What is the reality of the current CPU core count for modern games

[Wolverine2349]

I have seen so many mixed opinions on this topic.

 

Some say modern games absolutely have benefit form more than 8 cores and some say not so.

 

Many show games like Starfield and Dragons Dogma 2 are so CPU intensive that 8 cores 16 threads is bare minimum and more is helpful.

 

I would like a CPU with more than 8 cores, but there are no good options for an optimal config that way.

 

More than 8 P cores on a single ring/CCD would be nice but no such option exists and its a shame. Intel has max of 8 P cores on a single ring/CCD and the rest are e-cores for hybrid arch. AMD has 16 core CPUs, but only 8 cores per CCD and cross CCD latency is a severe performance hit for things like games that intermittently use different cores.

 

The Intel thread director I think probably does a very good job putting secondary threads on e-cores and latency is minimized and less than HT so good there. Though not all problems solved but most. However Intel 13th and 14th Gen CPUs have random reliability/stability and degradation issues and such high power to dump heat into the case they are kind of out after experience with them.

 

AMD CPUs use much less power even their 16 core parts and do not seem to have degradation or random stability problems unlike intel 13th and 14th Gen. But they have only 8 cores per CCD.

How bad is cross CCD latency penalty for Ryzen 7000? It would seem it is bad enough do not turn off SMT where as Intel e-cores go ahead and turn off HT as e-cores are better than HT and e-cores on the same node. Of course the more Zen 4 cores are better on AMD, but crossing to other CCD through Infinity fabric such a latency hit its probably worse than SMT threads??

 

If the 7900X or 7900X3D was 12 cores on a single CCD, I would have gotten that or likewise the 7950X or 7950X3D. But they have dual CCDs so put me between a rock and hard place. So 7800X3D it is though I wonder if 8 cores is going to be any what of a bottleneck in Starfield and Dragons Dogma 2 (in any situations of those games like tons of NPC areas or stuff going on/whatever) if I decide to purchase and play those games.

 

I check Steam forums and some say 8 cores 16 threads is bare minimum now a days and it would be nice to be above bare minimum if indeed that is true.

 

And sadly Zen 5 is still going to max out at 8 cores per CCD it appears when it comes out very late 2024.

 

Well Intel Arrow Lake is coming very late 2024 and hopefully their 20A process node and/or some TSMC or whatever node its going to be on will be far better better and more reliable than the fragile 10nm node with all the inane heat output and degradation issues even at Intel stock limits enforced it seems or no one really knows whole story neverminded the fragile DDR5 IMC and randomness with that at XMP unlike AMD.

 

Some even have stated well because consoles use only 8 cores no need to worry about 8 cores becoming obsolete anytime soon. Though obsolete and lesser noticeable experience in games are not always the same. I mean 6 cores 12 threads is far form obsolete today and even ok but they ae not as good as 8 cores 16 threads for sure. Depends on what definition of obsolete is and there is so much more overhead on a PC than consoles and the games are targeted to so many different hardware meaning just cause consoled use 8 cores, does not mean oh no PC game will meaningfully benefit from more on PC. Just like you do not need a 4090 to play games, but it is the best and games even latest can be played on lower tier RTX 2000 or GTX 1000 card, but experience would not be good. I worry same with CPU core count. I know CPU less impact than GPU but still. Would 8 cores on consoles be a hard cap for game dev to PC ports while video card requirements (despite consoles also having only RTX 2080 or slightly lower equivalent) increase and 8 core single thread performance increases, but not CPU core count?

[Dedayog]

Where do you find this?

 

Many show games like Starfield and Dragons Dogma 2 are so CPU intensive that 8 cores 16 threads is bare minimum and more is helpful.

 

I would like a CPU with more than 8 cores, but there are no good options for an optimal config that way.

 

Since the 7800X3D beats the 14900K in the game, I would argue that 8 is plenty still and other factors to produce better performance are actually worth more.

[jaslion]

It's always just how many threads have consoles now since they are x86 boxes these days. The consoles have a max of 14 threads available so the games tend to be optimized to use about that many threads. It's why you see in most games these days a decent use over 12 threads and then it tapers off rapidly. So a 7800x3d would be totally fine.

 

Pretty much same story for the ps4 and xbone there it just took a bit because intel was keeping 4 threads the standard for a LOOOONG time. The minute ryzen came out 4 thread cpu's for gaming became obsolete within the year.

