How well does Intel thread director work for P and E cores on hybrid CPUs with WIN10 and WIN11 for gaming and apps

[Wolverine2349]

Is the Intel Thread director supposed to work seamlessly and make e-cores work well with all secondary threads in games so they work just as well if not better than if there were additional but less P cores. Like if a game thread beyond 8 (HT off) would use 10-30% intermittently of an additional P core, does thread director know how to make it use e-core the same performance cause e-cores are weaker so instead it makes it use say 60% of e-core and no slow down or waiting for process as it can use e-cores just as effectively for secondary threads even though architecture is different and they are slower IPC overall?? Does it work well and seamlessly without developers having developed with hybrid arch in mind cause thread director takes care of everything or at least in 99% of cases but maybe some rare edge cases?

I assume same would apply with Arrow Lake as 13th and 14th Gen. I have 0 interest in 13th or 14th Gen given their random stability and degradation issues, but upcoming Arrow Lake does interest me.

Would prefer a CPU with more than 8 P core or CCX within a CCD or tile or ring bus, but such option does not exist and appears it will not exist with upcoming Zen 5 and Arrow Lake.

Though at least Arrow Lake will have all P and e =-core son the same tile for great core to core latency like Meteor Lake has excluding the LPE cores which I assume middle and high end Arrow Lake will not have.

Though does hybrid arch work well with no issues and thread director ensures it, or are there still problems?

 

[Keljian]

I'm running windows 11, it's working fine.

 

[NattyKathy]

Since the beginning of the year I've been running a 12900K on Win11 as one of my daily systems- haven't had any issues with hybrid utilization. Most games I've run on it don't need more threads than the P-cores and it prioritizes those. The exception is Cyberpunk 2077 which can make use a lot of threads if I really load it up with mods- and in that case, it does utilize both P + E cores by default and seems to benefit from doing so.

I was pretty hesitant about Intel's hybrid chips- even passing on Alder Lake initially in favor of Zen3 for a major build in late 2021- so Intel had "win me over" but now I've tried their method it does seem to "just work". Of course YMMV, I cannot guarantee you will be satisfied and problem-free, but I have been.

Likewise I too would prefer 12-16 "big" cores on a single ring/ccx but yup that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon for regular desktop. Fortunately after this good 12900K experience I have no real qualms trying or recommending another hybrid CPU in the future.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Since the beginning of the year I've been running a 12900K on Win11 as one of my daily systems- haven't had any issues with hybrid utilization. Most games I've run on it don't need more threads than the P-cores and it prioritizes those. The exception is Cyberpunk 2077 which can make use a lot of threads if I really load it up with mods- and in that case, it does utilize both P + E cores by default and seems to benefit from doing so.

I was pretty hesitant about Intel's hybrid chips- even passing on Alder Lake initially in favor of Zen3 for a major build in late 2021- so Intel had "win me over" but now I've tried their method it does seem to "just work". Of course YMMV, I cannot guarantee you will be satisfied and problem-free, but I have been.

Likewise I too would prefer 12-16 "big" cores on a single ring/ccx but yup that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon for regular desktop. Fortunately after this good 12900K experience I have no real qualms trying or recommending another hybrid CPU in the future.

Thanks for the advice.

Stating you would prefer 12-16 big cores on a single ring/CCX/tile but not happening anytime soon on desktop like you stated. In such case do you think for thread heavy games Intel hybrid design with all P and e cores on same ring/tile is better than AMD's more than 8 Big cores on dual CCD/CCXs?

As for it not happening on regular desktop, forget just mainstream/regular desktop, it is not happening anytime soon at all and has not since Comet Lake. Last such CPU was Comet Lake 10 cores, on same ring, but that is outdated architecture with IPC way way behind Zen 3 and Willow Cove variants and newer plus stuck at PCIe Gen 3.

Yes there is High End Xeon Workstation Saphire Rapidfs which has more than 8 Big cores only, but it is on expensive platform. But even if money was of no object its still not a good option. It has enterprise grade stuff like ECC requirement detrimental to gaming and the IPC of Sapphire Rapids Golden cove sucks compared to client golden cove and also on a mesh which sucks compared to ring bus or a single tile or CCX/CCD for gaming as latency crippled.

https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/03/12/a-peek-at-sapphire-rapids/

So even if your willing to pay up no such good option exists or will exist anytime soon if ever with more than 8 big cores on todays CPU archs or newer future ones on a single die.

Hopefully hybrid arch works or games really never benefit huge form more than 8 cores though Cyberpunk with mods yikes puts me between rock and hard place as 7800X3D as best set and forget it CPU, but 8 cores could somewhat bottleneck soon CPU heavy games especially with modded ones. Unless Zen 5 is so much faster that its X3D variants make 8 cores easily enough even for modded Cyberpunk.