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Should I go for 2 or 4 cores for an all around CPU?

I

IlliterateDino

Junior Member
I'm trying to decide between 2 or 4 cores. The thing is, I do everything with my PC. Everything from gaming, video editing, movies, web browsing, the works. Are 4 cores useful enough now, or should I save some money and go with 2?
 
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I think you should go for 4 cores now. There are more and more games that make use of them. And if you want your system to be good for gaming for the next 2-4 years, I suspect the majority of game(-engines) will make good use of those 2 extra cores.

I think 4 cores +Hyperthreading is still not worth it for gaming.

When I got my i5-3570K, I did some testing with Skyrim. By allowing the game to run only on 2 cores, I could simulate a 2-core system. The test might not have been perfect, but it seemed that even in Skyrim, those 2 extra cores would give me a ~20% fps boost. While the word on the street is that Skyrim only used 2 cores.
 
From my experience so far their really isn't much program that utilise 4 cores (threads)

Still I would get 4 cores to be safe in the up coming years
 
infoiltrator said:
How tight is the budget?
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This. Even with intensive multitasking of software that uses all four cores, I'd still rather have a high-end dual core with Hyper-threading like an i3-3220 with a fast SSD than a quad core like an i5-3570 with a mechanical hard drive. If you can afford an i5 and an SSD, absolutely go quad. If you can't, I'd think about an i3 and an SSD.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
This. Even with intensive multitasking of software that uses all four cores, I'd still rather have a high-end dual core with Hyper-threading like an i3-3220 with a fast SSD than a quad core like an i5-3570 with a mechanical hard drive. If you can afford an i5 and an SSD, absolutely go quad. If you can't, I'd think about an i3 and an SSD.
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Kinda low budget. I was thinking about a i5-2320
 
As many times as it's been said, I must concur, 4 is what you want. I hope that's enough responses for you to make a decision.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
This. Even with intensive multitasking of software that uses all four cores, I'd still rather have a high-end dual core with Hyper-threading like an i3-3220 with a fast SSD than a quad core like an i5-3570 with a mechanical hard drive. If you can afford an i5 and an SSD, absolutely go quad. If you can't, I'd think about an i3 and an SSD.
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doesn't make sense to me, get 8GB of RAM and you'll never be limited by the HDD IMO.
 
4 is the sweet spot unless you're a light/moderate user. Then 2+2 (2 real cores + whatever flavor fake core you want) is the sweet spot.
 
IlliterateDino said:
I'm trying to decide between 2 or 4 cores. The thing is, I do everything with my PC. Everything from gaming, video editing, movies, web browsing, the works. Are 4 cores useful enough now, or should I save some money and go with 2?
Click to expand...


"video editing"

- This, how important is that to you?
But really, how many $'s are you going to save on a new build by NOT going 4 cores ... 40$ ? Who cares ..
 
soccerballtux said:
doesn't make sense to me, get 8GB of RAM and you'll never be limited by the HDD IMO.
Click to expand...

I guess all those SSD sales were a con then lol. Do you have a SSD? The performance in general tasks is night and day compared to a HDD, doesnt matter if you have 256GB of RAM.
 
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