[tkitch]

you want between 2 and 16 cores for modern games.  

 

There's no single answer for this.  Some games like shooters, minecraft, roblox, etc. are VERY single core hungry, and load one thread to the hilt.

 

Other games like Cyberpunk (with newer updates) use 12-16 threads, and will load the shit out of a bunch of them.

 

The only game(s) I know of that can load up more is the nonsense things like "Cities Skylines 2" that are less game, and more torture test. 

[Tetras]

1 minute ago, Wolverine2349 said:

If the 7900X or 7900X3D was 12 cores on a single CCD, I would have gotten that or likewise the 7950X or 7950X3D. But they have dual CCDs so put me between a rock and hard place. So 7800X3D it is though I wonder if 8 cores is going to be any what of a bottleneck in Starfield and Dragons Dogma 2 (in any situations of those games like tons of NPC areas or stuff going on/whatever) if I decide to purchase and play those games.

To be honest, I wouldn't base my buying decisions on either of those games because they're both considered to be poorly optimised and the "dragon's dogsh$t" thumbnails of videos like these tell enough of a story:

 

Realistically, if you get a 7800X3D or 7900X3D, just enjoy your games and be happy. Part of the reason of buying AM5 is that you're not stuck forever on one generation of CPU, so if you end up needing 12 or more cores, then their time will come.

 

Remember that most gamers are going to be on just 6 cores for the foreseeable, so if they want to sell games they're going to have to make them work!

[Wolverine2349]

5 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

Where do you find this?

 

Many show games like Starfield and Dragons Dogma 2 are so CPU intensive that 8 cores 16 threads is bare minimum and more is helpful.

 

I would like a CPU with more than 8 cores, but there are no good options for an optimal config that way.

 

Since the 7800X3D beats the 14900K in the game, I would argue that 8 is plenty still and other factors to produce better performance are actually worth more.

 

 

It was on Steam somewhere though cannot get to Steam on current connection. Will find it and post back.

[Dedayog]

7 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

 

 

It was on Steam somewhere though cannot get to Steam on current connection. Will find it and post back.

 

For the 7800X3D comment I made above.

[Eigenvektor]

35 minutes ago, tkitch said:

Other games like Cyberpunk (with newer updates) use 12-16 threads, and will load the shit out of a bunch of them.

I recently did a test with Cyberpunk on my R9 5900x, by taking cores online/offline. Yes, it does scale all the way up to 12 cores/24 threads. And there was a noticeable difference between 4 cores to 6 cores. But beyond that, it didn't really benefit all that much.

 

~edit: managed to find the results I posted. Primary gain is minimum fps, but average and max stays largely unaffected

Spoiler

4C/8T
- Avg: 86.40
- Min: 57.31
- Max: 110.78
- 80-100%, Starts out at 80%, creeps up to 100% halfway through the benchmark

6C/12T
- Avg: 91.56
- Min: 72.35
- Max: 110.34
- 60-100%, Starts out at 60%, goes up to 100% for the last 30 seconds

8C/16T
- Avg: 92.60
- Min: 76.39
- Max: 111.54
- 60-100%, Starts out at 60%, short peak to 100%, ~30 seconds before benchmark ends, goes back down to 80%

10C/20T
- Avg: 93.32
- Min: 78.03
- Max: 108.31
- 50-90%, Starts out at 50%, short peak to 90%, ~30 seconds before benchmark ends, goes back down to 80%

12C/24T
- Avg: 93.21
- Min: 77.07
- Max: 109.26
- 50-90%, Starts out at 50%, short peak to 90%, ~30 seconds before benchmark ends, goes back down to 80%

 

[tkitch]

4 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

I recently did a test with Cyberpunk on my R9 5900x, by taking cores online/offline. Yes, it does scale all the way up to 12 cores/24 threads. And there was a noticeable difference between 4 cores to 6 cores. But beyond that, it didn't really benefit all that much.

You might have been seeing some other noise in your test:

 

https://digitaltrends.com/computing/cyberpunk-2077-will-increase-cpu-utilization

 

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, tkitch said:

You might have been seeing some other noise in your test:

I used the in-game benchmark and did observer CPU utilization in System Monitor. The 4 core test did hit 100% CPU utilization for roughly half the benchmark, but higher core counts where mostly between 60-80% utilization outside of temporary peaks.

