Is Quad Core Worth It? What's the prediction of future games using quad core?

[bullbert]

If I build a computer in the next 6 months, would building using a Quad Core be better for gaming and general activities? I would put a SSD and a good vcard on it.

So just wanting to know how many games will utilize quad core in 2010 and beyond.

Thank you for answering.

Depends....

If the people who have answered do not know:
* when you intend to upgrade again
* your budget
* type of gaming and type of "general activities"
then they gave you the wrong answer.

SSD?!? why? Good god, just, why?!? If you have more money than Bill Gate's clone-son, then sure, why not. But otherwise.....

a $950+ quad core, or a Hot Deals $50 slow quad core (or a Hot Deals screaming fast $50 dual core)??? edit: or any of several dozen choices in between

It just depends. Any inexpensive dual/quad core and middle-of-the-line video card will probably serve you well (do not know your demands), but if you have deep pockets and want the best....

 

[cbn]

Windows 7 doesn't arbitrarily make AMD's stuff run slower. I do know that Windows 7 increases performance on Intel processors because it manages hyperthreading better than Vista, but that's not in any way unfair. Are you suggesting that people should run tests not on Windows 7?

Hyperthreading isn't going to help the Core i7s much. (re: most games don't use over four threads AFAIK).

P.S. I wish there was another gaming OS. However, at the moment aren't we stuck with Windows 7 as the sole platform? A recent Anandtech article tested Linux for gaming and found it inefficient (significant amount of FPS drop) compared to Windows.

I wasn't aware that there was any game that favored AMD.

I thought there were a few that favored AMD but not by the same margin that Intel often gets.

 

[jimhsu]

Depends....

If the people who have answered do not know:
* when you intend to upgrade again
* your budget
* type of gaming and type of "general activities"
then they gave you the wrong answer.

SSD?!? why? Good god, just, why?!? If you have more money than Bill Gate's clone-son, then sure, why not. But otherwise.....

a $950+ quad core, or a Hot Deals $50 slow quad core (or a Hot Deals screaming fast $50 dual core)??? edit: or any of several dozen choices in between

It just depends. Any inexpensive dual/quad core and middle-of-the-line video card will probably serve you well (do not know your demands), but if you have deep pockets and want the best....

You probably haven't owned a SSD yet.

In my experiences with a dual core + SSD, I believe an SSD finally justifies a quad core for non-multithreaded apps. There is nowhere clearer than at Windows startup - on a dual core, I now get lag on startup not because I am random IO limited (which is in a hard drive), but I am actually CPU limited (both cores pegged at 100% for about 20 seconds). It's quite easy to verify this when you look at task manager and see the CPU usage is 100%, and disk queue lengths in resource manager are below 1. Similar examples occur during actual computer use, especially working with multiple heavy applications (Adobe suite, CAD/CAM, 3d modeling, scientific, video). If you don't work with multiple heavy applications and use just one (i.e gaming), then it depends on the game - you might be fine with a dual core and a regular hard drive, or you might not.

PS I sure wished I went for quad core (have a E8400 instead, which is still good) when I was doing After Effects and genetic algorithm prediction of physical and financial data. It would also have been helpful when I was juggling Photoshop, 3ds max, blender (darn export tools), 2 game instances, one game editor, and miscellaneous odds and ends. Anyways, it depends on your usage case.

 

[Mothergoose729]

Hyperthreading isn't going to help the Core i7s much. (re: most games don't use over four threads).

P.S. I wish there was another gaming OS. However, at the moment aren't we stuck with Windows 7 as the sole platform? A recent Anandtech article tested Linux for gaming and found it inefficient (significant amount of FPS drop) compared to Windows.



I thought there were a few that favored AMD but not by the same margin that Intel often gets.

The direct X API is closed source, MS only. Wine and other emulators try to recreate similar effect with OpenGL, which is no where near as efficient. Macs are the same way, although developer support is better and the experience with the few supported games is adequate.

 

[qliveur]

Yes.

That is all.

I concur, especially if you don't plan on upgrading for a while.

Seems like the best deal right now is the Core i5 750, unless you live near a Fry's.

