Steam Survey - Physical CPU numbers

[okkee]

 

Of interest to me is the dwindling viability of 4 core systems, cause I have one. But do you guys think they'll still be a decent enough buy-in at the very low end? or are they simply not worth even that amount of money. And how long do you think 6 core processors will be the "standard" for basic gaming?

 

And yes, i know the steam survey isn't the most representative but the numbers are still interesting to see.

[FI Fheonix]

2 minutes ago, okkee said:

 

Of interest to me is the dwindling viability of 4 core systems, cause I have one. But do you guys think they'll still be a decent enough buy-in at the very low end? or are they simply not worth even that amount of money. And how long do you think 6 core processors will be the "standard" for basic gaming?

 

And yes, i know the steam survey isn't the most representative but the numbers are still interesting to see.

I think that the 6 core standard is slowly beginning to replace the 4 core as the lower end. 

[Skipple]

14 minutes ago, okkee said:

Of interest to me is the dwindling viability of 4 core systems

The entire concept of multi-core CPUs has changed since the days of the i7-6700k 4c/8t. The introduction of big/little architecture has made it so core count doesn't matter anymore, or rather made it comparing apples and oranges, even more so than it already was. 

[porina]

I really wish Steam broke down the CPU by model name like they did with GPUs. That aside, I'm a little conflicted. I had for a long time decided 6 core was entry level for performance gaming, and 8+ cores were preferable. We know comparing CPUs can be difficult, but the pace of development meant core count alone was a bad indicator of gaming potential. The best AM4 era gaming CPU 5800X3D with 8 cores is now matched by the 6 core 7600X.

 

Quad cores are harder to place as a bigger gap to the next step up of 6 cores, than 6 is to 8. Something like the 12100F could beat the older 10600k or 3600X, but not 11600k or 5600X for example. On Intel side, with DDR4 support on 12100F and newer relatives it could be viable for low budget gaming without going to older used parts.

[okkee]

On 5/24/2024 at 10:56 PM, FI Fheonix said:

I think that the 6 core standard is slowly beginning to replace the 4 core as the lower end. 

but we're also seeing 4 core cpus like the newer i3's which are pretty decent and priced reasonably 

 

On 5/24/2024 at 11:18 PM, Skipple said:

The entire concept of multi-core CPUs has changed since the days of the i7-6700k 4c/8t. The introduction of big/little architecture has made it so core count doesn't matter anymore, or rather made it comparing apples and oranges, even more so than it already was. 

yeah, it's not as easy as "more cores = more performance" but i think most 4 core chips are pretty old at this point apart from intel's new low wnd stuff and the shift away from 4 cores is more of people moving to newer, (sometimes) faster 6/8 core cpus. Cause i think currently, it's 6/8 cores won't dictate performance and newer 6 core cpus are much better than older and not that far from newer 8 core processors.

 

On 5/24/2024 at 11:56 PM, porina said:

I really wish Steam broke down the CPU by model name like they did with GPUs. That aside, I'm a little conflicted. I had for a long time decided 6 core was entry level for performance gaming, and 8+ cores were preferable. We know comparing CPUs can be difficult, but the pace of development meant core count alone was a bad indicator of gaming potential. The best AM4 era gaming CPU 5800X3D with 8 cores is now matched by the 6 core 7600X.

 

Quad cores are harder to place as a bigger gap to the next step up of 6 cores, than 6 is to 8. Something like the 12100F could beat the older 10600k or 3600X, but not 11600k or 5600X for example. On Intel side, with DDR4 support on 12100F and newer relatives it could be viable for low budget gaming without going to older used parts.

I think the 12100f is probably one of the best decisions intel has made recently although i'm not sure how long they can keep it up. I also would like to know which gen quad cores make up that percentage. Cause surely not everyone's rocking a haswell processor like my 4790.

[Doobeedoo]

I don't know anyone using 4 core CPU in last decade basically. 6 core is a minimum and more budget oriented build. Really 8 core is what I'd call a 'standard' though. My last PC was 8 core and so is my current. Latest consoles same. 

[LAwLz]

Some random thoughts regarding this. 

 

1) It's not enough to just look at core count. Two quad cores can have very different levels of performance. Don't focus too much on the number of cores and instead look at performance. 

 

2) "Gaming" is a very broad subject. The requirements to play Minecraft at 720p are very different from playing Cyberpunk with ray tracing on a 4K screen at 120 FPS. 

What you need depends on what you define as "gaming". 

 

3) A lot of people on this forum have a rather skewed view of gaming and hardware. The most popular titles seem to be rather easy games to run. As a whole, most people don't run at very high resolutions and most people don't have very high requirements for frame rates. This is not the case for the LTT readers though. What the average gamer would consider good might be considered trash on here. Something to keep in mind. 