 

~edit: I should probably add that I'm using an RX 6600, so definitely not CPU limited here…

[Wolverine2349]

50 minutes ago, tkitch said:

you want between 2 and 16 cores for modern games.  

 

There's no single answer for this.  Some games like shooters, minecraft, roblox, etc. are VERY single core hungry, and load one thread to the hilt.

 

Other games like Cyberpunk (with newer updates) use 12-16 threads, and will load the shit out of a bunch of them.

 

The only game(s) I know of that can load up more is the nonsense things like "Cities Skylines 2" that are less game, and more torture test. 

 

 

Is 8 cores more than enough? Are there any games where more than 8 cores is of significant benefit in certain situations? 

 

How is dual CCD Ryzen. Is the cross latency penalty that bad? Or is 16 core Ryzen with SMT off better than 8 core Ryzen with SMT on? Or what? Or SMT on or off for both? Is latency crossing to another CCD worse than crossing to another SMNT thread within same CCD unlike Intel HT threads have worse latency crossing than crossing to an e-core? Or does it being a full core instead of logical core make up for it then some despite having to cross to other CCD? 

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Is 8 cores more than enough?

Yes

 

2 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Are there any games where more than 8 cores is of significant benefit? 

No

 

2 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

How is dual CCD Ryzen. Is the cross latency penalty that bad? Or is 16 core Ryzen with SMT off better than 8 core Ryzen with SMT on? Or what?

If you just care about gaming, you'll buy a 7800X3D and this would be irrelevant. 

[tkitch]

3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Yes

 

No

 

If you just care about gaming, you'll buy a 7800X3D and this would be irrelevant. 

 

With minimal exceptions, 8 cores is plenty.

 

As I mentioned a very VERY small number of sim games can use more.  City Skylines 2:  See here:

 

Very little non-productivity stuff will go past 8c 16t

 

[Eigenvektor]

19 minutes ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Is the cross latency penalty that bad? Or is 16 core Ryzen with SMT off better than 8 core Ryzen with SMT on?

Real cores are better than HT/SMT. SMT primarily improves how fast a core can switch between tasks, while a separate core can work completely independent.

 

Cross latency depends. At best no effect, at worst quite substantial performance penalty. HuB did a recent video on this.

 

[Wolverine2349]

17 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Real cores are better than HT/SMT. SMT primarily improves how fast a core can switch between tasks, while a separate core can work completely independent.

 

Cross latency depends. At best no effect, at worst quite substantial performance penalty. HuB did a recent video on this.

 

What would be better 8 cores and 16 threads on one CCD for gaming or 16 cores 16 threads (SMT off) for gaming. Of course raw compute real cores are always better than HT/SMYT. But is the cross CCD latency always more than traveling to another logical thread on same CCD unlike Intel thread traveling from P to e-core which is less latency than a P core HT thread?

 

Of course in perfect world a single CCD 12-16 core with HT/SMT off would have best of both worlds and would be most ideal for most core heavy games correct? Or an Intel 12 P core Raptor Lake as all 12 P cores on same ring. But they do not have that and even if they did Intel heat and degradation/reliability rumors on high end 10nm process node and issues kind of put me off. 

[PDifolco]

3 hours ago, tkitch said:

You might have been seeing some other noise in your test:

 

https://digitaltrends.com/computing/cyberpunk-2077-will-increase-cpu-utilization

 

I can observe that my 5900X goes up to 50% in Cyberpunk, but no more, so it won't fully load 8 cores (or maybe 8 older/slower cores than Zen3..)

[tkitch]

3 hours ago, Wolverine2349 said:

What would be better 8 cores and 16 threads on one CCD for gaming or 16 cores 16 threads (SMT off) for gaming. Of course raw compute real cores are always better than HT/SMYT. But is the cross CCD latency always more than traveling to another logical thread on same CCD unlike Intel thread traveling from P to e-core which is less latency than a P core HT thread?

That will vary app to app for results.  so "maybe"

 

49 minutes ago, PDifolco said:

I can observe that my 5900X goes up to 50% in Cyberpunk, but no more, so it won't fully load 8 cores (or maybe 8 older/slower cores than Zen3..)

yeah, it'd be shocking if they managed to symetrically load 16 threads on a chip.

But it's still kinda nuts they ARE putting a workload on 16 threads at once still!

[Wolverine2349]

That will vary app to app for results.  so "maybe"

 

What would it be for games or does it vary from game to game?

 

How about most games?

 

Or does each game count as an app and it varies too much?

