Real world CPU usage

[TheMechEngineer]

The general consensus these days is that you need a Core i7, or at least a Core i5, to do CPU-intensive tasks like 3D modelling and simulations.

 

It's time to take a step back and be honest with ourselves. These kind of recommendations can become very detached from the real-world usage of your CPU, to the point where many people are led blindly towards buying overkill and expensive CPUs to do stuff that may not actually be overly CPU-intensive to start with.

 

I have a Core i5 4670K quad core running at a stock speed of 3.4GHz, so lets check out some of the CPU usage levels for a range of applications using MSI Afterburner.

Here, I've done stuff like web browsing, 2D drawing, 3D modelling, 3D simulations and added Minecraft for comparison.

 

 

Web browsing and Youtube videos:

 

AutoCAD 2D Engineering Drawing

 

Creo Parametric 3D Modelling

 

Creo Simulate 3D Stress-based Simulations

 

 

Minecraft 1.8.8 Amplified World (flying in creative mode)

 

 

So do we really need a Core i7? Is it really money well spent?

I doubt it for most cases, considering that I got nowhere near the CPU limits for pretty much all tasks with my Core i5 that isn't even overclocked.

 

If anyone else feels like contributing, feel free.

[Enderman]

lol chrome uses all 8 of my threads when watching multiple video streams

 

and video rendering uses ALL THE CORES at 100%

so does scanning with programs that are multithreaded, such as an antivirus, or things like that

 

music production can also use many cores, especially if you have dozens of sequences playing at a time

[RyanMacRocks]

I agree, not much need for an i7, but it certainly helps if you plan to game at 4K, do lots of rendering, etc.

[App4that]

For gaming a 4th gen i5 is fine, but people use their PCs for things other than gaming, and "stuff" So the i7s have their place, Skylake has it's place. The trick is to help those with a budget get the best their budget can get them. Everyone has an opinion what that is.

[TheMechEngineer]

For gaming a 4th gen i5 is fine, but people use their PCs for things other than gaming, and "stuff" So the i7s have their place, Skylake has it's place. The trick is to help those with a budget get the best their budget can get them. Everyone has an opinion what that is.

 

i7's do have their place, yeah.

I see a lot of proposed builds where people make the mistake of thinking that only Core i7's are good and the rest of the lineup isn't, so this might provide a bit more insight into how even lesser Intel CPUs can be overkill.

True, you can max out all processor cores with video editing, but how many people do video editing....really.

[App4that]

i7's do have their place, yeah.

I see a lot of proposed builds where people make the mistake of thinking that only Core i7's are good and the rest of the lineup isn't, so this might provide a bit more insight into how even lesser Intel CPUs can be overkill.

True, you can max out all processor cores with video editing, but how many people do video editing....really.

Agreed, I've lost track of the number of builds advised to people new to the hobby where the only money spent is the CPU, GPU, and PSU. $1500 PC in a $50 case, not even joking. I've seen it. Worse they claim it's for "future proofing", a well balanced build will last years longer than a bunch of cheap parts and a CPU with more hype than cores.

[Hiebly]

I agree, not much need for an i7, but it certainly helps if you plan to game at 4K, do lots of rendering, etc.

Gaming at 4K doesn't require any more CPU power than gaming at 1080P

[TheElt]

I've found myself wishing I spent a bit more and went for an i7 instead, I find myself maxing my i5 more than I expected with some games. It's a good chip, but as with everything it depends on your usage

[King_Tuna]

Noo im still not able to view photos Why??

[buddy_boyo]

Well if that would be true, then why is my E6600 at 99% usage if watching youtube videos at 1080p with lagging?

[Hiebly]

AutoCAD isn't very heavily threaded haha. But there are some tasks that will use 100% of any CPU no matter how powerful... for example video rendering/encoding. Meanwhile any applications that only require a fixed amount of power will have severe diminishing returns at a point.

[BrightCandle]

When you start talking about professional applications just looking at the task manager for basic core usage doesn't tell you much. The key thing is actually how long it takes to get a particular job done. If buying a faster processor can cut 10% off of something you do 100 times a day then its worth every dollar it costs you extra. Those people that use computers and wait on them day in and day out when doing activities that are regularly waiting for the CPU to stuff get a lot of value out of even small improvements.

 

An i7 when processing a number of parallel SQL statements for example will be 20% faster than an i5, its one of the better examples of a mixed workload with quite a bit of parallelism in the real world. Compilation is another activity that we do tonnes and tonnes of times a day, anything that cuts the time especially if it gets us under 10 seconds is a enormous gain to productivity and maintaining flow.

 

So while yes people do recommend CPUs for applications where it doesn't help its mostly because people don't see benchmarks for those pieces of software but because its professional they assume it can use the cores. But even so professionals do normally get benefit from faster CPUs and when you are getting paid to do something CPU intensive its well worth having the best you can reasonably buy.

[RyanMacRocks]

Gaming at 4K doesn't require any more CPU power than gaming at 1080P

Haha my bad, I actually did know that believe it or not. I guess I meant editing in 4K.

[bobhays]

Haha my bad, I actually did know that believe it or not. I guess I meant editing in 4K.

Yea lol, 4k actually depends less on the cpu than 1080p (with the same gpu).

[Elapo]

-snip-

 

3D Modeling isn't always intensive (though really, I've had my fair share of files that were very demanding), but what comes next is. Rendering benefits A LOT from an i7.

 

Plus, having multiple cores (even virtual ones) DOES improve general multitasking performance as well, even if you don't immediately notice it on CPU usage, especially if you have a sizable RAM pool as well.

 

Looking at CPU usage alone is hardly a good indicator of whether or not a certain CPU is used t its fullest, there's more than just raw usage. Feature sets are another thing that comes to mind. How many PCIe lanes, the amount and type of ram supported, the architecture, ...

[Tungsten_Hue]

Meh, I use solidworks, the Flow simulation will pin all 12 of my threads for the duration of the analysis.

I get everything I can out of my hardware.

[D2ultima]

The general consensus these days is that you need a Core i7, or at least a Core i5, to do CPU-intensive tasks like 3D modelling and simulations.

 

So do we really need a Core i7? Is it really money well spent?

To do it WELL. You could do it on a pentium 4 and take days if you want.

 

You tell me:

 

 

^ Livestreaming has similar demands unless you use default compression (aka you don't care about quality and you're a bad streamer).

[Midnitewarrior4]

when i render a video my oc`ed 4690k gets pegged at 100% 

[fishymamba]

The only reason I got my i7 was because I was not planning on building another computer in a longggg time. Might as well pay another $80 for an i7 in case I ever do anything CPU intensive in the future. Its nice to have the capability on hand. 

[ConnorDahne]

I hit 100% usage on my 4690k every day just watching youtube videos. Damn you windows ten.. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

Monte Carlo Simulations.... Nuff said.