? I am presuming DDR3?

 

It would be so much easier for people to help you if getting information from you wasn't so arduous. 

ddr3

[aisle9]

10 hours ago, Qymero said:

ddr3

i7-4790K is the best you can do, and that's not great for modern AAA gaming. If you still have to buy a motherboard, update the RAM too.

 

My suggestion is probably going to be along the lines of 16 GB of DDR4-3200 RAM and a Ryzen 5 5600X on a B550 motherboard, B450 if you can't afford a B550 right now. You will almost certainly need to come up above 300 Euros, or step the CPU down to a Ryzen 3 3200G or older-gen i5-10400F or 11400F.

[Alder Lake]

On 2/21/2022 at 5:59 PM, Qymero said:

Hi, i just want to know what makes a cpu better than other because i saw a lot of cpus that idk, one has like 22 cores, 40 threads, but another with only 16 cores and 36 threads that gives more fps in games, idk if its because the Mhz, the Ghz or other factors.

 

there's 3 main important stats for measuring how well a CPU will perform

 

the first one is what you mentioned, GHz, or clock speed, if you run a CPU at 3GHz then run the same CPU at 4GHz, the 4GHz one will almost certainly be faster, if not certainly. However this comes at increased heat output along with greater energy consumption, some CPUs also can do better with lower clocks, bringing us to the next spec

 

the second one is called IPC, as far as I'm aware there's sadly no way to measure it, but you can compare it to other CPUs, for example, a decent performance jump is likely caused by an IPC increase, the way you find how well a single thread on a CPU will perform is GHz*IPC

 

and the last stat is core count, how helpful this is depends greatly on the task, most games I know of can't make use of more than a couple cores, so this sparsely affects gaming performance, but other tasks like rendering can make use of dozens of cores, the actual actual way you find how a CPU will perform is GHz*IPC*cores being used, remember that not all use cases can use all cores, so make sure you figure out how much it will benefit you