Why do PC games only use 2 cores?

[Dark Comet]

With the Xbox 360 having 3 cores and 6 threads why do most PC games only use 2 cores? If games are wrote to take advantage of the Xbox's 360s 6 threads why is it that PC games (even ported ones) do not benefit from more then 3 threads max with the exception of GTA4?

Sorry if this has been asked before it just does not make sense to me.

 

[swifty_morgan]

what planet do you live on ?

 

[Dark Comet]

Why does the Xbox 360 not have 3 cores/6 threads and PC games use more then 2 cores?

 

[gamerk316]

Apparently, people don't open up task manager themsevles to check out usuage.

For one, almost every game I've brought in the past two years or so eagerly uses four cores [Bad Company 2, Civ V, Dragon Age, and a few others].

Of course, people forget there are significant downsides to using more CPU cores: You have to worry about synchronization a LOT more [performance bottleneck], you have to worry about any specific core slowing down bottlenecking the entire program [a problem I expect to see in the near future as we move to 8+ core CPU's].

 

[iam2thecrowe]

in a pc the key to multi core cpu's is the fact that you have so much other crap loaded, like anti virus, background downloads etc that use the cpu. if you have more cores you will see less slowdown when these background tasks happen. Also, some poor bloke has to code a game to take advantage of lots of cores. why would he bother if his game works fine on 2 cores?

 

[asteldian]

I believe PC games are now up to an average of 2.75 cores being used. But ultimately on high res gaming your GPU should be taking on the brunt of the work - that's why people spend almost up to 50% of their PC cost for the darn thing!

 

[Dark Comet]

Cheers for the replies guys. I guess that makes sense, and it shows when overclocking CPUs past 3GHZ @1080P gaming there is not much difference to FPS so it goes to show the game doesn't need more CPU so it would be useless to take advantage of more cores when the games getting all the CPU power it needs.

Also the cores in the Xbox 360 are considerably weaker then the cores in today's modern PCs so the Xbox 360 would benefit from the extra cores more.

 

[stillerfan15]

Great thread guys - I'm cool with my dual core AMD 240 proc and AMD 5570 playing 2005 and 2006 games for now. Thanks
Dave

 

[squareenixx]

Ah wrong most games now use 4 cores.

But the gpu really does most of the work anyways.

 

[dalta centauri]

...you believe? how about some proof?

Why would he need proof if it's his opinion?