16-core vs 8-core vs 4-core vs 2-core

[Guest]

What kinds of works loads would require 8-16 cores? Also, will there be any bottlenecks if i use a 4-core i7 6700k in my pc for gaming? Can 4-core cpus edit photos and video?When will 4-core become obsolete for pc gaming? I know im asking a lot but I would really appreciate any answer.

 

[Rhinofart]

You don't need anything close to 8 cores. Most games these days don't even utilize the 4 cores of mainstream desktop processors.
Anything above 4 cores should be relegated to server style applications, intense Video Editing / Photoshop work. I have a 6 core processor in my main machine. But I'm a "Power User" I have a small windows 2012 r2 domain running in Virtualbox all the time on there, as well as using the computer for games.
I currently run 6 VMs
2 x 2012R2 DC
2 x 2012R2 File Servers
1 x 2012R2 WSUS
1 x Sophos UTM
All of that is running in "The Background" while I do everything else as well.
Intel 980x running OCed at 4.25Ghz, 24Gb RAM, and an AMD R9 290x pushing games out max everything (Except AA) at 1440p

 

[snurp85]

most programs cannot utilize >4 cores, so you wont see a difference. You really wont be bottlenecked by any games with the 6700k. you can use this to edit pictures, videos easily. Honestly, 4 cores likely will never become obsolete in gaming because games primarily utilize the GPU. Not to mention games are only just not starting be programmed to utilize multiple cores, and that's usually limited to only 4.

 

[Calculagator]

Workloads for lots of cores: professional video editing, 3d rendering, scientific simulation, virtual machines, high-traffic web server, large database server.
Will there be bottlenecks with an 17 6700k: not any significant ones. It's also great for editing photos and videos.
I can't predict the future, but if current trends continue, 4-core cpus will not be obsolete for gaming for at least 10 years.

 

[weberdarren97]

What kinds of workloads require more cores? 3D modeling, above 4K content creation, CPU bound rendering software

Will the i7 6700K bottleneck games? Absolutely not. You see, up until DirectX 12 and Vulkan came out, most games only took advantage of two cores at a time. Now with DirectX 12 and Vulkan, they're taking advantage of more. However, you don't need more just to play DirectX 12 and Vulkan games. Look at it this way, if the CPU has a high clock speed and is reasonably new then even two cores will be plenty; the reason games are taking advantage of more cores is so that people can purchase slower clocked CPUs and still be able to play said games.

When will four cores become obsolete for PC gaming? not anytime soon. Seeing how progress is going now, probably about eight to ten years, maybe more.

 

[weberdarren97]

most programs cannot utilize >4 cores, so you wont see a difference. You really wont be bottlenecked by any games with the 6700k. you can use this to edit pictures, videos easily. Honestly, 4 cores likely will never become obsolete in gaming because games primarily utilize the GPU. Not to mention games are only just not starting be programmed to utilize multiple cores, and that's usually limited to only 4.

I agree with most of what you just said, however we know that AMD cards are able to take advantage of more cores and require more data from the CPU than an Nvidia card given the same workload. Thanks to this, if AMD cards continue to evolve and Nvidia steps up their game and upgrades their CUDA technology, then we likely will see games that run poorly on less than four cores (given reasonable clock speed) within the next twenty years.