Question about how cores work

[Sdot]

I am thinking about purchasing the ryzen 1800x, but I just had a quick question about how all the cores work.

 

I have 4 monitors. lets say for example I am playing a game that is hypothetically using 1-2 cores at 100% and want to tab over to some other program. Would core 3 then be assigned to that new program because it's free and ready for something to be thrown at it? Or is this not how CPUs work and hav I got it all wrong?

[DnFx91]

kinda, having more cores just means you can do more things at once, without those things all happening on the same core.

[DnFx91]

Just now, DnFx91 said:

kinda, having more cores just means you can do more things at once, without those things all happening on the same core.

but rule of thumb, the more you have, the slower they all have to run, and gaming performance usually takes a hit, given that games really like having a couple of fast cores, which is provided my almost every decent quadcore CPU on the market right now

[zMeul]

workload assignment is not up to the CPU and how many cores it has but to Windows' scheduler

if you work with a lot of projects at the same time, you should consider in getting as much RAM as you can because each program opened needs it's own working set

[KarathKasun]

Quadcores dont have enough grunt to play newer games and multitask without making pretty large sacrifices to game performance.  They can game OR do something else not so much game AND do something else.

 

99/100 times the windows kernel/scheduler will move threads around in a fairly optimal way.  If you want that last little bit of performance you can manually set what programs use what cores in task manager.

[desertcomputer]

13 minutes ago, zMeul said:

workload assignment is not up to the CPU and how many cores it has but to Windows' scheduler

if you work with a lot of projects at the same time, you should consider in getting as much RAM as you can because each program opened needs it's own working set

^

 

Personally if you have alot of thing opened, you should look for more ram. My i7 6700k works fine while gaming when i have more than 20 PDF/word/ and around 40+ chrome tab open in background, as long it idling it shouldn't take my cpu process.

 

 

It take around 12gb at idle with just a few chrome tab and basic softwares opened like steam,google play music,chrome tabs (20). When working 20-24 GB of ram at normal usage (for me) and around 28+ if gaming but this may vary depending how much each pdf / chrome or program you have opened. You shouldn't really worry much about the cpu but more your ram will be limiting in your situation.   

[Sdot]

All of the videos I have seen, the gaming performance of the I7-7700k and 1800x doesn't seem too far off. Why is that? Giving up a few fps for the ryzen and the cores seems to be the way to go. Am I wrong?

[Jonathan Lemmens]

1 hour ago, Sdot said:

All of the videos I have seen, the gaming performance of the I7-7700k and 1800x doesn't seem too far off. Why is that? Giving up a few fps for the ryzen and the cores seems to be the way to go. Am I wrong?

You're not wrong. If all you do is gaming then the 7700K will give you that edge, especially when OCd, but "Giving up a few FPS for more cores" is certainly a valid argument, especially if you often have other stuff running in the background or do more multithreaded work in general.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 hours ago, Sdot said:

I have 4 monitors. lets say for example I am playing a game that is hypothetically using 1-2 cores at 100% and want to tab over to some other program. Would core 3 then be assigned to that new program because it's free and ready for something to be thrown at it? 

Yes, at least as long as the OS has a proper scheduler.

 

2 hours ago, Sdot said:

All of the videos I have seen, the gaming performance of the I7-7700k and 1800x doesn't seem too far off. Why is that? Giving up a few fps for the ryzen and the cores seems to be the way to go. Am I wrong?

AS long as games can't use more than 4 cores, the 7700K will have an IPC and clock advantage. If they can use more, then you'll have a tradeoff between better performance on 5th and subsequent threads vs better performance in the main threads.

However, the biggest reason to notice little difference between them is that both are powerful enough to not be the limiting factor in a broad range of conditions. You need to have sufficient GPU power for the resolution/details you want to play at for the GPU to be out of the question, and CPUs being the limiting factor. Still, we would be talking of higher than 100FPS numbers anyway. If you play in a 60Hz monitor, or at very high resolutions, or with decent but not overkill GPUs, you won't notice much of a difference in gaming because the CPU won't be pushed to the limit anyway.

In other words: both are overkill CPUs for gaming, especially considering their price.

[Sdot]

Thank you for your input so far guys.

I currently have an i7-920, built this in 2009. Originally had a 4850 X2 in it, but freshened it up with an R9 290 some time ago. Then I upgraded the RAM from 6 gigs to 12 gigs.

I think its time to build another and I was asking this question to see which CPU I should go with. I plan to keep the PC for as long as I have had this one, I can't believe its been 8 years.

 

I have an HTC Vive and an Oculus Rift, I like flight sims (I read that flight sims are heavily CPU intensive), I am going to be getting a 1080Ti. Thinking of trying out one of those 144Hz monitors @ 1080 or 1440, or a 4k @ 60 with this new build. I mostly game, but I'm thinking of getting into other things such as making videos for fun. Which will age better since I plan to have it for so long, just like my i7-920? Based on this information, what do you guys think is the best bet?

 

This is what I'm thinking of getting so far.

Below this is the Ryzen build

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/SWaller/saved/fVqxrH

 

Below is the 7700k build

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ys4pwV