Is more than 8 cores still overkill for high end gaming for 1440P with RTX 4090

[Wolverine2349]

Are there any games that actually meaningfully benefit from more than 8 cores?? I have researched and most say no or an extreme rare few like shorter turn simulations or something or only if doing lots of streaming in background. Though some say games are starting to scale now to as many cores as you can throw at it though many disagree and say there is no proof of that and while games are more threaded it is limited to only a ertain number of cores and threads and 8 is easily enough and will be for many years as games are just impossible to make parallelism to lots more cores when coding them which mean they are a few thread limited and will be for years to come??

So is even 6 cores and 12 threads enough for high end gaming with an RTX 4090 at 1440P. And thus 8 cores 16 threads provides a little headroom for high end gaming?? Or do any games actually start to benefit from more than 8 cores meaningfully?? This is of course would be doing no streaming and no background tasks other than of course NOD32 AV, HWInfo64 and MSI Afterburner and other simple Windows services on WIN10 install with spyware shutdown.

I do like the idea of future proofing a bit, but not at all a fan of Intel e-cores. To me the Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake parts are 8 core 16 thread CPUs with excellent P-cores and of course e-cores shut off to be a monster 8 core 16 thread gaming powerhouse.

Then you have AMD with the new Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPUs which have made some good gains, but they run so hot. Pkus they still seem a bit behind even Alder Lake in gaming well tuned let alone Raptor Lake. Though you can get more than 8 strong cores?? However however, only 8 strong cores on a single CCD/ring and I hear games are very latency sensitive, so if a game that scales beyond 8 cores or 6 cores in case of 7900X (2 6 core CCDs), would there be a latency penalty with thread communication cross CCDs causing a big dip in 1% and 0.1% lows in games?? I hear it is an issue on Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X, but it was fixed with Ryzen 9 5000 series?? Though was it only fixed by ensuring game threads stay on one CCD and if it had to hop over to the other or communicate with each other the other core on other CCD a big hit?? Or is that not at all an issue?? Obvious it is not for productivity work, but for games it is a different animal I hear.

Then there is Ryzen 7000 X3D chips coming out. Do you think those will hammer even a well tuned 13900K with e-cores off and fast DDR5 in gaming or will they trade blows?


Your thoughts.

 

[Tomgang]

i will say 8 core is still the go to choise. Either go for 13700K or wait for AMD zen 4 3D models. That would be my choise of sensible cpu for now.

Don´t go for weaker CPU´s than that like AMD zen 3 chips. That will bottleneck 4090 in some cases, even at 4K. 4090 needs a powerful CPU to feed it.

And yes i do se potential in that Zen 4 3D models can beat 13900K. I am also holdding back for now with CPU upgrade to se what Zen 4 3D can do.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

V-cache is very good for lows (1/.1%) if you are sensitive to tearing or stuttering. The performance between 7700X and a P-core only Intel will be very similar (real-world) and more cores can only be used in some games.

Also, ML Raptor Lake seems to run just as hot as Z4.

Edit for clarity.

 

[Bill_Bright]

"Still" extreme overkill?

Was it ever considered extreme overkill? If all you do is play solitaire, then yes. Beyond that, it is all relative.

 

[cazzie.nl]

The RTX4090 itself is overkill for gaming, dlss3.0 is still under construction for most part and has displayport 1.4a only,
you pay an insane high price while most people don't use the full potential of it like video editing and rendering and such.

 

[GerKNG]

extreme overkill?
it never was "extreme overkill".

 

[Wolverine2349]

extreme overkill?
it never was "extreme overkill".

You say it was never extreme overkill. I mean like 4 years ago so many said 8 cores was way overkill for gaming?? And Intel HEDT 7-8 years ago with 8 cores wasn't that considered extreme overkill for gaming and even 6 cores was as no more than 4 cores and 4 threads provided any benefit back in 2014-2016?

V-cache is very good for lows (1/.1%) if you are sensitive to tearing or stuttering. The performance between 7700X and a P-core only Intel will be very similar (real-world) and more cores can only be used in some games.

Also, ML seems to run just as hot as Z4.

What is ML?? You mean Intel Meteor Lake?? Do we even know yet what Meteor Lake will bring as there has hardly been any info on it other than it is supposed to be released in late 2023. Will it have more than 8 strong cores options available??

 

[Ruru]

I'd get a 4K144 monitor with that "shut up and take my kidneys" card. That way the CPU hardly becomes a bottleneck.

