An honest understanding of thread count and utilization.

[Vya Domus]

Games have always used more and more CPU power as time goes on , that includes using more threads. Just fire up Crysis 3 , a title from 2013 and notice how it eats up all threads. At the same time you'll notice that it doesn't really matter because the frame rates don't improve that well past a certain point , it's a strange bottleneck that you can't really figure out since neither the GPU or CPU are being maxed out.

So whats happening ? Are more cores useless for gaming ? Nope. It's the API's that's holding things back , it doesn't matter how well threaded the game engine is ( which often it is) if when it comes down to drawing the scene you run into a massive software bottleneck trying to feed the GPU.

So games benefit greatly form more cores and CPU power in general , it's just that you don't really get to see that in action unfortunately.

 

[r9]

If I only used apps that utilize only like 2 cores I would just 4 at the same time, problem solved.
Its just to make the the reviews comparable you run one test at the time.
How about measuring FPS while Rendering for example.
I would love to see a review performing simultaneous CPU and Gaming tests.
7700k would give 10% more FPS compared to Ryzen 7 at a cost of double the utilization.

 

[64K]

This is still misinformation, because the assumption seemed to be based on gaming in general in the OP, and I would argue that there are many more pieces of software that utilize more cores, and while you may focus on the fact that I mentioned audio and video encoding, that doesn't mean those are the only multi threaded programs or that Apple is the only platform people do this on. I guess you will just have to accept there are more pieces of software out there that use more cores, regardless of weather or not you believe there are.

EDIT::

Just because people dont parade around the forums making sure everyone knows they emulate routers or environments on there PCs or code multi-threaded enterprise apps and simulate them on a local apache server doesn't mean that it doesn't happen. This is a tech forum not a gaming one.

It irritates me that it always comes down to wanting justification from people that want high core count CPUs when some of the more professional users probably dont even know WTF CS:GO is. It's a trend that is beginning to bother me at TPU, im starting to wonder if maybe people that utilize this stuff just stay quiet and let the younger generation of users just piss on each other all day. Jsut because games don't use them and they aren't cranking out points for TPUs WCG team doesn't mean there CPUs are "wasted".

Don't let it bother you. I guess us gamers are just more extroverted and tend to post more. Frankly that's all I care about with my desktop is how it applies to PC gaming. I have no interest in any other uses except I keep an inexpensive gaming laptop for when I travel and of course surfing the web, videos, email and light business uses away from work hence I have no opinions to post on some of the uses that you mention. I think I still belong on a tech site though because that's how I keep up with and discuss hardware as it applies to gaming. Also this tech website has a leaning towards gaming imo. That to me is a good thing but I guess it helps to produce the kind of lopsided posting that annoys you.

 

[Solaris17]

Don't let it bother you. I guess us gamers are just more extroverted and tend to post more. Frankly that's all I care about with my desktop is how it applies to PC gaming. I have no interest in any other uses except I keep an inexpensive gaming laptop for when I travel and of course surfing the web, videos, email and light business uses away from work hence I have no opinions to post on some of the uses that you mention. I think I still belong on a tech site though because that's how I keep up with and discuss hardware as it applies to gaming. Also this tech website has a leaning towards gaming imo. That to me is a good thing but I guess it helps to produce the kind of lopsided posting that annoys you.

Sorry I took that way to out of context, It got a little under my skin but I also didn't mean to direct it @silentbogo so I apologize, I tried to articulate a response without really thinking. I only meant to say that its not really as uncommon as you might think being in the field myself.

Thanks for grounding me.

 

[infrared]

Edit: rant withdrawn, I don't want to start an off topic flame war.

 

[xkm1948]

A while ago people don't understand why you need 64bit processors. "32bit runs perfectly on my XP" they say. "Who in their right mind needs more than 2GB of RAM" they say.

Well time flies. With applications needing more and more RAM people are forced to use 64bit because of the 32bit RAM limit. So now if you ask again you will find the majority of people use only 64bit OS.

