Are 6 Core CPUs Enough for PC Gaming?

dirtyferret said:

"A few readers seemed to think that the previous article was evidence that 6-core CPUs aren't very good for gaming, and you need a minimum of 8 cores, or ideally more. But that's not true, and although we've discussed this multiple times in the past, we're going to do it again."

A few? Try the majority of people who post on forums.

"As for the misconception that "reviews use clean test systems and therefore the data isn't representative of real-world usage," we're not really sure where that comes from"

It comes from the fact you are not giving people the data that confirms their purchase. Very similar to news, people go to specific websites or news entertainment channels not to hear news but to have their views reinforced.

"this data won't come as a surprise to many of you, this does seem like a topic that we regularly need to revisit."

If the former was true, you would not have to regularly do the latter in order to provide factual data

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I was of those people saying CPUs do matter for 4k, but I was toward the single threaded side of things for RTS games and city builders. I was also mostly angry they didn't use a 5000 series in their benchmarks because the difference between the 3000 and 5000 series is bigger than the difference between the 1000 and 3000 series.

The 3000 series was a big deal when it came out, it was a fun time to be a hardware enthusiast. AM3 and AM4 were good times.

Steve comes out in his second paragraph and states

"In short, core count (within reason) doesn't matter for gaming; what really matters is overall CPU performance. For example, if a quad-core processor existed that could deliver the same multi-core performance as the Ryzen 9 7950X, there's a good chance it would actually be the faster gaming CPU, as the individual cores would be significantly faster. With games mostly still dependent on a primary thread, this results in CPUs with strong single-core performance generally delivering the best gaming performance. This is also why the 7800X3D is a much faster gaming CPU than the 7950X."


And your opening line is...

yRaz said:

I think 6 cores is the sweet spot for now. .

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did you read what he said? did you comprehend it? It's not that core count doesn't matter or does matter but that the performance of said CPU for the tasks you use is all that matters.

yRaz said:

I was of those people saying CPUs do matter for 4k

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games are software apps, some software apps rely on heavy CPU usage and some don't. If every game was the same, Steve would not be running benchmarks across 40 games in some of his reviews. The only question anyone should ask when looking for any PC hardware "does it give me the performance I want for the price I'm willing to pay and at what point will the performance start to diminish for my hardware setup"

For some people that's a $800 CPU & $1500 GPU, for some it's a $150 CPU & $300 GPU, for some it's a $200 APU.

dirtyferret said:

Steve comes out in his second paragraph and states

"In short, core count (within reason) doesn't matter for gaming; what really matters is overall CPU performance. For example, if a quad-core processor existed that could deliver the same multi-core performance as the Ryzen 9 7950X, there's a good chance it would actually be the faster gaming CPU, as the individual cores would be significantly faster. With games mostly still dependent on a primary thread, this results in CPUs with strong single-core performance generally delivering the best gaming performance. This is also why the 7800X3D is a much faster gaming CPU than the 7950X."


And your opening line is...

did you read what he said? did you comprehend it?

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Huh? who said that? Who's Steve? Is that the guy I met at the flop house last night and spent all my money at taco bell?

dirtyferret said:

games are software apps, some software apps rely on heavy CPU usage and some don't. If every game was the same, Steve would not be running benchmarks across 40 games in some of his reviews. The only question anyone should ask when looking for any PC hardware "does it give me the performance I want for the price I'm willing to pay and at what point will the performance start to diminish for my hardware setup"

For some people that's a $800 CPU & $1500 GPU, for some it's a $150 CPU & $300 GPU, for some it's a $200 AAPU

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So in all seriousness, I've been thinking about exactly this and why it's a problem in the first place since his last article. It is that it seems like a very elementary problem to those of us who have been doing it for so long that we don't see it as a problem needing solved. Then there are people who are new to the hobby who aren't even aware of the basic concept of single threaded performance being linked to the multi threaded performance of a chip.

Many experienced people aren't trying to be elitists but are because of how basic the problem seems in their head. Meanwhile, it's mostly a case if ignorance not stupidity.

So let me explain my 6 core comment. 4 cores isn't enough regardless of single threaded performance for gaming and not enough games need 8 cores to make it worth targeting. Most games really need about 4 cores while the OS needs 2. There are situations where the extra 2 cores can allow the system to "relax" as I consider it and can get you a few percentage points. However, what I see as what really makes a difference between 6 and 8 core CPUs is that there is usually a cache size difference. I see the extra cache on 8core CPUs making the biggest in performance, not the cores directly

If you are still on AM4 the easiest upgrade is the 5700x3d which is going for around $200 now. The 5700x3d should perform similar to the R5 7600 here.

Why cater to people that don't know how PCs work?

yRaz said:

Huh? who said that? Who's Steve? Is that the guy I met at the flop house last night and spent all my money at taco bell?

So in all seriousness, I've been thinking about exactly this and why it's a problem in the first place since his last article. It is that it seems like a very elementary problem to those of us who have been doing it for so long that we don't see it as a problem needing solved. Then there are people who are new to the hobby who aren't even aware of the basic concept of single threaded performance being linked to the multi threaded performance of a chip.

