Question Significant gains with extra threads/cores (1080p): myth or reality?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
J

jana519

Senior member
Jul 12, 2014
771
100
106
There's a popular myth that extra threads/cores will result in significant performance gains for gaming at 1080p.

I present to you exhibit A:

85192.png



85193.png


85194.png


Here we see from none other than our own Ian Cutress that in 3 games benchmarked at 1080p, there is less than 2% performance gain realized from 4 additional threads.

Based on this data, it's ridiculous to recommend extra threads/cores for the average PC gamer. We, as a community, need to stop propagating this myth.

I look forward to your vigorous and data based rebuttals.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
G

guachi

Senior member
Nov 16, 2010
761
415
136
Anything more recent than these ancient benchmarks?

I've seen a few videos (like at Tech Deals) that show major limitations with 4c/4t CPUs.

He actually plays the games and said in many titles the stuttering and other issues was really noticable regardless of where the average fps showed m
 
  • Like
Reactions: aigomorla
Upvote 0 Downvote
L

lobz

Platinum Member
Feb 10, 2017
2,057
2,856
136
jana519 said:
There's a popular myth that extra threads/cores will result in significant performance gains for gaming at 1080p.

I present to you exhibit A:

85192.png



85193.png


85194.png


Here we see from none other than our own Ian Cutress that in 3 games benchmarked at 1080p, there is less than 2% performance gain realized from 4 additional threads.

Based on this data, it's ridiculous to recommend extra threads/cores for the average PC gamer. We, as a community, need to stop propagating this myth.

I look forward to your vigorous and data based rebuttals.
Click to expand...
Is this a troll post or you just simply can't read?

The point is: there are a lot of games now that stutter a lot with less than 8 threads and the minimum FPS numbers are horrible, and the number of these games will only increase.

Inserting 3 graphs with 3 games where the average framerate doesn't suffer, shows only this: you either have no idea what you're talking abut, or you're just trolling. I can't decide.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: CHADBOGA, f2bnp, DAPUNISHER and 2 others
Upvote 0 Downvote
kschendel

kschendel

Senior member
Aug 1, 2018
263
193
116
It's easy to say "gaming" as if it's all one, and I do it myself sometimes; but this sort of thing is where the generalization breaks down.

Multi-threaded game engines benefit from more cores, up to the number of simultaneously busy threads the engine wants. More cores beyond that help relatively little, and then only by offloading background system activity.

So the question "will more cores help" can only be answered in the context of a specific set of game engines, and what versions of those engines, and how many active threads they are programmed to run. If you're running an old WoW that's essentially single threaded, then no of course more cores does nothing. And likewise for any other game engine that runs just a small handful of threads.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ryan20fun
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

BigDaveX

Senior member
Jun 12, 2014
440
216
116
jana519 said:
Based on this data, it's ridiculous to recommend extra threads/cores for the average PC gamer. We, as a community, need to stop propagating this myth.
Click to expand...
Right. I'm sure it's just a total coincidence that the end result of this would most likely be people recommending Core i7/i9 CPUs over Zen 2.
 
  • Like
Reactions: lobz
Upvote 0 Downvote
tamz_msc

tamz_msc

Diamond Member
Jan 5, 2017
3,770
3,590
136
jana519 said:
Post the data if you have it. The lazy argument with no facts or data presented is not a rebuttal of any standard or measure.
Click to expand...
What's there to argue? You've posted some old benchmark charts with a GPU bottleneck that doesn't tell anything of substance whatsoever. Also, AT gaming benchmarks are useless except the 720p low and 1080p medium results because they still haven't got anything faster than a GTX 1080 to test their games.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
C

Campy

Senior member
Jun 25, 2010
785
171
116
Yeah we should all be buying 9350K /s

There is so much good information available that you obviously either haven't looked for it, or intentionally avoided it. I don't understand which purpose this thread serves.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
J

jana519

Senior member
Jul 12, 2014
771
100
106
I'm hearing outrage and denial, but so far no evidence or data has been presented to dispel or disprove my position.

Honestly disappointed, was expecting more. I'll be hanging onto my i5-6600K and 1080p, no good reason to upgrade unless I want a higher resolution monitor.
 