 

[zerocool84]

If you play a lot of RTS's then yes quad matters. RTS's thrive on quads. Me though I'm staying 775 and going to upgrade to a quad cus I don't want to have to buy a mobo/ram all over again.

 

[grimpr]

+100 for the recommendations for the Quadcore/SSD duo.

Cant get more powerful than that. Forget the expensive CPUs if you're not into heavy apps/calculations. An Intel Core i5 750 coupled with the Postville G2 80GB SSD or an OCZ Vertex is a bonafides system, go for it, you'll be glad you did and after a months experience you can bet that the CPU centric mentality that haunts many and most propably you too, will vanish into thin air.

The i5 750 and the SSD is a component marriage done in heaven, so sweet,swift and elegant, you maybe even shed a tear after their first day and night together (initial setup).

 

[cbn]

The i5 750 and the SSD is a component marriage done in heaven, so sweet,swift and elegant, you maybe even shed a tear after their first day and night together (initial setup).

+1

But if the OP is focused more on a Budget Core i3 530 seems hard to beat for gaming on Windows 7.

P.S. Another nice thing about buying entry level is that if the user chooses to upgrade later finding a used Core i5 750 at nice price shouldn't be difficult (re: For a long time quad core was the lowest CPU you could buy for LGA 1156 so the market is already flooded with the upgrade processor). This is in sharp contrast to LGA 775 where the majority of CPUs were dual core and the remaining Q9xxxx quad cores will begin to command a premium as buyers buy up the New old Stock.

 

[grimpr]

Upgrade to what? the only option is Sandy Bridge in a years time and in this case you cant guarante that Sandy will run on current boards. If its here and now, as previous posters wrote, a quadcore is the path to satisfaction. Nothing beats 4 physical cores friend, nothing, not HT,nor clocks. When the user beats the system hard with brutal multitasking, a quadcore is smooth sailing where the dualcore starts to show its empty promise. And in the case of the SSD, those 4 cores will be happily fed and ready for everything that comes their way.

 

[MrK6]

If you're building a new gaming rig now, it's absolutely foolish to not get a quad core. Many more games are taking advantage of quads now and more are coming, never mind the performance advantages of quad cores in other realms, especially general system performance.

 

[cbn]

Upgrade to what?

Upgrade from Core i3 to Core i5 750.

If you're building a new gaming rig now, it's absolutely foolish to not get a quad core.

Not everyone buys a $200 CPU though.

 

[RussianSensation]

Again this logic of getting a $125 Core i3 now to upgrade to a used Core i5 750 in 12-15 months hardly makes any sense. Even if you could somehow manage to get a Core i5 750 for $75 used in 12 months, your total net cost is still $200 (not factoring in the $ from selling a Core i3). The problem is:

1) You cannot guarantee that core i5 750 will be $75 or even $100 in 12 months
2) The net outcome is more or less the same. Might as well spend $200 TODAY and enjoy full 12 months of quad core goodness now.
3) If history is any indication, Intel simply stops producing processors and replaces them with a faster model at the same price. Therefore once Core i5 750 is replaced by Core i7 860 at $199 price level, there will not be that many Core i5 750s for sale. This will likely drive up the price of used Core i5 750s above $100 in much the same way Q6600, Q9400/9500 are usually above $100 nowdays. Again, even if bought at $100 you are still not better off.

Back then a Quad was $300 at least and a dual core could be bought for low $150s. But now the price differential makes almost all dual cores worthless (aside from budget overclocks like E5300 for $70).

Also think of it in the context of a full system:

Say you spend $600 on a system, with a $125 CPU or $675 dollars with a $200 CPU. So you are paying just 12.5% more for 2 extra Core i7 cores! No brainer.

 

[Hey Zeus]

The ONLY reason for going to an I3 now is to wait for the 32nm quad's which should be out in Q4

 

[grimpr]

If you want the ideal Dualcore, then take a look at AMD's Bulldozer. Dual DuoCore CPUs at 80% efficiency of a todays true Quad. If it lives up to the specs,design,ipc and overclockability at 32nm process, it will bring mayhem to prices and totally obsolete the current dualcores, but thats far off to next year.

