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

[RoloMather]

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.

 

[coloumb]

Unless I missed the daily TPS report - the only games that have benefited/needed quad core are console ports [GTA IV, Red Faction, etc].

I'd say if you're budget allows it - go with the quad... as the 3 wheeler's were outlawed a long time ago due to idiots flipping them over.

 

[soccerballtux]

with 1k posts you should know better than to dp :/
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2039767

everything moving towards multicore. Crysis just a sign of more to come.

 

[mb]

Yes. i7 or bust.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

srsly? i thought we'd be straight with dual core for a while now.

 

[TheVrolok]

Need quad cores soon? Probably not, but if you have the money, why not? My Q6600 is what, 2+ years old now and I still absolutely love it. 'course, the Q6600 is a pretty sweet chip.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Unless I missed the daily TPS report - the only games that have benefited/needed quad core are console ports [GTA IV, Red Faction, etc].

I'd say if you're budget allows it - go with the quad... as the 3 wheeler's were outlawed a long time ago due to idiots flipping them over.

Farcry 2? Crysis? Hell even all Source games have added better multicore support (l4d, l4d2, hl2, DoD:S, CS:S).

So I am going to say that you missed the entire last two years in pc gaming.

IMO The question really becomes. How much of an extra cost is it going to be to you, and how much of a performance gain will you see.

So I post the question to you - do you plan on using multiple GPUs and/or the newest generation of videocards at a high resolution. If your answer is yes, you may see a significant fps increase from quadcore (read not i5).

However if you plan on spending a certain amount and quadcore will mean you must get a lesser gpu, then spend more money on the gpu and buy the cheaper dualcore.

 

[zerocool84]

It really depends on what games you're going to play. Some FPS's run better on quads and more and more will as well but RTS's thrive on quads infinitely more. Even older games like Company of Heroes run much better on quad with everything turned up. It runs decent on my overclocked dual but gets lots of slow downs when there's lots of action. I'm an RTS junkie so within the next couple months I'm ganna go quad. If you're ganna spend the money on an SSD you should have the money for a quad since they're cheap now.

 

[digitaldurandal]

delete

 

[EarthwormJim]

Unless you're seriously budget strapped, there's next to no good reason to buy a dual core system at this point. Everything is becoming multi-threaded, not just games.

The price difference between a dual core system and a quad core system is pretty negligible too. For something you intend to keep for a year or more, a $50 price difference (core i3 vs core i5) to have potentially double the processing power seems like a bargain.

 

[Acanthus]

Supreme Commander, its expansions, supreme commander 2 on the way this year, Crysis and all cry engine derivatives, all Unreal Engine 3 based games, GTA4 and its next PC expansion, and probably many more that i dont know about.

As others have said, unless you are on a very tight budget, quad is the way to go right now and it will be needed progressively more as time goes on.

 

[Fayd]

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.

i moved to an x4-945 from an e4400... i havent noticed a huge deal of difference...but then, i havent played any games that i played on the previous machine. mostly just dragon age, which wouldnt have ran well on the previous machine.

 

[Spoooon]

For gaming, would it be worth upgrading a Core 2 Duo 2.66 to a quad core in the same family? Or just wait until it's time to do a complete system overhaul? Not sure what games are coming up really. I think the most taxing things I've been playing is Crysis: Warhead and GTA courtesy of the Steam sale.

System:

Core 2 Duo 2.66 @ 3.1 or so
6GB ram
HD5870

 

[zerocool84]

For gaming, would it be worth upgrading a Core 2 Duo 2.66 to a quad core in the same family? Or just wait until it's time to do a complete system overhaul? Not sure what games are coming up really. I think the most taxing things I've been playing is Crysis: Warhead and GTA courtesy of the Steam sale.

System:

Core 2 Duo 2.66 @ 3.1 or so
6GB ram
HD5870

That depends on if you want to spend the money. Dollar for dollar the i7 is faster cus the 920 is a great buy and beats every Core 2 quad chip and is priced the same but you have to figure in costs like motherboard/ram which will drive the price up even more but will obviously give you more performance. If you stayed with a Core 2 Quad you just need to swap out the chip.