 

 

I can't answer your question because there are so many "it depends" attach to it. I would also be skeptical of anyone claiming to have a definitive answer who hasn't got the answer to all these "it depends" questions yet. 

Some people may be giving you answers based on their own answers to those questions, but please keep in mind that those assumptions might not match your use case. 

[wasab]

13 hours ago, okkee said:

yeah, it's not as easy as "more cores = more performance"

 

More cores improve operating system performance because by nature, an operating system is a heavily multi-tasking, heavily multiprocessing, and heavily multithreading super software.

 

It will help with your overall system performance even if it makes little difference to a particular game you wish to play. 

 

[Mark Kaine]

more cores in general are always preferable,  you might still get away with a newer 4core tho.

 

heck my laptop has an older i5"u" 2c/4t and still plays some games decent'ish... it all depends on what your requirements are, but generally I'd say any R5 3600 level cpu will be fine for the next couple of years. 

[thrasher_565]

some games like hi speed cores well some like more cores and a combo just like how much ram is needed and vram just depends on game. but we do have hi core count and hi speed cpus so...

 

in theroy a fast 4 core could do the same as a slower 6 core as long as it can keep up i guess.

 

im guessing games with alot of real time things going on all the time needs lots of cores well other games that just render whats on the screen needs less but also depends on how well its optimized. there games say you need 10gb ram but plays fine with like 8 this was also a thing back in the day about vram and cpu core count. people would install patches you by past it.

 

there are also games that no mater what you thow at it it runs tarable...

 

that 5 core looks sus...just saying

 

i guess a 4core with ht i guess kinda makes it work some times... but just because its new gen an last gen with more cores could probly beat it.

Edited May 27 by thrasher_565

[QuantumSingularity]

As AMD have already proved, it won't be as easy as more cores = more better. The V-cache utilization is a massive performance boost and games are just now starting to be developed with that in mind. So many things now go into consideration that simply counting cores isn't enough. I know plenty of people are used to the mindset from the days of 6700k, but things really changed in the last 5 years and generational uplift is again a substantial difference. 5800X3D for example is the best gaming CPU on AM4, but it some titles it is rivaled by the 7600X which has fewer cores and less cache, thanks to the IPC uplift and boost increase. However, there are still games that utilize as many cores as you give them and as much cache as you can give them... Cyberpunk 2077 for example. RPG games in particular are only gonna require better and better CPUs, because the virtual cities we roam will only get more and more populated and crowd and AI behavior is controlled by the CPU. Unless something big changes in the way games are being developed 6-cores 12-threads is already lined up to be the new budget, entry level option and 8-cores 16-treads to be the new mid-range.

There is one more thing that is certainly coming to games, it's just a matter of time - real generative AI. In the next 2 years we can absolutely expect a game where the dialogues with the NPC won't be just pre-scripted lines, but they would follow your progress and remember your past conversations with them and generate reactions and options based on your gameplay style. And when it comes to algorithms for logic and especially those for language processing, it's CPU power that you need, not GPU. So my guess is that we are only now at the beginning of core-wars.

[Stahlmann]

6 hours ago, QuantumSingularity said:

As AMD have already proved, it won't be as easy as more cores = more better. The V-cache utilization is a massive performance boost and games are just now starting to be developed with that in mind. So many things now go into consideration that simply counting cores isn't enough. I know plenty of people are used to the mindset from the days of 6700k, but things really changed in the last 5 years and generational uplift is again a substantial difference. 5800X3D for example is the best gaming CPU on AM4, but it some titles it is rivaled by the 7600X which has fewer cores and less cache, thanks to the IPC uplift and boost increase. However, there are still games that utilize as many cores as you give them and as much cache as you can give them... Cyberpunk 2077 for example. RPG games in particular are only gonna require better and better CPUs, because the virtual cities we roam will only get more and more populated and crowd and AI behavior is controlled by the CPU. Unless something big changes in the way games are being developed 6-cores 12-threads is already lined up to be the new budget, entry level option and 8-cores 16-treads to be the new mid-range.

There is one more thing that is certainly coming to games, it's just a matter of time - real generative AI. In the next 2 years we can absolutely expect a game where the dialogues with the NPC won't be just pre-scripted lines, but they would follow your progress and remember your past conversations with them and generate reactions and options based on your gameplay style. And when it comes to algorithms for logic and especially those for language processing, it's CPU power that you need, not GPU. So my guess is that we are only now at the beginning of core-wars.