 

[RussianSensation]

The ONLY reason for going to an I3 now is to wait for the 32nm quad's which should be out in Q4

The thing is, as far as I remember Intel did not announce any 32nm quad core processors for sockets 1156 or 1366. The first quads on 32nm should be Sandy Bridge Q4 2010 and large-scale availability Q1 2011. "At the end of 2010, once Intel has gained sufficient experience with the 32nm process, the chip-maker will introduce a new microarchitecture, codenamed Sandy Bridge."
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/components/0,1000001694,39854661-6,00.htm

The only new processor will be Gulftown 6-Core 32nm Westmere refresh for Socket 1366. Unless Intel is ahead of schedule to launch Sandy Bridge (which will likely be Q4, not Q3 2010), 2010 is going to be very boring on the CPU desktop front.

So really unless you are waiting for a brand new socket for Sandy Bridge (which I don't see being less than $250-300 at launch), then there is no point in waiting. Again, it will be interesting to see how Sandy compares to AMD's next gen processor.

 

[cbn]

Again this logic of getting a $125 Core i3 now to upgrade to a used Core i5 750 in 12-15 months hardly makes any sense. Even if you could somehow manage to get a Core i5 750 for $75 used in 12 months, your total net cost is still $200 (not factoring in the $ from selling a Core i3). The problem is:

1) You cannot guarantee that core i5 750 will be $75 or even $100 in 12 months
2) The net outcome is more or less the same. Might as well spend $200 TODAY and enjoy full 12 months of quad core goodness now.

Some people who buy Core i3 may not even want to upgrade. In fact, I suspect the frequent adopter would just bypass Core i5 750 altogether and wait till the next socket.

Its the person that kept his/her system longer than expected that might want to upgrade to Core i5 750 a few years later.

3) If history is any indication, Intel simply stops producing processors and replaces them with a faster model at the same price. Therefore once Core i5 750 is replaced by Core i7 860 at $199 price level, there will not be that many Core i5 750s for sale. This will likely drive up the price of used Core i5 750s above $100 in much the same way Q6600, Q9400/9500 are usually above $100 nowdays. Again, even if bought at $100 you are still not better off.

I am not so sure what you are saying about Core i5 750 is analogous to those highend LGA 775 quad cores mentioned. Core i5 750 was the default processor for LGA 1156 at launch much in the same way E6600, E6400 and E6300 was for people buying Conroe mainboards.

Therefore I am not so sure Core i5 750 will be "rare" in the same way as the legacy LGA 775 quad cores are to the masses of people who originally bought dual core.

Also think of it in the context of a full system:

Say you spend $600 on a system, with a $125 CPU or $675 dollars with a $200 CPU. So you are paying just 12.5% more for 2 extra Core i7 cores! No brainer.

Still this doesn't change the fact that not everyone will spend $200 on a CPU.

Some people re-use optical drives, PSUs, Cases, Hard drives, etc. So while "CPU vs total system cost" is true for new system buyers, it is not true for everyone.

 

[cbn]

If you want the ideal Dualcore, then take a look at AMD's Bulldozer. Dual DuoCore CPUs at 80% efficiency of a todays true Quad. If it lives up to the specs,design,ipc and overclockability at 32nm process, it will bring mayhem to prices [/b]and totally obsolete the current dualcores[/b], but thats far off to next year.

The dual module Bulldozer is ,in fact, a true quad core right?

P.S. Why do you think Bulldozer will outperform Intel in dual threaded programs? I have heard of a New Turbo called "C-state performance" but I don't know how it works.

 

[cbn]

The ONLY reason for going to an I3 now is to wait for the 32nm quad's which should be out in Q4

The 32nm Xeons with 12mb L3 cache will be out in march for x58.

The thing is, as far as I remember Intel did not announce any 32nm quad core processors for sockets 1156 or 1366.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2033369

 

[grimpr]

The dual module Bulldozer is ,in fact, a true quad core right?

P.S. Why do you think Bulldozer will outperform Intel in dual threaded programs? I have heard of a New Turbo called "C-state performance" but I don't know how it works.

