Question How to choose a good CPU for intensive CPU-dependent games?

[jorge_medion]

As the title says, I need a powerful CPU for games that are more CPU demanding than GPU demanding. If you are curious, these games are all Total War games. In that case, how can I choose a CPU for games that are not fully optimized for multicore CPUs and are trully CPU demanding to the point that most of the games are more CPU dependent than GPU dependent? Which features should I study carefully in a CPU for heavy CPU demanding applications?

 

[bmacsys]

As the title says, I need a powerful CPU for games that are more CPU demanding than GPU demanding. If you are curious, these games are all Total War games. In that case, how can I choose a CPU for games that are not fully optimized for multicore CPUs and are trully CPU demanding to the point that most of the games are more CPU dependent than GPU dependent? Which features should I study carefully in a CPU for heavy CPU demanding applications?

Easy, any of the new Ryzen cpu's coming out July 7. They run at high frequencies, have low TDP and very strong IPC and have lots of cores and threads and are priced right. The current Ryzen cpu's are also very good. I have a 2700X, R5 1600 and a R5 2400G.

 

[USAFRet]

As the title says, I need a powerful CPU for games that are more CPU demanding than GPU demanding. If you are curious, these games are all Total War games. In that case, how can I choose a CPU for games that are not fully optimized for multicore CPUs and are trully CPU demanding to the point that most of the games are more CPU dependent than GPU dependent? Which features should I study carefully in a CPU for heavy CPU demanding applications?

Easy.

You define a budget, Never to Exceed.
Then, you design the most powerful, and balanced, system you can, within that budget.
Order all the parts in the same 30 day time period.
Assemble.

 

[velocityg4]

The latest Total Wars: Three Kingdoms gets a noticeable boost from multiple cores/threads. It appears to peak at 6 Cores with 12 threads.

 

[jorge_medion]

Some forums usually refer to core frequencies as the best value to measure a CPU performance, is this the only spec that I have to take into account to choose a CPU? I mean, go for the highest CPU core frequency?

 

[USAFRet]

Some forums usually refer to core frequencies as the best value to measure a CPU performance, is this the only spec that I have to take into account to choose a CPU? I mean, go for the highest CPU core frequency?

Frequency? Absolutely not.

Consider this:
2004, you buy a Pentium IV Prescott, with a base freq of 3.8 GHz
2019, you buy a i7-9700 with a base freq of 3.0GHz.

Which one is faster?

Within the same model line or generation, freq is one determinant. But there are many other factors to consider.

 

[jorge_medion]

Thank you USAFRet. Besides frequency which are those other factors to consider? I mean, in your opinion, which makes i7-9700 being in theory faster than Pentium IV Prescott if the Pentium IV one has a higher frequency? And translated into games, why frequency is so relevant?

 

[USAFRet]

In basic terms, frequency = clock cycles. 1 tick of the clock, I can do x number of things.
Faster ticks = more things done in the same time.
However...you also have to look at how many things it can do in each clock cycle. IPC, Instructions Per Clock.

For instance, translating into real world...
The P IV can carry 3 people at 50mph.
The new i7 can consume several lanes of traffic, each carrying 60 people, at 45mph.
"Lanes of traffic" = cores and threads.

Which one gets more people down the road in the shortest time?

Now, as with everything else, number of cores/threads is also not the absolute determinant. You have to look at multiple testing/review sites, and see how different CPU's compare.

 

[mdd1963]

Let's not forget the borderline dismal performance of the first 5 GHz processor, the FX9590....a true testament to the importance of pure clock speed in the performance equation

If gaming with today's 3D action-extraordinaire-shoot-em-up monstrosities like BF1 or BF5, you are going to need a GPU, and a semi-good one for even 1080P gaming, regardless of what CPU you get.... (if content with merely CS:GO and Quake4/Medal of Honor series, you can get by with far less GPU investment)

Edit: I'm not familiar with degree of CPU/GPU involvement (or lack thereof) in Total War, etc...; there might be some Youtube comparisons...

