Are dual cores truely dead for gaming?

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TwilightRavens

TwilightRavens

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Mar 17, 2017
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I want to know everyone's opinion on this one, I think it'd be an interesting discussion.

Anyway does anyone think Dual Core rigs are pretty much dead in the water for mid-range/semi-high end gaming rig seeing as things are moving towards "gimmie moar cores!" if so please explain why you think so.

For example: I think its a yes or no, I mean pairing an i3 with a 1080 ti is pretty stupid idea seeing as the i3 just wouldn't have enough "power" (I use that term very loosely) so to say to keep the 1080 ti fed at 1080p. But seeing as 4k and even 8k gaming is becoming more common. In theory since at higher resolution the gpu is used more wouldn't an i3 or a hyperthreaded pentium be enough to feed it? I mean obviously not compared to a 6 or 8+ core cpu but wouldn't it get you better performance vs say an i3 with like a lower end gpu that it won't bottleneck it at 1080p? Or would it basically be a linear scale? I assuming if there was a gpu out there that in theory could handle 8k gaming fine.
 
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Karadjgne
To answer an earlier post, that was actually written in English.... It's hard to really wait long for Steam to put on those sales. Take the original GuildWars. Right in the middle of the story line was a couple of missions that absolutely required multiple ppl in a group to accomplish. By the time the price dropped and you got all 4 of the DLC's, many had moved on to GuildWars 2. Getting a group for those 2 missions was a royal pain. Underworld could be done solo if you had the exact right built monk and Nec, otherwise it took a group. Right now I'm playing Swtor and I'm getting stuck at Operations because the numbers of actual online users wanting to do that particular Op is dismal at best. Sure, it's fine for skyrim, or even Kotor2...
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Correct. Some game engines don't need as much CPU as others. But more and more you are needing 4C or 4T in order to run them. Some of the newest games say you need a 3570, or 4 cores to run them. 100% dead? Not yet. But we are really near the point where it's pointless to run newer games on a dual core.
 
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Yeah i'm talking like games that LOVE more cores, in theory the performance difference at 4k or 8k wouldn't be as massive as at 1080p with a dual core and quad core right?

Talking about games that are about even in terms of cpu power vs gpu power required like GTA V or Battlefield 1. (I know its not 50/50 and thats not how it works) but like in a perfect world scenario.
 
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This is the second time you've posted twice, or bumped, your post. Please edit in the future as this site doesn't allow bumping.

Going from 4k to 8k shouldn't really stress the CPU much more. There will be some new info for it to process, but the GPU load will increase TONS more than the CPU load will. Low level APIs like Mantle will help, but the adaption rate is tiny if you haven't noticed. There will be a game here or there, but minimum requirements are going up, not down. Even with DX12.

http://wccftech.com/forza-motorsport-7-pc-system-requirements-revealed/

Here is a DX12 game, needs an I5 minimum.

http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=23288&game=Gears%20of%20War:%20Ultimate%20Edition

Another DX12 game, still needs an I5 minimum.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/halo-5-forge-system-requirements

Yet another DX12 game, still needs an I5 minimum.

What I'm trying to point out is that DX12 might give a lower level access to the hardware, but it seems for AAA games you still need to be able to process 4 threads at a time. A HT dual core might be able to do that still, more so if the minimum CPU is the I5 750, but I wouldn't build a system to play current AAA games with a Pentium or I3 right now. You are just going to have a bad time.
 
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Yeah sorry about the bumping, the mobile site on my phone hates me so i do apologize. But yeah I wasn't planning to upgrade to one, its just something interesting I thought about. If anything my next build will be a hex or octa core seeing as those are getting to the point to where they can clock up to speeds a quad core can.
 
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Yeah i'm glad the shift is finally being made, last dual core gaming system I had feels slow compared to my i7. Of course that's like comparing oranges to tomatoes.
 
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Only for the top-1% most CPU-intensive recent games which tend to be heavily over-represented on enthusiast sites because they are the only titles capable of showing more than fringe benefits from newer hardware and reviewers are desperate to emphasize progress.

Adoption of heavily threaded designs in games is going to be a very slow and painful process, just like how it has been since the introduction of the first multi-core and multi-threaded mainstream CPUs a decade ago. Very few people want to deal with multi-threaded code beyond trivial delegation until they have absolutely no other choice. Lightly threaded new games will likely still heavily outnumber thread rippers a decade from now.
 
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I dunno. Scuttlebutt has it the next edition of CS will be 8 thread optimized, meaning quad core minimum, or at least an i3+HT. True dual core and pentium+HT etc running just 2 threads are getting to EOL. Not so much because the games are out-threading them (that's happening, but not quickly) but because the older tech simply doesn't have the instructions, processing speeds, Lcache and MC abilities etc to keep up with the advanced code. Game engines are simply demanding more than the older cpus can process in anything close to needed times to maintain playable fps. Even the i5-2500k is like a 3-legged dog that's been hamstrung when compared to the power of what an i7-7700k can bring core to core. And trying to play Witcher 3 on a pentium G3528 is a fools errand. OC'd or not.
 