Upvote -5 Downvote
Cogman

Cogman

Lifer
Sep 19, 2000
10,277
125
106

Supreme Commander Uses *all* 4 Cores

Ripped from Video ... it *belongs HERE* Topic Title: Supreme commander Quad core ready ? CPU whore SC *needs* more than 2 cores to run really well and SC is the "first" :P http://au.gamespot.com/features/6166198/p-6.html...
forums.anandtech.com forums.anandtech.com

Tada! Old game that does better with more cores!

Whether or not a game will benefit from more cores is going to depend on what the game is doing. Games with a bunch of physics, pathfinding, and objects flying around are (likely) going to do better with more cores.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jana519
Upvote 0 Downvote
J

jana519

Senior member
Jul 12, 2014
771
100
106
Maybe confirmation bias. I'm looking for evidence to disprove my assertion, and there's been scant presented so far. I presented 3 popular AAA PC titles with the resolution and average FPS in the image as clear as day, for all to see. One of those games (GTA V) still has tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of players today.

Hitman928 said:
Possibly a severe case of confirmation bias going on here?

BTW, from Iron Woode's post:

View attachment 15364

Compared to 4 cores, a 12 core CPU provided:

107% faster "average" fps
84% higher lows (taking 1% lows).

Nope, don't see much advantage there at all :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

No game title, no resolution shown. It could be a AAA title in 1080p, it could be a Chinese MMORPG in 4K for all I know.

You can call me old-fashioned, but I kind of liked the days when data and results were presented in a straightforward, clear format. Less clickbaity headlines, more substance and content. Not a fan of flash in the pan YouTube reviewers that are here one year and gone the next like so many media socialites on Twitter and Instagram. Give me good old-fashioned websites that have some actual professional journalism.
 
Upvote -4 Downvote
Iron Woode

Iron Woode

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Oct 10, 1999
30,876
12,383
136
jana519 said:
Maybe confirmation bias. I'm looking for evidence to disprove my assertion, and there's been scant presented so far. I presented 3 popular AAA PC titles with the resolution and average FPS in the image as clear as day, for all to see. One of those games (GTA V) still has tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of players today.



No game title, no resolution shown. It could be a AAA title in 1080p, it could be a Chinese MMORPG in 4K for all I know.

You can call me old-fashioned, but I kind of liked the days when data and results were presented in a straightforward, clear format. Less clickbaity headlines, more substance and content. Not a fan of flash in the pan YouTube reviewers that are here one year and gone the next like so many media socialites on Twitter and Instagram. Give me good old-fashioned websites that have some actual professional journalism.
Click to expand...
The resolution is 1080P and the game titles are in the video description.

Try looking there.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: Mopetar, f2bnp, Elfear and 3 others
Upvote 0 Downvote
T

teejee

Senior member
Jul 4, 2013
361
199
116
GTA V came five years ago (PC version), and was well known to be a really bad console port

The other two games are also more than 5 years old.

The fact that you claim that average fps for these ancient games is relevant for a discussion about thread-scaling makes a fact based discussion very difficult.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: Mopetar, loafbred, Makaveli and 5 others
Upvote 0 Downvote
H

Hitman928

Diamond Member
Apr 15, 2012
5,242
7,790
136
jana519 said:
Maybe confirmation bias. I'm looking for evidence to disprove my assertion, and there's been scant presented so far. I presented 3 popular AAA PC titles with the resolution and average FPS in the image as clear as day, for all to see. One of those games (GTA V) still has tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of players today.



No game title, no resolution shown. It could be a AAA title in 1080p, it could be a Chinese MMORPG in 4K for all I know.

You can call me old-fashioned, but I kind of liked the days when data and results were presented in a straightforward, clear format. Less clickbaity headlines, more substance and content. Not a fan of flash in the pan YouTube reviewers that are here one year and gone the next like so many media socialites on Twitter and Instagram. Give me good old-fashioned websites that have some actual professional journalism.
Click to expand...

You could, you know, watch the video like I did and clearly see that it is Assassin's Creed Odyssey at 1080p. I will say that AC:O is an outlier on how much additional cores benefit the game, but if you'd actually watch the video you'd see that there are good gains in every game they test moving up from 4 cores. In one instance the 4 core system drops to single digit fps (BF5). Yikes.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom