cpu cores

[JohnLee19869]

I am in the process of sorting out which parts i need for my first pc build, but i have a question i hadn't thought of so far, my current pc is a I5 8600K and i run multiple things at once but after a while the cpu utilistion gets to 100% and programs crash and i am thinking of getting either 9800x3d or 9700x but wondered if this would still happen, not sure if i need more cores than my current pc (6 cores) or if i need to look at certain specs on the cpu's. hope someone can help thanks.

[YoungBlade]

The issue in multitasking is less core count and more overall CPU performance. The i5 8600K has 6 cores without HyperThreading (HT). The 9700X and 9800X3D have 8 cores with Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT), which is AMD's version of HT. This, combined with the fact that their individual cores are much faster, gives them much more overall performance. Depending on the workload, they're about 3x faster than the 8600K when all are maxed out.

 

You can still reach a point where you can max out these CPUs, but you can do that no matter how many cores you have. The real question is what the resulting performance will be in those tasks.

 

What sort of tasks are you doing that max out the 8600K?

[Eigenvektor]

Going to 100% CPU usage should never result in a crash. 

 

Whether you benefit from more cores or faster cores varies based on which software you use.

 

Can it scale to more cores? Does it primarily use a single core? Something in between?

 

Best thing to do is look at benchmarks for the software you're using to figure out which one it is.

[Mark Kaine]

Simple answer, more cores = more better!

 

But yeah unless there's something wrong with the programs or your PC 100% should *not* result in a crash...

 

Try running cinebench multicore benchmark and see if that crashes.

If no, run prime95 small ftts test...

 

If it's still not crashing something wrong with your programs or possibly RAM...

[JohnLee19869]

thanks for the replies, at the same time the ram is also going 90%to100% but i intend to increase the ram for the new build, i mostly just run multiple browsers with multiple tabs open and a video player open and some moving files in the background. just didnt want to buy a new pc and still have the same problem, would rather spend more on more cores if needed.

[Eigenvektor]

1 hour ago, JohnLee19869 said:

thanks for the replies, at the same time the ram is also going 90%to100% but i intend to increase the ram for the new build

Running out of system RAM could potentially explain crashing, if you have no swap as well. 

 

1 hour ago, JohnLee19869 said:

i mostly just run multiple browsers with multiple tabs open and a video player open and some moving files in the background

Moving files is IO bound, so that will primarily benefit from a faster disk, not a faster CPU. Running multiple browser tabs shouldn't be overly taxing on a CPU either, unless the websites contain a ton of scripts.

 

Watching a video should normally be handled by the GPU, provided it is modern enough and supported the codec.

 

That is to say you likely need faster cores more so than more cores. But I'd not go below 8 cores regardless. X3D primarily benefits games, not productivity tasks, so a regular 8-core should be fine