Many experienced people aren't trying to be elitists but are because of how basic the problem seems in their head. Meanwhile, it's mostly a case if ignorance not stupidity.

So let me explain my 6 core comment. 4 cores isn't enough regardless of single threaded performance for gaming and not enough games need 8 cores to make it worth targeting. Most games really need about 4 cores while the OS needs 2. There are situations where the extra 2 cores can allow the system to "relax" as I consider it and can get you a few percentage points. However, what I see as what really makes a difference between 6 and 8 core CPUs is that there is usually a cache size difference. I see the extra cache on 8core CPUs making the biggest in performance, not the cores directly

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in the current state of gaming CPUs that give performance similar to an Intel 8700 or AMD 3600 are capable (and capable being the main word) of running virtually all modern games at a playable FPS. Intel has released 4c/8t CPUs of similar performance as those CPUs that are just as capable because of the higher core performance. Now they may not give the chart topping performance some people here want or may hold back the performance of their GPUs in specific settings & resolution; those people should obviously purchase the specific products for their specific needs. So modern CPU performance is not really holding anyone back from playing modern games and that won't likely change until new generation console come out.

I've been on forums for decades and in my experience over all those years and its common now in 2024 as it was in 2014 or 2004, people (not all but too many) push their brand & spec as the way to go as a way to justify their purchase and come off as knowledgeable. You need eight cores because I have eight cores. You need 1000w PSU from brand X because I have a 1000w PSU from a brand X, etc., etc., I can make an arguement $200-250 is often a sweet spot for gaming CPUs in the last few years. Is that a four core, six core or eight core CPU? I don't know, what does the market have out there now? Will a six core $200 CPU work for you? I don't know, what games do you play, at what resolution, at what settings, with what GPU, and what expectations? Maybe it's overkill, maybe it's just right, maybe you need to adjust your budget and/or expectations.

Good article and background to explain why performance, not core count is relevant.

But when actually testing this with a 4K YouTube video playing plus Discord screen sharing, we found that it more often than not eliminates any performance advantage the 8-core processor might have by creating a system bottleneck.

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Regarding the statement above, the use case I’m more interested in is the video recording aspect. The linked article from 2022 touched on this briefly, and stated that more CPU cores can be beneficial (while also recommending using the GPU encoder or a different system strictly for capturing). I’d love to see that quantified. I occasionally record gaming for fun, so I can’t really justify a second rig for capture.

Anecdotally, I’ve had no noticeable issues using OBS to capture video while playing Hell Let Loose at 1440p (great WWII FPS, btw), though it’s not particularly demanding.

Steve said:

So there you have it, core count tells you very little about a CPU's gaming performance, and while we're sure this data won't come as a surprise to many of you, this does seem like a topic that we regularly need to revisit.

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Maybe if you benchmark this one you can put this topic to rest (okay, while I know it is a silly exercise, not to mention it is ARM instead of x64, it still would be fun to see just for the ludicrousness of it).

dirtyferret said:

You need eight cores because I have eight cores. You need 1000w PSU from brand X because I have a 1000w PSU from a brand X, etc., etc., I can make an arguement $200-250 is often a sweet spot for gaming CPUs in the last few years. Is that a four core, six core or eight core CPU? I don't know, what does the market have out there now? Will a six core $200 CPU work for you? I don't know, what games do you play, at what resolution, at what settings, with what GPU, and what expectations? Maybe it's overkill, maybe it's just right, maybe you need to adjust your budget and/or expectations.

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Like always these problems won't be solved by ranting about them but by kindly explaining how things work until people understand. It's like when I discovered Linux, I said : why so many distributions, what a waste of time and energy ? Now I understand that freedom to have the specific tool that you want is better than uniformity, but it took me a while.

I've said it before and this article shows it. Bottlenecking isn't so much hardware, it's software dependent. Take Cites 2, it has the ability to saturate a threadripper once you build a sizeable city. So in some cases yes you can need 8 or even 12 cores. In others 6 or even 4 (gasp) high clock cores will serve a user better. Or more cache', Your best bet is to have as many resources available to your OS that it can perform well regardless of what configuration certain software prefers. So in the end any route a user goes will be a trade off, and it's best to build a system that covers the software you use most.

It's the overall performance not the core count. I went from 1600 to 5600 and 1060 to 6950. Playing at 4k/60 just fine. Typically all settings maxed out. Not bad for a $120 CPU. I went for a cheap upgrade because I knew it was going to be a short term solution while I wait for AM5 to mature.

5600 should have been included in this review.

Looks like 7600 is plenty right now. Those 2 extra cores and extra 3D cache not doing a whole lot in gaming at 4k at high settings.

