Dual Core vs. quad core for gaming?

[Datonare]

I was under the impression that getting a quad core, such as an i7 950 would drastically increase performance (when coupled with say, a gtx 470.) But further research is showing that most games on the market now, at least one's i'm interested in, only use 2 cores, making quad core not *as* important for gaming? I know gpu is one of the most important things to up your gaming performance, but would it be worth it to get an i5 650 (2x 3.2ghz) over an i7 (4x 3.02ghz i think, but in reality only 2x 3.02 if the game doesn't support quad core?)

With the price difference being about $120, is it really worth it on getting a quad core if you want to play current gen games? Or is getting a quad core more of an investment, so you can get a head start on the games that will be coming out that do support it. (i know there are games out atm that support but, but not too many i think?)


I'm kind of out of the loop when it comes to this kind of stuff, I was just curious as to whether a quad core is over kill for games atm (like fallout, ffxiv, etc)

[Elites]

I would say getting a quad core is important at the moment, I do believe certain games are already utilizing them. FFXIV certainly does

[Jefe]

Quad.

[Shadowhusky]

Get a high end dual now and wait for six, eight, ten cores to come out. Quite honestly not that many games actually use more than two right now.

[Milks]

since you mention that you're out of the loop, i'm going to assume you don't upgrade your pc often, in which i would get the quad

[Hosom]

Get a high end dual now and wait for six, eight, ten cores to come out. Quite honestly not that many games actually use more than two right now.

Myth~

Getting a high end Quad wouldn't be a bad idea last time I checked the market. Keep in mind you generally have to rebuild your pc once ever 2-4 years if you want to keep up with the video game market though.

[Darus Grey]

For the specific criteria asked about in the OP, no a quad-core will not see a significant performance boost.

[Knyghtmayre]

It will see quite a significant boost in the games which support it - which are ever-increasing. Just look at this article.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...re_debate.html

Some games don't support multiple cores, and perform the same with 4 cores as they do with 1. But the games that do support multiple cores receive quite a large performance increase from 2 to 4 cores. As an excerpt from the article:

http://www.legionhardware.com/images...ate/FC2_04.png
http://www.legionhardware.com/images...STALKER_04.png

[The Stig]

Not just gaming but if you run other applications, such as processing (pic/video/sound) and like to run various apps all at once, then you will see a significant improvement just by having quad.

[Isiolia]

If you're building -now- there's absolutely no reason not to get a quad core (or hexacore). The cost of the i5 is due to the shitty integrated graphics.

It's futureproofing. It's better for multi-tasking, or for other quad-aware apps like Photoshop.

The bigger consideration, as far as gaming is concerned, can be whether to actually build a new machine or not. Something like the i5 there is not much of an upgrade over a good (particularly overclocked) Core2Duo. The big thing, as you mentioned, is what GPU you have.
If you don't have something completely out of date, you may want to consider waiting a few months, as Intel is set to release their new consumer platform (LGA1156 replacement) in Q1 2011. ATI is also supposed to be releasing their 6000-series cards starting in the end of October.

[Olo401]

If FFXIV's performance is any indication of things to come in PC gaming, get a quad at the very least.

[Datonare]

Thanks for the replies. Right now I have an E2200 @ 2.2ghz, GeForce 9500GT, windows xp 32 bit, 2 gigs of ram

I haven't even looked into if it's possible to overclock anything I have. Milks, what you said about me not upgrading regularly is definitely true which is why I like the idea of getting a quad core. I guess for now I can just get myself a new gpu and wait a bit on the processor.

[Knyghtmayre]

Uh.. a 2.2GHz dual core processor is definitely going to severely handicap any worthwhile GPU at any respectable resolution. A 9500GT is very outdated as well... in my opinion, you will need to build an entirely new PC very soon if you have any hopes whatsoever of maintaining enjoyable gaming on PC.

[xopher]

If you plan on playing FFXIV, don't try to be cheap.