Same goes for more core/threads. The need for it is slowly building up thanks to years of catching up on the developer end. Trying using a single core P3 or Athlon today and you will find the results quite suffering.

In short, the software ecosystem will FORCE you to switch to more core/threads in the future.

It's a valid point, but has a lot more quirks than you'd expect.

I think games will catch up on CPU resource utilization long-long before productivity and content creation software. The way it is going right now, it may be sooner than we think.

Emm, nope. 99% of the software I use for my research wants to be fed as much core/thread as possible. Some of my daily workloads can saturate a 20core 40thread Xeon perfectly.

 

[phanbuey]

A while ago people don't understand why you need 64bit processors. "32bit runs perfectly on my XP" they say. "Who in their right mind needs more than 2GB of RAM" they say.

Well time flies. With applications needing more and more RAM people are forced to use 64bit because of the 32bit RAM limit. So now if you ask again you will find the majority of people use only 64bit OS.

Same goes for more core/threads. The need for it is slowly building up thanks to years of catching up on the developer end. Trying using a single core P3 or Athlon today and you will find the results quite suffering.

In short, the software ecosystem will FORCE you to switch to more core/threads in the future.




Emm, nope. 99% of the software I use for my research wants to be fed as much core/thread as possible. Some of my daily workloads can saturate a 20core 40thread Xeon perfectly.

Yeah same... All the data tools we use would love infinite(jk) cores... might get crushed on the licensing tho

 

[xkm1948]

Yeah same... All the data tools we use would love infinite(jk) cores... might get crushed on the licensing tho

And infinite RAM as well. Too bad current intel HEDT is limited to 128GB right now. I do hope threadripper and I9 can up that to 256GB

 

[Durvelle27]

MOARRRRR POWAAAAAA

I'm shooting for 16C/32T

 

[Toothless]

It doesn't help I was looking at multi-socket servers recently for WCG and other applications but the same issue came up of "then what of those extra threads?"

And I don't really have room for one. Maybe another tower..

 

[Vayra86]

I feel that any CPU purchase / upgrade today, should really be focused on at least grabbing an additional two, or four physical cores even if its just for gaming. There are three major reasons to do this:

- SMT/HT has its limitations, physical cores still matter
- CPU has become rather stagnant in terms of IPC increases, we are also hitting frequency walls at 4 - 4.5 Ghz. This means a good CPU will last us a very long time, making a higher investment on one worthwhile
- It is becoming economically viable, or even necessary to use > 4 cores/threads on applications
- Higher core count CPUs that are affordable, are now available, allowing software to be built for it without excluding large groups of consumers

 

[Gasaraki]

So this has plagued me since Ryzen launched and maybe when the 5820k came out too. I've been used to four cored/thread chips for a good while and just recently in the last 6 months have been able to really use my 4790k's eight threads for goodies. (VMs, WCG, multiple programs and games all at once)

Then I see all these builds with those 6c/12 and 8c/16c chips for games and I can't find the understanding of do they really, honestly, truthfully require all of those threads for games or are they running a large amount of Odin-knows-what in the background? Do we need to have a mass movement to introduce these people to WCG? I feel as if we do.

The upgrade itch is there but when I look at it I always stop and think. "What in seven hells am I going to use 16 threads for? Second strongest GPU on the market (currently). A good chunk of memory which would be costly to replace, but for what?" I feel as if unless I'm dinked out my current chip and still REQUIRE more, there is absolutely no reason to upgrade and I hope I'm correct about that.

TL;DR dragon is having major sleep issues and has junk on his mind.

No, they really don't need the 8-core 16-thread monsters. Hopefully software (games) will catch up and take advantage of more than 4 threads.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

So this has plagued me since Ryzen launched and maybe when the 5820k came out too. I've been used to four cored/thread chips for a good while and just recently in the last 6 months have been able to really use my 4790k's eight threads for goodies. (VMs, WCG, multiple programs and games all at once)

Then I see all these builds with those 6c/12 and 8c/16c chips for games and I can't find the understanding of do they really, honestly, truthfully require all of those threads for games or are they running a large amount of Odin-knows-what in the background? Do we need to have a mass movement to introduce these people to WCG? I feel as if we do.

The upgrade itch is there but when I look at it I always stop and think. "What in seven hells am I going to use 16 threads for? Second strongest GPU on the market (currently). A good chunk of memory which would be costly to replace, but for what?" I feel as if unless I'm dinked out my current chip and still REQUIRE more, there is absolutely no reason to upgrade and I hope I'm correct about that.

TL;DR dragon is having major sleep issues and has junk on his mind.

Depends, five years ago i bought my fx8350 to a chorus of ,get an i5 ,an i5 would have been sold on ages ago, new board new memory ,more money.
My rigs above the 4k timespy default score now.
7353 combined.
Imho buy something that will last and build upon it.

 

[Ferrum Master]

No, they really don't need the 8-core 16-thread monsters. Hopefully software (games) will catch up and take advantage of more than 4 threads.

Gosh... come on you all, what decent game doesn't use 4+ threads now? Witcher 3 can use up to 12 threads, ME:A 6 threads, Prey up to 10 Threads, Overwatch up to 10 Threads... It ain't that bad already...

 

[EntropyZ]

One good reason. An almost decade old CPU will still be able to keep up with the new CPU's in multi-threaded applications. Even later GPU's will be barely bottlenecked. Usually you just upgrade your graphics card and you're good again for a couple of years, depending on how much you spend.

After upgrading from Phenom II X6 1605T @ 4.0GHz/Intel i5 2400 @ 3.8GHz to a Ryzen 5 1600 system (because games like Dying Light were hitting almost 100% usage on an R9 380) I am set to keep my current configuration for at least 5 years because most games are console ports, let's be honest here. (A good example are Bethesda Game Studios releases, but it's the worst case) Game developers won't bother trying to make an application scale past 4 to 8 cores for a long time.

It seems only a straight PC title with good optimization is able to make good use of extra cores and threads. Which to no surprise isn't the majority of video games made to the consumers.

If this changes, maybe we would find the need to have upgrades closer than before for gaming. But right now, that is the state for the CPU's that are used for gaming applications, it's been like that for a long time, too long.

AMD is trying to up the developer's game by cooperating with the devs. What they said was they're gonna optimize for the new gen CPU/APUs. But, as of now, they're gonna try and make a game scale up to 16 threads? (In a perfect world scenario) Which would be insane if they could do it. Intel CPU's could make use of the utilization as well but less so.

For me personally the CPU upgrade seems redundant, if the software isn't able to make most of its horsepower. But I put my money on what they said, AMD didn't promise anything. But if they were smart, they should pursue the idea of optimizing for higher core/thread counts.

Remember, without any kind of software written for hardware nowadays, it's mostly useless. Imagine a motherboard without a BIOS, it becomes a paperweight at that point. So taking that example. software that's not up to high standards can make any hardware look bad.

The current standard for gaming applications, the thought of that makes me laugh passive aggressively. The bar is pretty low, but someone has to raise it again. It just won't happen overnight. By the time something changes it's too little, too late.

My tree fiddy cents.

 

[cadaveca]

Meanwhile, in the PC of someone who gets all hardware for free:

Because... those who know, know, and those who don't, don't.


$150 USD, for a few more hours....

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117772

 

[Ferrum Master]

Meanwhile, in the PC of someone who gets all hardware for free

You change them as socks, you're not accountable

 

[silentbogo]

Emm, nope. 99% of the software I use for my research wants to be fed as much core/thread as possible. Some of my daily workloads can saturate a 20core 40thread Xeon perfectly.

Well, @xkm1948, I did mention something like that:

The only tasks that truly require that many cores/threads are 3D, CAD, Number crunching, and that last one - playing with ridiculous virtualized contraptions on a single machine.