Gezzer said:

I've said it before and this article shows it. Bottlenecking isn't so much hardware, it's software dependent. Take Cites 2, it has the ability to saturate a threadripper once you build a sizeable city. So in some cases yes you can need 8 or even 12 cores. In others 6 or even 4 (gasp) high clock cores will serve a user better. Or more cache', Your best bet is to have as many resources available to your OS that it can perform well regardless of what configuration certain software prefers. So in the end any route a user goes will be a trade off, and it's best to build a system that covers the software you use most.

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Good call out! There are some games which are heavily core dependent, especially in the simulation and strategy space.

Gezzer said:

I've said it before and this article shows it. Bottlenecking isn't so much hardware, it's software dependent. Take Cites 2, it has the ability to saturate a threadripper once you build a sizeable city. So in some cases yes you can need 8 or even 12 cores. In others 6 or even 4 (gasp) high clock cores will serve a user better. Or more cache', Your best bet is to have as many resources available to your OS that it can perform well regardless of what configuration certain software prefers. So in the end any route a user goes will be a trade off, and it's best to build a system that covers the software you use most.

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human7 said:

Good call out! There are some games which are heavily core dependent, especially in the simulation and strategy space.

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lol, total failure to understand even the most basic concept of the article

Price of the 7800X3D also fell to $345
https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d-zen4-cpu-drops-to-345

Zen5 is probably close.

Imagine a 6 core zen 5 cpu be better in gaming than the i9 14900ks and 7800X3D or at least match it.

godrilla said:

Zen5 is probably close.

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Looks that way!

For the most part, the article was well-received

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Well, I don't think so. I took a quick glance at those 59 comments from the article 'CPUs Don't Matter For 4K Gaming"... Wrong!". There are numerous people critical or even opposed to the essence of the article. Just read the first comments, or the last comments, or pick something out of the middle. No wonder, there was a big claim in the headline. Downplaying it now with "It depends" does not make the clickbait headline go away ('Wrong!')

It's a straightforward concept, yet, unfortunately, many gamers don't seem to grasp it.

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There were, however, a surprising number of readers who had a different takeaway

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A few readers seemed to think..

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..although we've discussed this multiple times in the past, we're going to do it again.

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Do you even like your readers? Respect goes both ways, you want some, you have to give some.

JuanDegr said:

Do you even like your readers? Respect goes both ways, you want some, you have to give some.

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I have no skin and no preconceived bias in this game, so I don't feel any disrespect. In fact, providing data to help the user reach the truth is the highest form of respect to the user.

dirtyferret said:

lol, total failure to understand even the most basic concept of the article

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lol, total failure to understand even the most basic concept of our comments.

I'm sorry (not sorry), but we both understood the article perfectly. There were three games used in the article: Hogwarts Legacy, Starfield, and Counter-Strike 2. That's it. There are so many games out there that don't fit the pattern of those, first- or third-person RPGs or shooters.

Gaming covers many genres, and one should plan their hardware purchases according to the genres that they tend to play (if they know in advance). If you play games like Galactic Civilizations, which even goes so far as to recommend in-game that you have a certain quantity of CPU cores and RAM when you select large map sizes (because yes, they engineered the game to take advantage of those cores), you will benefit from having many cores, and that's hardly the only strategy game where it matters. Strategy games often don't even need much on the GPU side (some do), and if you know that's what you will be playing almost exclusively and you have limited budget, you might be the rare gamer who prioritizes the CPU over the GPU.

Of course, most gamers aren't in that category. And, if you don't know what kind of games you are going to play, or if you are going to play a wide variety, then as @Gezzer said: "Your best bet is to have as many resources available to your OS that it can perform well regardless of what configuration certain software prefers". In other words, you're better off preparing for the cases where you need more cores. Better to have it and not need it than the other way around, if you can budget for it.

As is always the case: you should choose the hardware that fits your needs, and you can know that from the software you intend to be running. If you're playing games that fit with what was chosen for the benchmarks in this article, then the argument that 6 cores is enough for you applies, provided that single core performance is good. Otherwise, YMMV.

Even 4c 4t is enough....so yes. My i5 2500k and 3570k CPUs do fine. And for the record my i7 920, 930, 960 and 980X CPUs also are still useable minus games using AVX.

loki1944 said:

Even 4c 4t is enough...

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Ahh, do you mean for gaming? For 4k? Even then, don't exaggerate. I'm a friend of CPU does not matter, but those are just too old with DDR3 and PCI-E 3.0 and so on.

At least upgrade to Intel i3 12100 for a decent 4c 4t performance in modern games ;-)

And please be careful with those opinions, or else we will get a new article "4c 4t is all you need for modern gaming? WRONG!"

Then, later on in the discussion, "it just depends". Which it actually does

Great educating times.

human7 said:

I'm sorry (not sorry), but we both understood the article perfectly.

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It does not seem "understand" means what you think it means. rest assured when Steve complains about consonantly having to post such articles to quell some people who just don't get it, he's 100% talking about people like you.

dirtyferret said:

It does not seem "understand" means what you think it means. rest assured when Steve complains about consonantly having to post such articles to quell some people who just don't get it, he's 100% talking about people like you.

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Relax... your cortisol levels are too high.