How important is quad-core now for gaming?

[Legolas8181]

I am looking at a new laptop and i would like to get an i5-4200M but I have been told that more and more games are being designed to use all 4 cores in a CPU, the place I am looking at has a quad-core CPU for an extra £30 but is it really worth it? I am getting GTX 770M BTW

 

[Lee-m]

I guess it depends on the sort of games. But 4 cores is pretty much the accepted standard for gaming right now.

 

[Specops125]

The 4200M has hyper-threading which makes its two cores act like it has four. What's the other processor you would be able to get? The likely higher clock speed of the more expensive one might be reason alone to go for it. I had a two core T9900 on a laptop from 2009, and the CPU is often at full load. Granted, it didn't have hyper-threading, but a two core/four hyper-threaded CPU is not going to perform as well as a four core/at least four thread CPU when you need at least three cores/threads going.

 

[Legolas8181]

The 4200M has hyper-threading which makes its two cores act like it has four. What's the other processor you would be able to get? The likely higher clock speed of the more expensive one might be reason alone to go for it. I had a two core T9900 on a laptop from 2009, and the CPU is often at full load. Granted, it didn't have hyper-threading, but a two core/four hyper-threaded CPU is not going to perform as well as a four core/at least four thread CPU when you need at least three cores/threads going.

The i7-4700MQ

 

[Specops125]

Yeah, I would go for the 4700MQ for £30 more. That's a decent bump in clock speed for each individual task the CPU will be handling, and I think you are better off with four real cores instead of having two of them created via hyper-thread. Just note that if battery life is important for you, the 4700MQ will make things noticeably worse on that front.