CPU, cores, threads and gaming?

[SverreMunthe]

I've allways been one of those that wants the biggest baddest CPU on the block, but with the prices of Intels (I'm only interested in Intel) I come to the realization that I can't continue doing that. I have a 5960X wich is still very good, and with 2 GTX 1080ti I guess my PC is kind if a bad ass, but I'm kind if wondering, is the i5, i7 or i9 really that good for gaming? I don't play FPS, never have, never will; actually first person games turns me off. What I do play are games like: Cities Skylines, World of Warcraft, Albion Online, Crowfall etc. How many cores does those games actually use? If they use 1 or 2 cores, why buy 8 cores? Or are they in some way "fooled" into using more cores than they can?

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

Some games don't make use of more than 1-2 cores. Some make use of only 4. Games like BF1 can make use of multiple cores/threads.
As newer games come out they will make use of the higher resources. But for now the level of hardware is not fully utilized by game makers.

On top of that some games are really poorly optimized, and can eat resources, and still not produce a good experience.

Right at the moment, high clockspeed, and IPC (for Intel at least) rule the gaming world. AMD with Ryzen can give the Intel chips a good run for their money though. With the realease of the new Coffee Lake 8700k, with 6 cores, it's expected to take the crown of the best gaming chip.

Your 5960x is still a great chip. For the games you play, your hardly breaking a sweat with it. Other games are much more demanding so having plenty of resources is always better than not having enough.

 

[raisonjohn]

The core/thread usage is dependent on the game developers how or if it utilizes such available cores/threads. For example, in the Cities Skylines official response from the developers:

"The game is best optimized for a 4 cores CPU (being the most mainstream and quite fitted to our simulation needs), we have the main thread, audio, pathfinding, simulation & water flow. Unity does under the hood also use threads quite heavily (main and rendering) and we do use some extra worker thread during the loading/saving process, so 8 cores should yield a noticeable performance improvement but it will not be in the 2x faster figures."

More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2x4mf9/we_are_colossal_order_the_team_behind_cities/?sort=confidence

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

The core/thread usage is dependent on the game developers how or if it utilizes such available cores/threads. For example, in the Cities Skylines official response from the developers:

"The game is best optimized for a 4 cores CPU (being the most mainstream and quite fitted to our simulation needs), we have the main thread, audio, pathfinding, simulation & water flow. Unity does under the hood also use threads quite heavily (main and rendering) and we do use some extra worker thread during the loading/saving process, so 8 cores should yield a noticeable performance improvement but it will not be in the 2x faster figures."

More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2x4mf9/we_are_colossal_order_the_team_behind_cities/?sort=confidence

Yeah, I agree. More cores doesn't mean more FPS necessarily. although DX12 can make better use of threads too, and that may impact a little on peformance as well. But not massive bumps in FPS going from 4-6-8 cores.

 

[SverreMunthe]

My dream would be a 7980XE, but not at US$2,000 or more (haven't seen the price yet). That would mostly be for making top 10 on the benchmarks, which is fun, but not at that price.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

My dream would be a 7980XE, but not at US$2,000 or more (haven't seen the price yet). That would mostly be for making top 10 on the benchmarks, which is fun, but not at that price.

yeah, i could dream up a really nice rig too. My problem is having to budget and get some decent price performance ratio. That's why I jumped over to Ryzen after many years with Intel. It's been a very long time since AMD had the performance crown, but they have always offered good value.

The 7980xe is a great looking chip, but that whole line and the cost make me vomit a little in my mouth

I'm really looking forward to the 8700k release, and although less cores and threads than the Skylake x releases (the 8700k has 6 cores/threads) is going to be the go to gaming chip. If Intel's release info holds true and the 8700k has a 20-30% increase in IPC over previous gen 7700k, it should turn out to be an awesome gaming chip. It's a real pity though that Intel crapped on all those who have recently bought z270 boards, only to find out in the last few days, they would need a whole platform upgrade (apart from ram) instead of just popping in the new Coffee Lake chips with a bios update, and giving some good news to those who have just offloaded a few hundred bucks for a dead platform.