[Eigenvektor]

3 hours ago, Wolverine2349 said:

What would it be for games or does it vary from game to game?

It will vary on a per game basis.

 

Watch the video from HuB I linked above, you can see that for many games the answer is 8 cores is better than more cores with cross core latency. The 16 core 7950X3D often isn't affected as much, because only 8 cores are X3D and the scheduler will try to keep games on that one CCD, so it typically performs on par with the 7800X3D (i.e. no deficit but also no benefit)

 

In general it will depend on two factors: Can it scale to more than 8 cores and how sensitive is it to latency?

 

8 hours ago, Wolverine2349 said:

But is the cross CCD latency always more than traveling to another logical thread on same CCD unlike Intel thread traveling from P to e-core which is less latency than a P core HT thread?

This isn't about threads traveling between cores, but multiple threads communicating with one another. If that doesn't happen or doesn't happen too often, or doesn't happen across CCDs, then the latency won't matter. It depends on how many threads the game creates, whether the scheduler keeps them all on one CCD or not and how much coordination is required between them.

 

In general talking to another core on the same CCD will always be faster than communicating across the interconnect between CCDs. Otherwise, something weird would be going on with the CPU's architecture. It's like shopping in the super market next door vs the super market across the border. A CPU has no border checks, but it's still a narrow channel where everything that wants to cross has to go through, so crossing the border will generally take more time.

 

8 hours ago, Wolverine2349 said:

Of course in perfect world a single CCD 12-16 core with HT/SMT off would have best of both worlds and would be most ideal for most core heavy games correct?

Right now a single CCD with 8 cores/16 threads is typically the best of both worlds already. The large majority of games doesn't scale and/or benefit from more cores.

 

Check the benchmark results for Cyberpunk I posted in the spoiler above. You can see that 4 to 6 cores improves the minimum frame rate quite a bit, but beyond that performance gains are very small.

[tkitch]

11 hours ago, Wolverine2349 said:

What would it be for games or does it vary from game to game?

 

How about most games?

 

Or does each game count as an app and it varies too much?

Each game counts as an app, because games are SO wildly different.

 

IE:  Minecraft, Valorant, FFXIV:  All 3 of these rely SUPER HEAVILY on one core to do all the lifting.  (There will be some work sent to other threads, but one core alone will determine what you can get for the most part)

Cyberpunk:  Aim for 6+ Cores, minimum.

City Skylines:  Uhhhh...  Can you give it 32 cores?  Cuz it'll use that (and more)

 

And you can get things at nearly any level in between those levels...

[StarsMars]

Generally games hardware utilization moves in line with consoles. So 8 cores is what modern games are starting to be based around. That being said I think people are still find to do 6 core builds.

[Wolverine2349]

26 minutes ago, StarsMars said:

Generally games hardware utilization moves in line with consoles. So 8 cores is what modern games are starting to be based around. That being said I think people are still find to do 6 core builds.

 

 

That makes sense though how come the core count in consoles is modern dev standard to PC, but scaling to much faster and newer GPUs (RTX 4090 then 5090 and beyond) than is in consoles happens much faster than before next gen consoles are released. Cause XBOX Series and PS5 have GPUs weaker than Ampere and only on par with RTX 2080 yet games devs have developed games to scale wonderfully beyond RTX 2080 like specs where as they do not for CPU core count?

 

Is it primarily because it is easy to scale to better GPUs but not more CPU cores even though little effort to probably scale to much stronger 8 core CPUs than the consoles 8 core Zen 2s?

[StarsMars]

3 hours ago, Wolverine2349 said:

 

 

That makes sense though how come the core count in consoles is modern dev standard to PC, but scaling to much faster and newer GPUs (RTX 4090 then 5090 and beyond) than is in consoles happens much faster than before next gen consoles are released. Cause XBOX Series and PS5 have GPUs weaker than Ampere and only on par with RTX 2080 yet games devs have developed games to scale wonderfully beyond RTX 2080 like specs where as they do not for CPU core count?

 

Is it primarily because it is easy to scale to better GPUs but not more CPU cores even though little effort to probably scale to much stronger 8 core CPUs than the consoles 8 core Zen 2s?

I think I understand your quetion.

Basically because there's always room to push for more graphical processing.

Where what the cpu cores are handling, there isn't as much overhead. There's just less demand.

 

PC's are also doing more so the extra cores are handling other programs and processes.