[Datonare]

I do like me some enjoyable PC gaming. Thanks for the suggestions and opinions, I'ma just go and take the time to build myself something sweet.

[Darus Grey]

It will see quite a significant boost in the games which support it - which are ever-increasing. Just look at this article.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...re_debate.html

Some games don't support multiple cores, and perform the same with 4 cores as they do with 1. But the games that do support multiple cores receive quite a large performance increase from 2 to 4 cores. As an excerpt from the article:

http://www.legionhardware.com/images...ate/FC2_04.png
http://www.legionhardware.com/images...STALKER_04.png

You cherry-picked the only case where 4 cores vs 2 resulted in linear gains, because not only are multi-core games still a minority, but ones with more than 2 threads are the VAST minority.

His question was specifically if quadcore would be a significant boost to *current gen* games, and the legitimate answer to that is no.

Especially 14...game doesn't even come close to maxing out a core2duo at max settings.

I don't disagree that it would be wise to get a 4 core, but the premise people are giving advice on is flawed.

If he were extremely budget constrained the price difference would be better spent on the videocard over going 4core, because an OC'd dualcore BARELY limits even top-end cards, but the Vcard is going to limit him much more than the CPU will with *current gen* games.

[Boyiee]

Especially 14...game doesn't even come close to maxing out a core2duo at max settings.

E8500 C2D @ 4.0ghz 3300 benchmark with GTX480
i7 950 @ 4.0ghz 5k benchmark with gtx480

[Jefe]

Even if the game doesn't utilize all four cores, there are still programs running in the background that do; and that helps your overall experience.

[Darus Grey]

E8500 C2D @ 4.0ghz 3300 benchmark with GTX480
i7 950 @ 4.0ghz 5k benchmark with gtx480

E6600@ 3.0ghz...play the game.

i7 980x@ 4.7ghz...play the game.
(I own both these as a note, not a made up scenario)

No difference. Both of them(with the 5850 in the one and 5970 in the other) will hit a solid 60 frames at 1900x1200 on highest settings, and on the E6600, the CPU utilization is around 40%

lol@thebenchmark. Benchmarks are not real-use scenarios. The one system gets a 4400 and the other gets over 10,000, but in real-use, there is minimal to no difference.

Even if the game doesn't utilize all four cores, there are still programs running in the background that do; and that helps your overall experience.

I don't disagree with that in the slightest, I was just commenting that based on the criteria in the OP, people were giving bad advice, if his goal is simply to play games, and $120 was an issue, he would not be hampered by a dual-core to the degree everyone claims to the point that he shouldn't be spending it elsewhere(or not spending it at all if it really IS an issue).

Course the real solution in a constrained budget is to just get an AMD mobo/processor, 4 cores for same price as 2, benefits of both sides.

[Knyghtmayre]

Cherry picked? Whatlol?

Looking at the results it obviously comes down to which games you are playing, and plan to play, that will dictate how many cores you are going to need. As a rule of thumb we suggest all gamers look at making the transition to a quad-core processor, as we found more than half the games we tested with saw significant gains when going from two to four cores.

The biggest issue we found when playing games that could properly utilize four cores was that a considerable amount of performance was lost when using a dual-core processor. Take the Core 2 Duo vs. Core 2 Quad debate for a moment.

When comparing equally clocked processors the Core 2 Duo was on average 19% slower when testing with Battlefield Bad Company 2, Far Cry 2, Supreme Commander 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, Mass Effect 2 and World in Conflict. Furthermore, the minimum frame rate was 23% lower, which is a massive difference for the processor to make and will certainly be noticed in-game.

All I did was pick one example of each to show that it depends on the game you are playing. And yes, I do agree that the real solution in any budget scenario is an AMD board and CPU. I much prefer AMD to Intel (My rig is an AM3), I just used the 920 as that particular example. Also note that in most cases with CPU scaling, the AMD chip actually does scale well from 1>2>4 cores whereas in the same test the i7 was stacked across the board.