Technically, its a DualCore BD with "DuoCore" tm Cores. It will be marketed as a Quad ofcourse, the OS will see integer 4 cores. By doing this it brings down the costs of manufacturing and slashes the prices. Single Core BD with "DuoCore" tm Cores will be marketed as a Dualcore and so on. As for the performance, noone knows and in reality noone cares, in its current state its just a presentation slide without anyone knowing the rest of the Architecture and the Caches, except that it supports some nifty FPU tricks like Fused Multiply Accumulate just like the modern GPUs do and feature power gating almost everywhere like the Nehalem does, Turbo Mode etc.. If it "lives", then things change, for the positive, Core i7 performance at half the price, pity that it has to compete against Sandy Bridge by then, a highly tweaked turbo charged Nehalem preparing for GPU integration. 2011 is gonna be interesting.

 

[MrK6]

Upgrade from Core i3 to Core i5 750.
Not everyone buys a $200 CPU though.

Not all quad cores are $200.

Again this logic of getting a $125 Core i3 now to upgrade to a used Core i5 750 in 12-15 months hardly makes any sense. Even if you could somehow manage to get a Core i5 750 for $75 used in 12 months, your total net cost is still $200 (not factoring in the $ from selling a Core i3). The problem is:

1) You cannot guarantee that core i5 750 will be $75 or even $100 in 12 months
2) The net outcome is more or less the same. Might as well spend $200 TODAY and enjoy full 12 months of quad core goodness now.
3) If history is any indication, Intel simply stops producing processors and replaces them with a faster model at the same price. Therefore once Core i5 750 is replaced by Core i7 860 at $199 price level, there will not be that many Core i5 750s for sale. This will likely drive up the price of used Core i5 750s above $100 in much the same way Q6600, Q9400/9500 are usually above $100 nowdays. Again, even if bought at $100 you are still not better off.

Back then a Quad was $300 at least and a dual core could be bought for low $150s. But now the price differential makes almost all dual cores worthless (aside from budget overclocks like E5300 for $70).

Also think of it in the context of a full system:

Say you spend $600 on a system, with a $125 CPU or $675 dollars with a $200 CPU. So you are paying just 12.5% more for 2 extra Core i7 cores! No brainer.

Exactly, excellent logic.

 

[Rezident]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704&p=12

Speaking of Crysis. The top CPU is actually a LGA 775 dual core. The next fastest group are the Nehalem quads with Turbo mode. Slower than that are the various 32nm dual cores with HT. Athlon II quad core from AMD brings up the rear.

Yes in my own tests on 775 the fastest dual-core (E8600) is about 10% faster in Crysis than the fastest quad-core (Q9650) but I wouldn't really expact games from 2007 to be optimised for quads.

 

[bullbert]

...snip... SSD discussion continues...
Similar examples occur during actual computer use, especially working with multiple heavy applications (Adobe suite, CAD/CAM, 3d modeling, scientific, video). If you don't work with multiple heavy applications and use just one (i.e gaming), then it depends on the game - you might be fine with a dual core and a regular hard drive, or you might not.

Ah, maybe I falsely assumed anyone doing "real work" on a computer were using anything OTHER than a MS OS on anything OTHER than a mainstream Intel/AMD CPU (i.e Sun, Unix, etc). These high end (expensive) CAx systems are exactly for what SSD was developed.

For a gamer though, I still think the money spent on SSD is far better spent to upgrade the GPU first, and the CPU second. Besides, it seems to be the gamer demographic who insists on Tbytes of HD for, eh, hem, not so legit movie download storage.

When SSD become cheap, Hot Deals here I come too. Until then, I will scrape by with my dirt slow SATA $40 HD deals. I still survive on the "smallest" HDs (~0.5TB) since they are cheap and I do not need loads of storage. It amazes me still, that some niche hoarders can keep 100s of games installed on their machines (strictly for epeen reasons) without having to do multiple HD/OS wipes and OS reinstalls per year. edit: or maybe they reformat/reinstall on a more routine basis, and that is part of their secret formula as to how their MS OS machine stays unproblematic