• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

6 Core gaming

Simmonz

Simmonz

2[H]4U
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
2,504
Can anybody name any sites that list games that have support for a 6 core processor ? I should be upgrading my CPU in the next week or so and it would be nice to have some motivation to go for the 1100T vs the X4 965.
 
there's a bunch of lists that show games "supporting" multi core but they don't say if they actually use more than 1 or 2, you got to look those up in bench reviews. you won't find more than a few that can fully thread more than 1 core at a time, if you're looking for real motivation then you won't get much from gaming.

rcf1987 said:
almost none maybe supreme commander
Click to expand...

and definitely not supcom, they were exposed for their shitty threading since it came out. all it will do is pin your first core and let the rest site idle with trivial worker threads, you have to mod it for any reasonable affinity distribution.
 
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will work 4 or more cores pretty well, but your GPU will more likely be the bottleneck.

Starcarft 2 is largely CPU-bound but only utilizes 2 cores. If you plan on streaming while playing, having additional cores is always good.

As previously mentioned, having 6 cores right now isn't much of a benefit for gaming. It's great for VM work, video encoding, Photoshop, and other programs that do scale with # of cores. When it comes to games clock speed is more important, and both of those CPUs overclock well.
 
Not much, don't worry about hex core gaming. It'll be oct that the next change comes in.
 
The only game that I've played that showed any performance increase from moving from 4 to 6 cores was Lost Planet 2, but even then it was only a 3-4 fps gain. If you're purely gaming, just get the fastest quad-core you can afford.
 
Simmonz said:
Can anybody name any sites that list games that have support for a 6 core processor ? I should be upgrading my CPU in the next week or so and it would be nice to have some motivation to go for the 1100T vs the X4 965.
Click to expand...

I have my 965 Overclocked to 3.6, on stock cooling! I would go more, but I'm comfortable with where it's at.
 
Sounds like the X4 975 is my bet then. I won't be overclocking so I don't mind paying for a higher stock speed.
 
mas said:
there's a bunch of lists that show games "supporting" multi core but they don't say if they actually use more than 1 or 2, you got to look those up in bench reviews. you won't find more than a few that can fully thread more than 1 core at a time, if you're looking for real motivation then you won't get much from gaming.



and definitely not supcom, they were exposed for their shitty threading since it came out. all it will do is pin your first core and let the rest site idle with trivial worker threads, you have to mod it for any reasonable affinity distribution.
Click to expand...

There's a program someone made called core maximizer that improves multicore performance for supcom.

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=15556

Not sure if it matters if it's 4 or 6 cores, but with that program it MIGHT work.
 
I should point out there is a big difference between being multithreaded and using 6 cores versus actually being multithreaded and getting a significant performance difference out of 6 cores vs 4 cores. It is actually relatively trivial to write a multithreaded program of any type, the hard part is actually writing it to properly balance workload and take advantage of those extra cores.

Simply opening up task manager and seeing some load on those extra cores does not mean that you are actually getting any performance advantage out of those extra cores.

Also from a buying perspective you need to consider whether that extra performance, if it is there at all, out weighs spending your money on a better GPU.
 
Simmonz said:
Can anybody name any sites that list games that have support for a 6 core processor ? I should be upgrading my CPU in the next week or so and it would be nice to have some motivation to go for the 1100T vs the X4 965.
Click to expand...


supreme commander(kind of) and definitely BFBC2.. other then that those are really the only 2 games that will actually show any benefit from 6 cores right now.. though supreme commander is more clock dependent then core dependent. so a 4Ghz 965 will out perform a stock 1100T even though the 1100T is at 50% load across all cores vs the 965 at 80% load. the game engine is junk.

BF3 will definitely take advantage of 6 cores since it should have the more advanced havok physics engine in it.
 
I don't know of any games that make use of 6 cores, but if you want a CPU that will last for more than a few years then it might be worth going for 6 cores, games are reasonably fast to adapt to new technology like extra cores.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
I don't know of any games that make use of 6 cores, but if you want a CPU that will last for more than a few years then it might be worth going for 6 cores, games are reasonably fast to adapt to new technology like extra cores.
Click to expand...

This is a good idea if you're looking into a hexacore Intel processor. If you're buying a hexacore AMD processor right now, you're already behind the curve let alone prepared for the next few years.
 
Andrew_Carr said:
There's a program someone made called core maximizer that improves multicore performance for supcom.

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=15556

Not sure if it matters if it's 4 or 6 cores, but with that program it MIGHT work.
Click to expand...

yea that's the one I was talking about, it's a good app that anyone who plays supcom on multicore should have, huge boost in performance. what it does is reassign core affinity for those seperate worker threads, to more evenly distribute the load instead of just pinning core0. iirc the game is limited to something like 3-4 main threads (sim, ai, gfx, etc), so I don't think you will get an advantage over quads.

it's a good example of how multi-threaded does not automatically equal proper multicore support, there's really no advantage if all the work gets loaded onto the first core anyway.
 
I read that Unreal 4 is going to have built in support to scale up with CPU cores but it's not due until next year and games on it even after that.

For gaming, I'd take a faster quad core over a slower six core.
 
Didn't Empire: Total War support 6 cores? I remember Intel using it as their "game of choice" for their 980X. Other than that maybe a flight sim?
 
There's simply not enough support for six core right now. You'd be putting yourself at a disadvantage for some time.
 
SonicTron said:
This is a good idea if you're looking into a hexacore Intel processor. If you're buying a hexacore AMD processor right now, you're already behind the curve let alone prepared for the next few years.
Click to expand...

Intel CPUs don't touch my PC. I have hated the fan design since socket 775. That push pin crap is a horrible idea IMO.

Oh and for others I only play FPS and RPGs these days. The Phenom II 965 is in stock so if my money comes through tomorrow I may pick up that and a 6950 2GB if I can afford both.
 
BC2 may "use" 6 cores, but not efficiently.

as for those who hate push pins, i dont see why they work pretty easily, install, just push the pin down done.....

so to not buy intel cause of the fan is pretty silly.
 
MrGuvernment said:
BC2 may "use" 6 cores, but not efficiently.

as for those who hate push pins, i dont see why they work pretty easily, install, just push the pin down done.....

so to not buy intel cause of the fan is pretty silly.
Click to expand...

What can I say, I have had problems with them. I can install an AMD fan quickly and easily, these push pins have never been easy for me. I also find AMD to be better value so if I can save money and put it towards a better GPU I think I win.
 
Simmonz said:
What can I say, I have had problems with them. I can install an AMD fan quickly and easily, these push pins have never been easy for me. I also find AMD to be better value so if I can save money and put it towards a better GPU I think I win.
Click to expand...

QFT
 
I would go faster quad now. By the time hex core is making a difference in pc gaming your hex core could architecture will be way too slow to make a difference. Get a solid quad today, plan on maybe a hex in 3 years.

You should consider a 955BE Quad. Its more or less instant guaranteed 3.6-3.8Ghz out of the box with only changing multi and voltage bump. Then use the extra cash to upgrade to a better GPU.
 
Simmonz said:
Intel CPUs don't touch my PC. I have hated the fan design since socket 775. That push pin crap is a horrible idea IMO.

Oh and for others I only play FPS and RPGs these days. The Phenom II 965 is in stock so if my money comes through tomorrow I may pick up that and a 6950 2GB if I can afford both.
Click to expand...

To not buy a cpu because the STOCK heatsink isn't perfect is a terrible decision. Buy a heatsink that has a motherboard back plate so you work with screws instead of pushpins, and even if you don't, you can still make do with the stock heatsink.
 
Hmm, my own findings shows there's a few games which can use the extra 4 HT threads on my i7, and therefore some usage on the extra 2 cores of a 6-core CPU.

Examples are the revised Source engine from Valve. Everything maxed out, I get +/- 50% even usage spread across 5 threads on games like TF2 (with MT enabled), at least it's more than 4 cores.

DDO, Supreme Commander 1 & FA (with core patch), Battleforge (with MT enabled), Empire & Napoleon, Mass Effect 1&2 as well as Dragon Age (No idea where all the computing goes on those), all use +/-50% spread across 4 cores pretty evenly, if I remember correctly DDO also scales to a 5th thread, HT in my case.

