How many CPU cores for gaming?

[ihsus]

How many CPU cores should I get for gaming considering I won't be upgrading for 6 years?

 

EDIT: Do Intel E-Cores count as a full-fledged cores?

[venomtail]

Entirely depends on what you want to play.

Some old/E-sports game? Don't see a need past 4 core at worst.

Something really unoptimized? Will be using CPU0 at 100%, rest at 0% on your i9.

AAA games of every year till 2029? I'd not look for anything less than 8 cores. I hope to god optimization in the years to come will be real good to use all the cores your PC has.

 

E-cores don't no.

[Xkillerpn]

Hi It all depends, so if you go to 4k the load will be basicly on the GPU , A good 8 core like 7800x3d will last for ages at 4k

[porina]

I'd consider 8 good cores to be the minimum for a gaming system looking forwards, as I have seen games scale beyond 8 cores already. On that note, I wouldn't consider E cores to be worth a P core, but they will still help out. Harder to say the relative value of them.

 

Note even if you have enough cores, the speed of the CPU may influence your gaming performance. I'm using a 7920X which is 12 cores, and 5.5 years old now. Still fine for gaming but I feel held back somewhat from the lower clock and IPC compared to current CPUs.

[PDifolco]

3 minutes ago, sushi456 said:

How many CPU cores should I get for gaming considering I won't be upgrading for 6 years?

 

EDIT: Do Intel E-Cores count as a full-fledged cores?

Ecores are not good at gaming, they're like Xeon cores , designed for multithread tasks

I'd say if you don't plan to upgrade for 6 years, you need at least 6 PCores for gaming +  some headroom either 2 Pcore or 4Ecores, so something like a 5700X or 12600K

But to be more comfortable get something event better , 7700X or 7800X3D, 13600K or better ... 

Add to this a decent board and at least 32GB of fast RAM

What's your budget ?

[Dedayog]

As others have said, get an 8 core CPU at least if buying new.

 

If you have budget constraints a good 6 core Ryzen 5600 isn't a bad call for the price.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

15 minutes ago, sushi456 said:

Do Intel E-Cores count as a full-fledged cores?

[porina]

3 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Ecores are not good at gaming, they're like Xeon cores , designed for multithread tasks

Some games are pretty multi-threaded, so E cores could still help out as long as you're not short of P cores in the first place. Don't know if it has been tested but for example 8P+0E would probably do worse in CPU demanding titles than 8P+4E.

 

Also, I'm not sure "Xeon cores" was your intent, since Xeon cores are little different from consumer CPU cores other than cache and connectivity. The E cores are said to be comparable to Skylake. It's getting on a bit but they're no slouch still.

[PDifolco]

Just now, porina said:

Some games are pretty multi-threaded, so E cores could still help out as long as you're not short of P cores in the first place. Don't know if it has been tested but for example 8P+0E would probably do worse in CPU demanding titles than 8P+4E.

 

Also, I'm not sure "Xeon cores" was your intent, since Xeon cores are little different from consumer CPU cores other than cache and connectivity. The E cores are said to be comparable to Skylake. It's getting on a bit but they're no slouch still.

I' m suspecting that to the contrary 8P+0E work better than 8P+someE as every techtuber disables ecores for gaming performance...

And yes my Xeon analogy is a bit off, wanted to say that both are cores with stable efficient clocks and not much boost, so with rather low 1 core perf and not good at gaming.

[ihsus]

14 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Entirely depends on what you want to play.

Some old/E-sports game? Don't see a need past 4 core at worst.

Something really unoptimized? Will be using CPU0 at 100%, rest at 0% on your i9.

AAA games of every year till 2029? I'd not look for anything less than 8 cores. I hope to god optimization in the years to come will be real good to use all the cores your PC has.

 

E-cores don't no.

 

14 minutes ago, porina said:

I'd consider 8 good cores to be the minimum for a gaming system looking forwards, as I have seen games scale beyond 8 cores already. On that note, I wouldn't consider E cores to be worth a P core, but they will still help out. Harder to say the relative value of them.