 

[jorge_medion]

You made the mistake of making me talk about Total War games and my experience with them, I am obsessed about them because I have been researching benchmarks and making tests several times 😉

Most Total War games are CPU demanding and GPU demanding at the same time so you can easily have 2 bottlenecks. RAM is not an issue because with 16 GB DDR4 2000 MHz is more than enough, hard drive is recommended to have SSD because the loading times can be an issue but the most problematic hardware with Total War games are CPU and GPU. Some Total War games are not CPU "optimized", you can read complains about that almost everywhere. For example, games that are not multicore supported are Medieval 2 and Empire. Since I usually play Empire Total War, which is a game of 2009, I made some tests and I discovered that this game only uses 2 cores! well, not even 2 cores, the game engine fully uses 1 core and try to support the load of the first core using a second one up to 70% of load. As a result, CPU is bottlenecking GPU with not so big armies. Fortunately, this is not longer the case of other Total War games, but in some extent, this is an issue of almost every Total War game up to Attila Total War (2015) included, and seems that was fixed in Thrones of Britannia (2018). For a game such as Empire Total War, which is one of the most problematic of the saga, you have the case where a GPU Nvidia GTX 970/980 is more than capable to run this game at max with very high FPs but the problem is the CPU that will bottleneck the GPU because regardless the CPU, the game engine will only use 2 cores. For Total War games, it is said that more cores doesn't help at all, because the game engine will not use them anyway, but latest Total War games at least use 4 cores and if velocityg4 is right, Three Kingdoms, the latest one, uses 6 cores which is an amazing improvement. So, in Total War games from Empire (2009) to Attila (2015) the most demanding hardware is CPU because of optimization but also from Rome 2 (2013) to the latest one Three Kingdoms (2019) GPU is also big demanding and you need top gaming GPUs. Attila is the worst optimized game of the saga, because inherit the CPU problems of Empire + needs a monster GPU (even considering that is a game from 2015, even current RTX cards may struggle). Also Total War games, as far as I know, don't support SLI.

All of this is just to say that I don't want to have huge armies, but at least a CPU that can run the games with decent armies without "dramatic" fps drops. So, if Total War games are limited by the use of cores (except Three Kingdoms), what is the key to have a good CPU performance?

 

[Dugimodo]

You want High IPC AND high clock speed, which translates to any current Gen i5/i7, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7. All have at least 6 cores, good IPC, and good clock speeds.

If it was me personally I'd wait for a Ryzen 3600X which is shaping up to be the best bang for your buck gaming CPU on release, failing that a 2600X or the i5 9600/9600K whould be my other choices.

The Ryzen 7 and i7 are also great but it comes down to budget and diminishing returns. I have a 2700X I built myself for my birthday last year and so far everything runs great on it, but I don't play total war to comment on that. Honestly my CPU never gets near 100% because I overshot my needs Easy enough to look up the 2600X total war benchmarks
and know that the 3600X will be better.

 

[jorge_medion]

Sorry for my ignorance, but doesn't Intel have better IPC, better frequency and single core performance than AMD?

 

[Dugimodo]

Yes it does, but the advantage over Ryzen is not that great and in most games doesn't matter unless you are trying for >120fps on say a high refresh monitor.
For pure gaming intel still has a small lead, for everything else including price Ryzen is just a better deal and all round performer.

Which is why I suggested the 3600X, if the hype is true then it has a much improved IPC/clockrate and should be matching or bettering current intel offerings, and without the security bug that has intel suggesting turning of hyperthreading for some users.

If you are 100% focussed on gaming performance and want the best FPS possible with currently available CPUs then go for a 9600K/9700K. Ignore the i9 it prices itself out of contention IMHO. If you don't mind waiting a month to see how the next gen Ryzen fares in real world testing, do that.

I am confident though that as I suggested earlier any of the latest i5/i7 or Ryzen 5/7 would be up to the task and game very well.

 

[TerryLaze]

Nobody knows yet how much better ryzen 2 will be but I very much doubt ryzen 2 will be able to bridge such an gap.
As you can see from the second pic you still only get decent usage from just two cores.
And if you have done as many benches as you said you also know how much worse FPS you get in battles compared to the bench because the battles are even less threaded.
Get the newest intel CPU with the highest clocks you can afford if you have to you can go for less cores if that means higher clocks,even for all other games a 6 core intel CPU is still faster then anything AMD at least currently has.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97sDKvMHd8c

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-hJ6XNT6og&t=1363s

 

[jorge_medion]

Thank you for your reply TerryLaze. Looks like Intel i7 "k" series are the best CPU for Total War game since most of Total War games don't support more than 2 cores. I read somewhere else a while ago some people speaking about terms I am not familiar with: "horse power cpu" and "single core beast". What do you think those terms can be?

 

[TerryLaze]

terms I am not familiar with: "horse power cpu" and "single core beast". What do you think those terms can be?

Basically what you see in the videos/pics.
Per core the performance of intel in games is 30-40% higher, it has more "horse power" it's a (per) single core beast because it has so much more performance.