Those are the ones I can think off the top of my head. A 6-core CPU will give you quite a bit of spare CPU power to do other stuff at the same time.


Y.
 
Simmonz said:
What can I say, I have had problems with them. I can install an AMD fan quickly and easily, these push pins have never been easy for me. I also find AMD to be better value so if I can save money and put it towards a better GPU I think I win.
Click to expand...

If you insist on AMD, you might as well go for a quad core and a 3rd party cooler to OC it. You'll get more out of it when it comes to gaming than a stock x6 AMD CPU
 
Sunny_Stefan said:
To not buy a cpu because the STOCK heatsink isn't perfect is a terrible decision. Buy a heatsink that has a motherboard back plate so you work with screws instead of pushpins, and even if you don't, you can still make do with the stock heatsink.
Click to expand...

When buying aftermarket heatsinks I refuse any that have the backplate. Another reason I stay AMD, there are far more HSF that don't have the backplate. What can I say, i'm a picky bitch lol. I go to the bank about my money in just over 2 hrs so wish me luck. I have planned it out and after paying bills I should have enough for at least a new CPU and maybe a new GPU as well as a new mattress. I hope it's a good day.
 
No, almost nothing uses it to any effect. Most games these days use two cores. They may have more threads and be able to do a tiny bit on other cores, but very little. They only make real use of two cores, so anything more is an extremely minor gain, if anything. A few games actually use 4 cores somewhat efficiently. Bad Company 2, GTA 4, Lost Planet 2, you can find some out there that will do a reasonable job of actually using 4 cores, but they are small in number. Of those, some can actually make a tiny bit of use of more cores, but same as other games: It is only a token thing.

Remember in terms of actually "using" a core you need to be talking about running a substantial amount of code on it, loading it pretty heavy. If it threads out something like, say, sound and can use 3% of a core that just doesn't matter. Fine if you happen to have it, but you won't notice the difference.

Also as others noted, AMD processors are much, much slower than Intel processors for games. That is fine, I'm not saying don't get one, just recognize that it is not a small difference. The Sandy Bridge CPUs in particular just kill. An i5-2500k is going to be 1.5x-2x the speed of an X4 975 for most things (even faster for others) and costs about $40 more. Just understand that the performance gap really is that big these days.
 
Sycraft said:
No, almost nothing uses it to any effect. Most games these days use two cores. They may have more threads and be able to do a tiny bit on other cores, but very little. They only make real use of two cores, so anything more is an extremely minor gain, if anything. A few games actually use 4 cores somewhat efficiently. Bad Company 2, GTA 4, Lost Planet 2, you can find some out there that will do a reasonable job of actually using 4 cores, but they are small in number. Of those, some can actually make a tiny bit of use of more cores, but same as other games: It is only a token thing.

Remember in terms of actually "using" a core you need to be talking about running a substantial amount of code on it, loading it pretty heavy. If it threads out something like, say, sound and can use 3% of a core that just doesn't matter. Fine if you happen to have it, but you won't notice the difference.

Also as others noted, AMD processors are much, much slower than Intel processors for games. That is fine, I'm not saying don't get one, just recognize that it is not a small difference. The Sandy Bridge CPUs in particular just kill. An i5-2500k is going to be 1.5x-2x the speed of an X4 975 for most things (even faster for others) and costs about $40 more. Just understand that the performance gap really is that big these days.
Click to expand...

Got anything to back up the pro Intel talk ? Or is it just talk ? Furthurmore, are you telling me a sandy bridge with a 6870 is faster than a 965 with a 6950 ? because to afford the cheapest sandybridge where I live I have to spend $100 more than on a 965, which takes away from my budget which means slower GPU upgrade.
 
Sure. Anad did an in depth review with a bunch of different CPUs. [H] did a review too, of course, but they only included the 6-core AMD CPU. The Phenoms get absolutely crushed. Sorry if you don't like that, but it is what it is.