 

Note even if you have enough cores, the speed of the CPU may influence your gaming performance. I'm using a 7920X which is 12 cores, and 5.5 years old now. Still fine for gaming but I feel held back somewhat from the lower clock and IPC compared to current CPUs.

 

14 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

Ecores are not good at gaming, they're like Xeon cores , designed for multithread tasks

I'd say if you don't plan to upgrade for 6 years, you need at least 6 PCores for gaming +  some headroom either 2 Pcore or 4Ecores, so something like a 5700X or 12600K

But to be more comfortable get something event better , 7700X or 7800X3D, 13600K or better ... 

Add to this a decent board and at least 32GB of fast RAM

What's your budget ?

Do you think 240 AIO like NZXT X53 is enough to cool the 13700K? I like the Lian Li O11 Air Mini case which doesn't support larger than 240 radiator in my configuration.

 

EDIT: Asking because I saw they can get very hot and can get bottlenecked by cooling.

[jaslion]

Basically look at what the current consoles have an get something better than that. Since they are basically a ryzen 3700 8c/16t cpu just get something with at least 16 threads and at least equal single core performance. Then call it a day.

 

 

[porina]

13 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

I' m suspecting that to the contrary 8P+0E work better than 8P+someE as every techtuber disables ecores for gaming performance...

The question I'd have is, what games? That strategy might suit older games that may care more about clock and don't scale out. Or are they running Windows 10 still? But forward looking games are capable of using more CPU. It was an eye opener for me when I saw 12 cores give a tangible improvement over 8 cores on my own system as I wasn't expecting that. If we're looking forwards, I'd consider 8 cores to be the minimum, not the recommended. If I were to build a high end gaming system today, I'd look at either 8P+xE on Intel side (basically i7 upwards) or 12+ cores on AMD side. As OP mentioned looking forward 6 years, I'd lean to more cores if possible, although a later CPU swap may be an option if that is not viable now.

 

12 minutes ago, sushi456 said:

Do you think 240 AIO like NZXT X53 is enough to cool the 13700K? I like the Lian Li O11 Air Mini case which doesn't support larger than 240 radiator.

Probably ok. A good 240mm AIO is comparable or slightly better than high end air cooling.

[jaslion]

21 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

better than 8P+someE as every techtuber disables ecores for gaming performance...

Wait who does that?

 

On win 11 it auto schedules for p core useage

[PDifolco]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Wait who does that?

 

On win 11 it auto schedules for p core useage

I was exagerating a bit, and that was mostly in early Alder Lake days, but even now it's still in debate, with certain games better with ecores disabled, other worse, some don't care..

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/rtx-4090-53-games-core-i9-13900k-e-cores-enabled-vs-disabled/

[venomtail]

31 minutes ago, sushi456 said:

Do you think 240 AIO like NZXT X53 is enough to cool the 13700K? I like the Lian Li O11 Air Mini case which doesn't support larger than 240 radiator in my configuration.

 

EDIT: Asking because I saw they can get very hot and can get bottlenecked by cooling.

No. Some air coolers even beat 240mm AIO's. 280MM at a minimum, ideally I recommend no less than 360mm. New Intel CPU's a blazing hot, wasn't latest i9 a 420mm AIO at a minimum?

[Dedayog]

14 minutes ago, venomtail said:

No. Some air coolers even beat 240mm AIO's. 280MM at a minimum, ideally I recommend no less than 360mm. New Intel CPU's a blazing hot, wasn't latest i9 a 420mm AIO at a minimum?

I'd recommend 360mm for anything you're buying and want max performance from.  It's not always just the top end chips, but any that are purposebuilt for being awesome. Ie, 13600K, 13700K, 7700X as well.

[deadlou666]

4 cores . Decent 6 core is recommended (5600x 6 core outperform or trade blows with a 5700 8 core) 

[Fendrick]

14 hours ago, deadlou666 said:

4 cores . Decent 6 core is recommended (5600x 6 core outperform or trade blows with a 5700 8 core) 

No it don't. but if it does it is due to you playing old games or games that would run on a Pentium II still.

