why are more powerful cpus a higher priority of modern games?

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Carl Patrick

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how come modern games from around 2013 onwards get more out of having a quad core cpu rather than a better graphics card? I've been told that if I'm ti play some older games a slightly better graphics card and a hyper threaded duel core cpu will do fine but if I'm to play more modern titles a slightly slower graphics card and a quad core i5 for example, would do much better. I'm not disagreeing I'm just curious as to why this is because as far as I know the only reason is the 2 more cores. I understand that older games required less powerful cpus but again I don't know exactly why and this may sound like a bit of a stupid question but as of recent it seems like a good cpu is is higher priority in your list of components.

I would appreciate if some could give me a brief explanation why the more cores help so much now rather than in the past so no need to write and essay (but feel free to if you want, I have the time)

thanks in advance :D
 
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SoggyTissue
programs (games) are written to use a number of cores and/or threads, long time ago, dual core was out, games developers programed games for 2 cores ... it takes many years to produce a game, upto 5+ years in some instances .... so when the shift in the market led to more people owning a quad core system, companies didnt want to shoot themselves in the foot, started writing games to use 4 cores.

now threading is the big thing, wait 5 years and you will see threaded games will be the mainstream. (overwatch uses threads so i am led to believe)
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SoggyTissue

SoggyTissue

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programs (games) are written to use a number of cores and/or threads, long time ago, dual core was out, games developers programed games for 2 cores ... it takes many years to produce a game, upto 5+ years in some instances .... so when the shift in the market led to more people owning a quad core system, companies didnt want to shoot themselves in the foot, started writing games to use 4 cores.

now threading is the big thing, wait 5 years and you will see threaded games will be the mainstream. (overwatch uses threads so i am led to believe)
 
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Rogue Leader

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Hyperthreading has existed since 2002, its not the "new big thing". Home i7 processors have had it since their introduction in 2008. Threads is just another word for processes going on in your processor. So a 4 core processor has 4 threads (ie an i5), a 4 core hyperthreaded processor (ie an i7) has 8 threads.

Graphics cards accelerated past what CPUs needed to run most games at some point years ago, so games with all this GPU power could now become more complex as bigger faster CPUs became more mainstream. You make a good point about development time. Quad core and high processors didn't become more common in home systems until the late 2000's. Then with dev time of games, and that companies don't want to make a game that a majority of the population can't play, its taken time for it to filter down. However it has.

Many games can run fine on a dual core processor these days. The Pentium G4560 is a dual core processor with hyperthreading that is a budget gaming powerhouse. It will play Overwatch very well among other games. But with all this processing power in the mainstream it makes sense for companies to utilize it. The game consoles as well are much closer to PCs using multi core x86 cpus too.
 
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C

Crystalizer

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You don't need to change processor as often as gpu. So it's better to buy cpu that last as long as possible and just upgrade gpu more often. Just buy gpu that has good money/performance value.
That's what I do. Multi threading is becoming easier to program. Mostly because tools are supporting it more and more now a days. So now is the good time to invest in multi core processors in my opinion
 
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jankerson

jankerson

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Yep, Multi core processing has been around since the P4 days (2002) 1 Core and 2 threads so it's nothing new at all, that's almost 16 years now.

And then as stated above the i7's had Hyper threading from 2008 and multi core so they had 8 threads.

The Core 2 and Core 2 Quads didn't have HT however for some reason.
 
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