Though, it's not quite in the ballpark of what the OP was talking about.

=============================================

@Solaris17 , I think you misunderstood my comment about games and content creation software. I was only bringing this up as an example of today's reality: game engines do improve much faster in terms of resource utilization and multiprocessing in general, and software like Photoshop only changes UI and licensing.

 

[eidairaman1]

Game devs focus more on consoles than pc, so they don't implement code to cause a game to detect threads beyond 4.

 

[phanbuey]

Game devs focus more on consoles than pc, so they don't implement code to cause a game to detect threads beyond 4.

yes - but the new gen of consoles is 8 core no?

 

[Toothless]

yes - but the new gen of consoles is 8 core no?

Current gen are 8 cored.

 

[Vya Domus]

yes - but the new gen of consoles is 8 core no?

Current gen are 8 cored.

And most importantly those cores are low clocked have terrible IPC. In other words devs are more or less forced to multithreaded their engines.

 

[Ferrum Master]

And most importantly those cores are low clocked have terrible IPC. In other words devs are more or less forced to multithreaded their engines.

On the other hand better code breaks the cinematic 30FPS experience.

 

[trparky]

And most importantly those cores are low clocked

Yeah, that's only because most people don't want their gaming console to sound like a jet engine taking off.

Your average person doesn't need more than four cores (8 threads), this is true; there's no arguing this fact. I consider myself a heavy user in the sense that I multi-task like crazy. I have a dual-monitor setup and I often have a lot of programs open at the same time on both monitors because that's just how I roll. I would never be able to get away with using anything less than two monitors, having two monitors are great. Even for a person such as myself a six core CPU (12 threads) would be more than enough for what I do on my computer.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

And most importantly those cores are low clocked have terrible IPC. In other words devs are more or less forced to multithreaded their engines.

So it shouldn't be too much of an issue to do the same for PC ports/PC exclusives which will benefit more from having higher clocked, higher IPC...

This thread confuses me, there seem to be some people who are genuinely butthurt that AMD has released a true 6c/12t-8c/16t desktop processor that isn't aimed or priced at the HEDT market BUT can compete with Intel as opposed to their previous architectures, one argument that comes up again and again is that 4c/4t is plenty, what about the i7 users over the last 8 years? the only reason more people haven't gone to 6+ cores on the intel camp is their monopoly over the last 10 years and the cost of such systems. I have 6c/12t Ryzen and don't feel I need to explain to anyone what I use my system for or justify why I need more than 4 threads... as mentioned this isn't a gaming forum, there are people who use their PC's for all sorts of things and affordable 6/8c - 12/16t chips will only open up this untapped requirement even more whilst pushing devs to support more cores, more threads and parallel computing. It's not a bad thing, I don't know why the hate from some people, Intel will be releasing HEDT chips at lower price points than they would have before Ryzen which you can see from recent releases so whether you're a die hard Intel or AMD fan it's good news, rainbows and unicorns all round, stop bloody complaining!!

Yeah, that's only because most people don't want their gaming console to sound like a jet engine taking off.

Your average person doesn't need more than four cores (8 threads), this is true; there's no arguing this fact. I consider myself a heavy user in the sense that I multi-task like crazy. I have a dual-monitor setup and I often have a lot of programs open at the same time on both monitors because that's just how I roll. I would never be able to get away with using anything less than two monitors, having two monitors are great. Even for a person such as myself a six core CPU (12 threads) would be more than enough for what I do on my computer.

I rest my case, you are comparing yourself to the rest of the population and ASSUMING most people are like you, what do you care if everyone adopts 64c/128t chips when they don't need them? you are fine with your 4 core, don't preach to everyone else as to what you think they should do with their time, money and systems... maybe we shoud all still drive Austin allegros that can barely accelerate past 60-70mph as that's the speed limit in most countries, why would you want anything else?