As for gaming, depends. In general GPU is what gets hit harder. Some games need beefy CPUs, but not so many. However my claim is not that Sandy Bridge CPUs will play a given game faster, my claim is they are much faster CPUs. How much that matters to you is for you to decide.

However don't get all defensive. The situation with CPUs is what it is. Right now, AMD CPUs are not very fast compared to Intel CPUs. That is just the situation. Just make sure you consider that and are ok with what you are getting. As I said, the price delta is about $40 between the CPU you talked about and a 2500k. It is $20 difference between an i5-2500, if you do not wish to do any overclocking. It is just something you should be aware of.
 
Sycraft said:
Sure. Anad did an in depth review with a bunch of different CPUs. [H] did a review too, of course, but they only included the 6-core AMD CPU. The Phenoms get absolutely crushed. Sorry if you don't like that, but it is what it is.

As for gaming, depends. In general GPU is what gets hit harder. Some games need beefy CPUs, but not so many. However my claim is not that Sandy Bridge CPUs will play a given game faster, my claim is they are much faster CPUs. How much that matters to you is for you to decide.

However don't get all defensive. The situation with CPUs is what it is. Right now, AMD CPUs are not very fast compared to Intel CPUs. That is just the situation. Just make sure you consider that and are ok with what you are getting. As I said, the price delta is about $40 between the CPU you talked about and a 2500k. It is $20 difference between an i5-2500, if you do not wish to do any overclocking. It is just something you should be aware of.
Click to expand...

My problem with those benchmarks is I don't game at 640*480, 1280*1024, or 1680*1050, I game at 1920*1200 with AA and the details maxed out. Those benchmarks don't help me. Im trying not to get defensive, key word trying, I just don't think that Intel is worth it for me value wise even if I didn't already have an AM3 board.
 
Simmonz said:
My problem with those benchmarks is I don't game at 640*480, 1280*1024, or 1680*1050, I game at 1920*1200 with AA and the details maxed out. Those benchmarks don't help me. Im trying not to get defensive, key word trying, I just don't think that Intel is worth it for me value wise even if I didn't already have an AM3 board.
Click to expand...

They test at lower resolutions so the games will not be GPU limited. They will be CPU limited. It's a better way to benchmark the processor without the GPU getting in the way. When testing video cards they do so at the highest possible resolution to really show where they stand.
The Intel CPU's are most definitely the way to go if one is after the best performance. Personally I have 4 Intel systems in my house with the push pin fans. 3 of those running stock fans and one is used for gaming with the stock fan. Another is my server and another an HTPC with stock fans. All work well.

Though I would have no problem going AMD if they were better. I pay for performance, not brand.
 
Yakk said:
Hmm, my own findings shows there's a few games which can use the extra 4 HT threads on my i7, and therefore some usage on the extra 2 cores of a 6-core CPU.

Examples are the revised Source engine from Valve. Everything maxed out, I get +/- 50% even usage spread across 5 threads on games like TF2 (with MT enabled), at least it's more than 4 cores.

DDO, Supreme Commander 1 & FA (with core patch), Battleforge (with MT enabled), Empire & Napoleon, Mass Effect 1&2 as well as Dragon Age (No idea where all the computing goes on those), all use +/-50% spread across 4 cores pretty evenly, if I remember correctly DDO also scales to a 5th thread, HT in my case.

Those are the ones I can think off the top of my head. A 6-core CPU will give you quite a bit of spare CPU power to do other stuff at the same time.


Y.
Click to expand...

do you know the difference between hyperthreading and actual cores, and why those same threads would no longer be running in parallel without it.
 
uh oh a 6 core thread, prepare for Intel fan boy dump.
I'll never understand why this needs to be argued and im just going to quote bill gates "640K ought to be enough for anybody." or maybe it was "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer.". You get the point.
 
mas said:
do you know the difference between hyperthreading and actual cores, and why those same threads would no longer be running in parallel without it.
Click to expand...

Yes, which is why I mention it.
 
"Just cause 2" seems to make good use of my buddys hexacore. Yeah of course it's also heavily dependant on the gfx card, but i always catch myself being jealous on his setup when he runs that game, simply looking damn good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top