 

[Zenoth]

I almost upgraded a few months ago to i7, but my E8400 even with everything at stock runs everything I have thrown at it at maximum settings and so on, there's no games I've played so far that really made me think twice about not upgrading, none of the games I own run at slide show speeds, etc. I think I will upgrade eventually anyway, but there's just no rush in doing so even if I do have enough money for a good upgrade. I for one might just be waiting until Sandy Bridge gets out, since I'm not in a hurry at all.

 

[Ichigo]

Unless you're seriously budget strapped, there's next to no good reason to buy a dual core system at this point. Everything is becoming multi-threaded, not just games.

The price difference between a dual core system and a quad core system is pretty negligible too. For something you intend to keep for a year or more, a $50 price difference (core i3 vs core i5) to have potentially double the processing power seems like a bargain.

i3 has hyperthreading as compared to i5 though... so depending on overclock/pricing/etc., that particular comparison isn't as obvious as you might think.

 

[EarthwormJim]

i3 has hyperthreading as compared to i5 though... so depending on overclock/pricing/etc., that particular comparison isn't as obvious as you might think.

Hyperthreading is still no replacement for more cores.

 

[Sureshot324]

Currently there are plenty of games that take advantage of dual core, but very few that really run any better on quad. Games like Crysis and UT3 may technically support quads, but most of the work is being done in one thread, so you don't really get any benefit going beyond a dual. Pretty much the only game that really run better on a quad are some RTS's and console ports as mentioned.

It's hard to say if this will change in the future because we can't really take game developers word for it. Crytek was raving about how well Crysis takes advantage of quads, but when Crysis actually came out this was proven not to be the case.

 

[Skott]

I've been a dual core supporter up until recently. I'd say if you plan to do a new build then, yes, quad is now a good choice for gamers. As long as its a i5 or i7. I wouldn't bother with any of the others but thats just my opinion. This is of course excluding the AMD side of things. Speaking strictly of Intel CPUs.

 

[BladeVenom]

i3 has hyperthreading as compared to i5 though... so depending on overclock/pricing/etc., that particular comparison isn't as obvious as you might think.

Look at games that take advantage of quad core, and you see that hyperthreading doesn't compare to having two more cores. Check out Far Cry 2, and Dragon Age. The i5 750 is way out ahead of any dual core. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704&p=12 Expect more and more games to be like that in the future.

 

[Carmen813]

The i5 is great in Dragon Age...it made a HUGE difference from my dual core.

 

[sandorski]

There's no Budgetary reason to avoid Quad Core these days. It's available from the <$100 market segment. If you can't afford that, you're being extremely cheap.

Disclaimer: Assuming full system Build including CPU/Mobo/RAM

 

[bullbert]

Look at games that take advantage of quad core, and you see that hyperthreading doesn't compare to having two more cores. Check out Far Cry 2, and Dragon Age. The i5 750 is way out ahead of any dual core. http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704&p=12 Expect more and more games to be like that in the future.

How DARE you bring actual benchmarks into the discussion?!? Although to be fair, I wish they had included the faster AMD chips in the mix.

 

[bullbert]

There's no Budgetary reason to avoid Quad Core these days. It's available from the <$100 market segment. If you can't afford that, you're being extremely cheap.

Disclaimer: Assuming full system Build including CPU/Mobo/RAM

Prior to this newest CPU architecture change, there was a BIG budgetary reason to avoid Quad Core. The games ran better (for example) with a fastest available 3.2 MHz dual core, than with a fastest available 2.4 MHz quad core, and the dual cores were selling for 1/2 or 1/3 the price. You could even apply the $100-200+ CPU savings to really upgrade your GPU solution, for an even bigger boost to gamer performance. By the time you could even find a overclockable 3.0++ish MHz quad core, there were dual cores capable of being overclocked easily up close to 4.0 MHz.

But things have changed these last several months. I slept through one pre-release i7 presentation over a year ago, although I doubt it would have been technical enough for me, anyway. Oh well. I would not spend $500+ on a CPU today anyway, but that still beats the heck out of a $2700 Intel 387 coprocessor, fastest bin, of 21 years ago.

However I would still like to see a more thorough suite of benchmarks with a more thorough range of current CPUs.

 

[Mike Gayner]

Anyone still buying dual core for a gaming PC is a moron.