Cyberpunk is a great example of 6 cores being the new entry level. Even playing at 4K, which should be 100% GPU-bound in such a demanding game, upgrading my CPU significantly improved performance in crowded areas of the game. My 5600X could barely handle 60fps in crowded, low-density areas. My new 5800X3D completely alleviated the bottleneck, even at high crowd density, pushing FPS to 80+.

 

It's not just about the number of cores, though. And it's not just about cache size or clock speed. None of these specs tell you anything about real-world performance, which is what you should be looking for in third-party reviews.

 

Future games may take more advantage of the AI features. And as always, until these features really get rolling, current hardware won't be fast enough to take advantage of them either way, so trying to future-proof with a 16-core CPU today will leave you hanging. In a few years, there will be a 6- or 8-core CPU that has an additional hardware accelerator for these instructions that will vastly outperform the "more cores" brute force approach.

 

Think of it like the introduction of ray tracing. Even the highest end pre-RTX GPUs cannot match the real-time ray tracing performance of a 2060 with dedicated ray tracing hardware.

[QuantumSingularity]

Future-proofing is just stupid. Especially now in 2024 when as i said it, proper generational uplift is back on the table. But for the AI it entirely depends on how developers develop the game and if AMD decide to sponsor a big title similar to Cyberpunk. Let's say they encourage a developer to take advantage of their chiplet design and a game unlocks extra AI features the moment it detects there are 2 (or more) CCDs on your CPU. The cores with CCD 0 are being used for normal game handling data, but the ones in CCD 1 are hammered with the extra AI features like language processing and custom memory profiling. It's absolutely possible even today. The game still will be playable on any CPU, but could be experienced with its real AI features only on CPUs with more than one CCD. This is just an example of course and it can be executed in a variety of ways, but generally you want language, logic and memory features to be handled by the CPU, not the GPU, so even an RTX 7090 HyperGigaSuperOC won't save you unless you have a modern at that time mid to high range CPU.

[wasab]

On 5/27/2024 at 7:58 AM, QuantumSingularity said:

Future-proofing is just stupid. 

Not stupid but you will want to sync your hardware with generational console release cycles which is around 8 years but it usually gets a refresh around 5 years. 

[QuantumSingularity]

Well, if PS5 launch proved anything, it's that consoles could hardly keep pace with the hardware progress in the PC space now days. Where all the previous generation of consoles were really ahead of their PC-side competition, PS5 hit the ground already lagging behind and X-BOX wasn't any better. The whole point of a console was that it was as good or better than high-end PC. When PS4 launched, the best it had to fight against was GTX 780Ti or R9 290X mated to i7-4770k and it outperformed such config easily. When PS5 launched, Ryzen 5800X and both RTX 3080 and RX 6800XT were already out, but even an entry level system with RX 5600X and RX 6800 or RTX 3070 was abled to easily outperform it. A similar to 2013 high-end system with 5800X or 12900k and RTX 3090 was lightyears ahead in performance AND details. And we don't have to guess, because Cyberpunk 2077 came out just in time to be the perfect benchmark for hardware. I can clearly remember when a friend of mine bough a PS5 for x-mas and started playing Cyberpunk 2077 and i was extremely confused where were all the NPCs and why Nigh City was looking so empty. Then i showed him my Night City experience with my then 5600X and GTX 1070 config (FSR enabled, thx AMD) and his mind was blown away how much more alive the city looked. 

 

So in conclusion - you don't need to sync or plan according to console generation launches, because it's very unlikely they will ever gain back the lead they had on PCs. Usually it took mid-range PC about 2 years to catch up with the consoles, now they already launch lagging behind. 

 

As to how often one has to upgrade - well... It's not as clear as it used to be with complete system/platform upgrade every 5-years. The sweet spot usually is the 2nd generation of a platform which was enough to serve you well for 5 or so years. But AMD kinda broke the mold with Ryzen. It launched the 1000 series in 2017, in 2018 we had the 2000 series and a lot of people (including me) jumped the train with the then new B450 Chipset. And i was looking for a solid 5-years of good performance w/o any further upgrade. But then the Ryzen 3000 launched and it offered a really solid upgraded, so i jumped from 2700x to 3700X, then the 5000 series blew everything out of the water. And then, not even 2 months after i purchased the 5600X, the 5800X3D came out of nowhere and annihilated everything in its path. AMD put back on the map the generational upgrades. You could buy the new CPU, sell your "old" one and get a proper performance boost for a fraction of the price. In just 2 years the jump in performance on the same platform was in some cases tripled when the 3D cache was utilized. Personally i think this is the better way of doing it - small, regular upgrades with proper performance gain vs spending massive amount of money on a completely new system every 5 or so years. You kinda don't feel the financial backlash that much when you spend smaller amounts more frequently which is the exact opposite of future-proofing.