 

 

[deadlou666]

If you look at any compare site/benchmark videos they perform on par apart from multi core loads which the 5700x obviously would win on having 2c/4t more but for single threaded tasks and 99% of games it will perform on par. All of this depends on ops budget, if they want absolute performance then yeah go for something silly but if they just wanting the best option for the next 6 years then there's no reason not to go 6 core as it doesn't seem like 8 cores are gonna be used any time soon (think amd fx) 

[Dedayog]

21 hours ago, deadlou666 said:

4 cores . Decent 6 core is recommended (5600x 6 core outperform or trade blows with a 5700 8 core) 

 

49 minutes ago, deadlou666 said:

If you look at any compare site/benchmark videos they perform on par apart from multi core loads which the 5700x obviously would win on having 2c/4t more but for single threaded tasks and 99% of games it will perform on par. All of this depends on ops budget, if they want absolute performance then yeah go for something silly but if they just wanting the best option for the next 6 years then there's no reason not to go 6 core as it doesn't seem like 8 cores are gonna be used any time soon (think amd fx) 

You provide a counterpoint, which is good.  If you can get a specifically good 4c, maybe consider it for budget considerations.

 

But if you want to maintain good performance for those 6 years and not a sloping curve...go with 8.  6 may get you there, but I can't see the 5600 being that strong for that long. 

 

Now this is all affected by resolution and games, of course. It's not cut and dried or black and white, but you take the entire PC and your use case into making a balanced machine.

[Ripred]

23 hours ago, sushi456 said:

How many CPU cores should I get for gaming considering I won't be upgrading for 6 years?

 

EDIT: Do Intel E-Cores count as a full-fledged cores?

Depends on what you like to play, some games barely make use of 4 while some will use whatever you have

Id say 6 can possibly get you by but don't count on it, 8 would be the safest bet for the foreseeable future but not 100%guarantee (noone can tell the future), 10+ cores if you just don't want to bother thinking about it at all.

Its made more difficult to determine what will be best for the long run because CPU manufactures have taken two different directions now one on the Pcore Ecore route, offloading background tasks to small cores leaving the big ones to do heavy lifting on the flip side we have the all strong core route with huge cache strapped on, both bring there own benefits and it depends on which way the game developers go, which in the most likely scenario itll be a mixed bag

 

So if you go the intel route id say something with 6 Pcore and some e cores, AMD route get and 8 Core with big cache

 

[Fendrick]

1 hour ago, deadlou666 said:

If you look at any compare site/benchmark videos they perform on par apart from multi core loads which the 5700x obviously would win on having 2c/4t more but for single threaded tasks and 99% of games it will perform on par. All of this depends on ops budget, if they want absolute performance then yeah go for something silly but if they just wanting the best option for the next 6 years then there's no reason not to go 6 core as it doesn't seem like 8 cores are gonna be used any time soon (think amd fx) 

No they are not.

 

This is just with a measly 3070 not the 6900 XT I am running now.

 

https://www.overclock.net/threads/did-anyone-else-have-a-seriously-hot-running-ryzen-that-were-outliers-to-the-norm.1804584/

[deadlou666]

2 hours ago, Fendrick said:

No they are not.

 

This is just with a measly 3070 not the 6900 XT I am running now.

 

https://www.overclock.net/threads/did-anyone-else-have-a-seriously-hot-running-ryzen-that-were-outliers-to-the-norm.1804584/

That's temp issues with coolers not performance issues? I fail to see how this links to 5600x vs 5700

[Fendrick]

9 hours ago, deadlou666 said:

That's temp issues with coolers not performance issues? I fail to see how this links to 5600x vs 5700

Not seeing the Crysis 3 FPS difference?? LOL!

[deadlou666]

8 hours ago, Fendrick said:

Not seeing the Crysis 3 FPS difference?? LOL!

What's your problem! You sent me a link which had nothing to do with performance issues instead it was temps with an inadequate cooler.