CPUs and gaming performance question

[dimes and nickles]

I have a general question about CPUs and how they affect gaming performance.

That question is, if a game is using its maximum number of cores, and CPU load does not reach 100%, does that mean that that CPU is not being fully utilized by the game already, and no benefit would come from upgrading it in terms of cores/speeds?

Specifically, I am playing a lot of tribes: ascend at the moment. The game uses 4 threads, and while looking at CPU load for my phenom 9600 at 2.3ghz, the load never exceeds 60, 65%, balanced well over the four cores. It would seem to me that upgrading the CPU would not do anything at all in terms of increasing performance, since the CPU I already have does not appear to be fully utilized as it is.

Am I correct in thinking this, or is there another aspect of the CPU / game performance relationship that Im missing?

 

[abekl]

You're not missing anything. If the game needed more horsepower, It would tax the CPU more heavily, so the fact that it's running at 65% says that you've got processing power to spare.

 

[pezonator]

Yep I would say you are fine, only start getting concerned if it's reaching over 90% on all 4 cores. I had a Cerleron G530 dual core 2.4 and CounterStrike Source would hit 100% in Multiplayer, however when it was at 95% is was perfectly smooth. Hitting the 100% made it lag horribly, so you really only need to upgrade when that happens I reckon

 

[adzx]

I think it works differently than you think, what I think is that the load of your cpu doesn't determine the performance.

It's hard to explain, but I'll try:
When you use a gpu, and it's not at 100% load and you're getting e.g. 40fps on a game, it means that it is not able to get more fps, even though the load is less than 100. If the load determined the performance, wouldn't it be at 100% whenever you play a game. e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynft6QkhLzw

I think that cpu's work in the same way, it doesn't matter about the load, just the speed of the cpu.

Although, I'm not sure about this.

 

[dimes and nickles]

Thanks for the replies.

The phenom 9600 has been a great CPU over the years. If it still has life, no reason to throw it out