Question Does World of Warcraft use more than 4 cores?

[fcar1999ta]

Does WoW Dragonflight actually use more than 4 CPU cores? I am going to build an entry level ZEN 4 desktop that I can gradually upgrade, and this will help me pick a processor.

I have seen posts that say 4 is the max, only Beta uses more than 4, and Retail can use all of them. Does anyone know the answer with Retail Dragonflight?

 

[Eximo]

I wouldn't expect a significant difference between Beta and Retail. Game engine is going to be pretty much the same.

WoW is a pretty old engine and relies heavily on single core performance. Anything that can be multithreaded is likely to be.

Blizzard says you only need a 4th gen Intel or Ryzen with 4 cores. So pretty much anything should work.

Aren't any 4-core Zen 4, so, that shouldn't even matter. You are going to have six cores at the minimum. Ryzen 5 7500F is cheapest option when it becomes commonly available. Until then the Ryzen 7600.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Whether or not a game uses more than 4 cores depends on how many threads it has active over time and how good the per-core performance is.

 

[fcar1999ta]

If WoW DF only used 4 cores, then the Ryzen 5 7600X will be fine. However, if WoW DF can use more than 6, then Ryzen 9 7900X is worth the extra $215.

 

[hotaru.hino]

If WoW DF only used 4 cores, then the Ryzen 5 7600X will be fine. However, if WoW DF can use more than 6, then Ryzen 9 7900X is worth the extra $215.

How many cores a game use depends significantly on the performance of the CPU itself.

If the minimum requirement for WoW DF is say a quad-core Zen 1 based processor (I don't know what it really is, too lazy to look, and this is an example) and it really does issue enough threads to keep the whole CPU busy while allowing 60 FPS most of the time, then running it on a Zen 3 based processor will likely result in fewer cores being utilized because each core is stronger. So if the game has Task A and B that needs to run on two cores in a Zen 1 based processor to finish on time, a Zen 3 processor could probably do both on one core if it can be done on time (if not sooner) as well simply because those cores are stronger.

In any case, ignore the number of cores that the "minimum requirements" processor has. The total and per-core performance of that processor is all that matters.