Core i5 related question.

[lolzololz]

It often seems like a single one of my cores on my core i5 takes a lot of load, and the others very little. Like, I'd be playing a non-graphics intensive game, and a single core would be one 90%, and the others maybe 10%. Is this normal?

System:
-Intel Core i5
-HD 5850
-Gigabyte p55m-ud2 (motherboard)
-Western Digital Caviar Black
-Corsair 650TX (650 W)


I recently upgraded from an old AMD build with a 1.6 ghz processor, so I don't know if this is supposed to happen or not on four core processors or not.

 

[Nowa]

Yes it is normal. There still aren't that many games out there that take use of multiple cpu cores, that domain is still mostly for cpu intensive programs. And the game being GPU intensive doesn't necessarily mean it also uses a lot of CPU at the same time.

 

[jerreece]

Depending on your operating system, and the game, this is entirely normal. Pre-Vista/Win7 Windows wasn't even threaded for multi-core. So even system tasks would all get devoted to a single core.

And many, many games are still this way. They'll grab one core and use it for every computation they need done.

 

[Chad Boga]

It often seems like a single one of my cores on my core i5 takes a lot of load, and the others very little. Like, I'd be playing a non-graphics intensive game, and a single core would be one 90%, and the others maybe 10%. Is this normal?

System:
-Intel Core i5
-HD 5850
-Gigabyte p55m-ud2 (motherboard)
-Western Digital Caviar Black
-Corsair 650TX (650 W)


I recently upgraded from an old AMD build with a 1.6 ghz processor, so I don't know if this is supposed to happen or not on four core processors or not.

I take it you have an i5-750?

Download Cinebench(it is a free benchmark) and run the multicore benchmark on it, and compare to reviews from the major sites.

 

[lolzololz]

I take it you have an i5-750?

Download Cinebench(it is a free benchmark) and run the multicore benchmark on it, and compare to reviews from the major sites.

Yeah, it's a 750, I forgot there were new dual-core ones! I'll try Cinebench, and let you all know what I get.

 

[lolzololz]

I got 4289 on the "Single CPU Render Test" and 14126 on the "Multiple CPU Render Test". Is that up to par with other core i5-750s?

 

[Chad Boga]

I got 4289 on the "Single CPU Render Test" and 14126 on the "Multiple CPU Render Test". Is that up to par with other core i5-750s?

Yes

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=13

 

[warmon6]

Depending on your operating system, and the game, this is entirely normal. Pre-Vista/Win7 Windows wasn't even threaded for multi-core. So even system tasks would all get devoted to a single core.

And many, many games are still this way. They'll grab one core and use it for every computation they need done.

What?

Windows xp and 2000 are designed to run multi core cpus. There just not as optimize as windows 7 is.