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Only for the top-1% most CPU-intensive recent games which tend to be heavily over-represented on enthusiast sites because they are the only titles capable of showing more than fringe benefits from newer hardware and reviewers are desperate to emphasize progress.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but I did mention newer AAA games. I'm not talking about the junk low end games you find on steam that are still DX9. Or even DX10 if that's happening. Those games will run fine on just about anything. It's the newest AAA games that I worry about. Technically there will always be a market for lower end hardware as junk DX9 and "nostalgia" rigs will always get built. I think that number is higher than 1%, but it's the most important games to consider if you want your rig to handle anything.
 
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There is a difference between cores and threads.
I3 is no longer the differentiator it used to be.
I3 now spans 2-4 cores and 4-8 threads.
Some games will not run without 4 threads.
In that sense, dual core/thread is dead for those games.


As to performance, the number of threads needed for good performance is, I think, overstated.
It seems that most games can, today, make effective use of only 2-3 threads.
Here is a older report:
http://www.dsogaming.com/editorial/report-despite-claims-most-pc-games-are-still-unable-to-take-advantage-of-more-than-4-cpu-cores/

It would be nice if it were easy to run many threads to good effect.
Sadly, it is not.
Not all tasks lend themselves to many threads.
Multiplayer with many participants in one of them.
Past that, single thread core performance becomes more important.
The theory comes from "Amdahl's law"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law
You are running into this width threadripper where best gaming comes from deactivating cores.
 
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It seems that most games can, today, make effective use of only 2-3 threads.
Here is a older report:
Click to expand...

And by older you mean 2014. LOTS has changed since then. Including the rise of 8 core Xbox and Playstation consoles. What might have been true way back then I'm sure is much different now. I understand what you are saying about hard to make good threaded game engines, but I wouldn't use any evidence from 2014 to back up your claim.
 
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not sure what you are discussing as AAA gaming here.. but for example

Call of Duty: WW2, requires video card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 @ 2 GB / AMD Radeon HD 7850 @ 2GB or better and cpu : Intel Core i3 3225 or equivalent,

Now looking at i3-3225 details on Intel web page its a dual cores 4 threads cpu.
https://ark.intel.com/products/65692/Intel-Core-i3-3225-Processor-3M-Cache-3_30-GHz

So games are still being made for the dual cores, heck I have a core2 duo8200 system I still play call of duty black ops on it during lunch breaks in my office.




 
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But I doubt you'd buy a dual core i3 today. Not for a gaming rig of any ability. And to my way of thinking, and I could be wrong, it seems it'd be far easier to port over console games to pc thread for thread, than re-write the whole thing to fit just 2.
 
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oh I am not arguing that quad or more cores are needed for gaming...

I was making the point that software designers are still making games for 4 threads not 4 cores and more. (I.e. 8+ threads)
when they start making games that say i5 minimum then they are programming for 8 threads or more.
 
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It's still a 4T CPU. That game is also a DX11 game. Someone was wondering if DX12 would lesson the CPU requirements due to lower level access DX12 gives. All I did was go to a game list on wiki for DX12 games and looked up games that were DX12 exclusive. Then I sent you all links to the first 3 I found. 4T CPUs only. You would correctly think with DX12 and the lower level/"metal" access that provides that the CPU requirements would be lower, but as you just pointed out this new DX11 game can get by with an I3. Odd isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support

Again, I know that people will always make DX9 and junk games. Yes, probably even 10yrs from now you'll be able to build a dual core PC and play something. I guess this depends on what you mean by gamer, and playing. Able to play newest AAA games, on the newest DX level, 1080P and 60FPS with maxed or close to it, though many are moving to 2k or 4k so I need to update this. You don't get this with a Pentium dual core.
 
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Wow,is this really what people believe?
Any AAA game from ~2014 whenever the ps4 came out and later is running with at least 4 threads,because that's how many completely empty cores you will find in any console,a lot of games even have 6 threads and some even more.
Nobody rewrites threads for desktop/windows we get the exact same thing as consoles get,wich also is why dual cores are safe for at least another 3-4 years,scorpio and ps4 pro have the same CPU with an even bigger GPU wich means that games are going to shift towards even more GPU heavy and even less cpu heavy than now.
Duals will be able to handle even bigger gpus in the future is what I'm saying.
Dx12 will be helping this along even more. (if it's going to take off)
Not having to deal with the driver means one less thread to run meaning higher FPS.
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They both run 8C/8T "bobcat" powered APUs. This is a step up in core count compared to the previous gen. For someone who was talking about GPU load shifting I would have thought you would have known this?

Dx12 will be helping this along even more. (if it's going to take off)
Click to expand...

Take a look at my posts above. AAA games DX12 based are saying 4C at least. I don't think duals are going to handle that so well. You gave us some pretty pictures, but without game settings it's mostly pointless?
 
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So what's your argumentation here?The previous gen (ps4/xbone) also already had 8c/8t,we will be getting the same mix of games for the next 3-4 years,the last consoles that we saw a step up from was the ps3 / xbox360.


Recommendations are just that,I myself would also recommend a i5 and upwards, that doesn't mean that anything below that will straight out just not work,that's crazy,the lower farther away you go from the recommended the slower you will run the game obviously,but "not enough" and "not enough for me" are completely different things.


So you believe that changing the settings will somehow make the game use more threads?Less threads?What is it you think will happen if the settings change?
Regardless of the settings dx11 runs a separate driver thread and dx12 doesn't, all the settings in the world can't make this change (except for the API setting 😛 ) ,you will always be running -at least- one less thread in dx12.



 
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