General Questions about CPUs?

Linnaeus

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Mar 8, 2014
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I have a big ol' list of questions regard CPUs that have gone unanswered for far too long.

1) How many CPU intensive games are out there right now?
2) How many CPU intensive games have been released within the past five years?
3) Considering this build, would it be better for me to upgrade from an i3 to an i5 quad core?
4) If an i5 is a better choice for me, how much of a performance upgrade will I see in-game?
5) Is it better to go for an i3 for singleplayer and i5 for multiplayer?
6) Do I need more cores with games that are heavily modded such as Skyrim?
7) How many years do you think a quad core will stop becoming viable for gaming?
8) How does CPU OC benefit gaming as well as GPU OC?

Thanks! (Hopefully the questions aren't to vague. I'll try to edit to make it more clear if needed.)

EDIT: Here is the crappy build http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3Osv3
 
Solution
1) Not many. I mean, you can handle most games with an i3- dual core or above. There are some like Crysis 3 that are getting CPU demanding, but still not very. Titles like BF4 and other newer games are a little more demanding as well.
2) Probably over a hundred, but most titles you may never recognize nor play.
3) I would suggest going i5, better in basically everything
4) In game you won't see much of a difference with a better processor. The difference from an i3 to an i7 is probably not getting higher than a 10 FPS difference. What you really want for gaming is a good graphics card
5) Are you suggesting getting two computers? The i5 is better for both single and multi player
6) in terms of cores, no. The amount of cores is the amount...
1. Most modern games are CPU intensive(BF4, Watch Dogs,DayZ, Etc)
2. Hard to say, depends on your definition of CPU intensive
3. You could upgrade to an i5, the i5-3570K and now the 4670K(Haswell) are the standard for gaming builds
4. Depends on the game, and I don't know what your build is
5. No! You want an i5 for everything, why would you want 2 computers ?
6. Skyrim heavily modded will use more CPU and GPU, my 3570K handles it well
7. I say a few years you will be fine, but hard to say, I can't see into the future
8. CPU OC'ing will help some in games, GPU OC'ing will usually help quite a bit, depending on how well your GPU OC's

NOW TELL US WHAT YOUR BUILD IS PLEASE?
 

Echocookie

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1) Not many. I mean, you can handle most games with an i3- dual core or above. There are some like Crysis 3 that are getting CPU demanding, but still not very. Titles like BF4 and other newer games are a little more demanding as well.
2) Probably over a hundred, but most titles you may never recognize nor play.
3) I would suggest going i5, better in basically everything
4) In game you won't see much of a difference with a better processor. The difference from an i3 to an i7 is probably not getting higher than a 10 FPS difference. What you really want for gaming is a good graphics card
5) Are you suggesting getting two computers? The i5 is better for both single and multi player
6) in terms of cores, no. The amount of cores is the amount of actions your CPU can do. Skyrim would use 1 core, more cores would not benefit you unless you have other things open or running in the background
7) I can see quad core lasting a while, couple years, but some games are starting to make use of more cores so we don't know where the game companies will take us next. You could always upgrade later
8) CPU OC will make things go faster, enough said. GPU OC will definitely help in gaming, so make sure to get a nice GPU cooler if you want to OC it. I still strongly suggest OCing the CPU as well, though.

Hope this answers your questions!
 
Solution

Vitric9

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I am going to try to get all those questions.....in a longer, type explanation. I would not know the Exact number of CPU bound games but one of the First big game to actually utilize the Core 2 Quad, more specifically the QX6700 and Q6600, was Crysis (2007). I am not sure of the other titles before then. GTAIV (2008) was another and both these games still are quite taxing. Most Games Today will work fine an an i3 2120 and newer/faster. Many people still ask the question "How many Cores is enough for gaming"? a year ago the answer would have been 2-4. Now with Titles Such as BF4, utilizing all 8 of the FX 8350 cores, there is variables. Such as what games are you going to play? Also what graphics card are you going to use? Many DX11 titles Will not fully utilize an i5. For Example. DXHR directors cut. Will put about 90% load on one core and the rest on the others in not a very efficient manner. Far Cry 3 works a bit better on my i5 3570K but still one core is almost always at 90%. Mantle or DX12 are supposed to change this and even use Hyper-threading which the i3 does use. Through these optimizations i5s may be a bit of a bear on new games. But right now an i5 2500k is the gamers choice, as well as the i5 3570k and 4670k, due to the overclock you can get sometimes. And that is all you really need for Most CPU bound games today. So in short more cores= more performance....roughly. I am still a big fan of the i3 4130 as most games will work great on it along side a mid to high range GPU. As for SP and MP. I have no idea. And a GPU OC will give better performance if your CPU is fast already. But say you had a Core 2 E8400 and wanted to get more performance from your GPU you can OC it to 4.0BGz and that would help a bit.