 

[The red spirit]

Term "extreme overkill" only exists, if you genuinely think that there is at some point enough performance and more isn't better for you anymore.

 

[Wolverine2349]

i will say 8 core is still the go to choise. Either go for 13700K or wait for AMD zen 4 3D models. That would be my choise of sensible cpu for now.

Don´t go for weaker CPU´s than that like AMD zen 3 chips. That will bottleneck 4090 in some cases, even at 4K. 4090 needs a powerful CPU to feed it.

And yes i do se potential in that Zen 4 3D models can beat 13900K. I am also holdding back for now with CPU upgrade to se what Zen 4 3D can do.

Saying you could see Zen 4 3D could beat 13900K?? Could you see it hammering it badly, or just beating it a little. Some have said based n 13900K gaming results while good, not so good that it is a not a question of if the Zen 4 3D beats 13900K in gaming, but by how much??

Though maybe could you see 13900K with e-cores off and a good overclock of all 8 P cores and well tuned DDR5 RAM of say 7200MHz at least trading blows with 8 core 7700X3D as in winning in some games and losing in others. Or at very worst only being a little behind overall?? Cause I doubt you will be able to much tune a 7000 X3D as RAM tuning is limited and the L3 cache makes it useless almost anyways and regular Zen 4 already runs so hot and 3D cache is just going to make it worse limiting overclock ability on Zen 4 X3D.

And would you say 13900K is much better than 13700K cause of the extra L3 cache especially with e-cores off as P cores have full access to it.

Term "extreme overkill" only exists, if you genuinely think that there is at some point enough performance and more isn't better for you anymore.

I edited it to change it to overkill and took out the word extreme.

But in reality in your opinion for only gaming including multi player if you are not doing any streaming or running intensive background tasks other than the basic and HWInfo64 to monitor temps and MSI AfterBurner to monitor frame rates, is there any tangible benefit in any games to more than 8 cores on your CPU.

And if you think yes, how are the 7900X and 7950X?? Is there a penalty of having 2 CCD with cross latency that could severely dip performance if game threads swap CCDs or have to communicate with one another on different CCDs?? or no is it not at all an issue if a heavily threaded game is coded correctly??

of course I wish there was a CPU with more than 8 strong cores on a single ring/CCD. Last CPU with that was Intel Comet Lake series which had 10. And some of the Broadwell-E and Haswell-E had 10 on a ring as well. But those archs IPC is way way worse and outdated compared the modern CPUs so would not be an answer.

 

[Vader]

The whole 6 vs 8 cores thing has been in debate ever since the first Ryzen launch and so far, there have been no games that run significantly better on 8 cores.
It's pretty clear by now that in most cases, 8 core differences in performance can be attributed to increments in core frequency and/or cache amount.
For people in the 4090 buying range, it could be said that an extra couple hundred dollars for a bit more CPU performance is a small increment in the total platform cost and some people feel comfortable spending that for 3-5% more performance. To each their own.
If you want to look at the data, just read any reviews and compare, 6 cores have been the sweet spot since 2017

 

[cvaldes]

DarkSideOfGaming (DSOG) frequently posts analyses of how core/thread count affects performance for specific titles. The results vary by title so if you are interested in building a new rig specifically for a particular game that they have analyzed you really should read what they have to say.

Some games show benefits from multi-threading, other times they do not, it's just a certain number of cores.

From what I've read at DSOG over multiple analyses is that most games will be great with 6-8 cores and 12-16 threads and typically do not benefit from additional ones of either. Their methodology is to take one CPU and disable cores and threads then run the game so there are no architectural differences at play, just the number of cores and threads.

Of course, there are always a few exceptions, a handful of games that really, really love as many threads as they can get. My understanding is that Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of these titles.

You have made no mention of specific titles so no one here can provide exact guidance for you. If you are trying to decide on a CPU for a general gaming build, there have been many previous discussions on that topic. If you want to ask that same question, provide a budget (money and maybe power) first.

Best of luck.

 

[Wolverine2349]

DarkSideOfGaming (DSOG) frequently posts analyses of how core/thread count affects performance for specific titles. The results vary by title so if you are interested in building a new rig specifically for a particular game that they have analyzed you really should read what they have to say.

Some games show benefits from multi-threading, other times they do not, it's just a certain number of cores.

From what I've read at DSOG over multiple analyses is that most games will be great with 6-8 cores and 12-16 threads and typically do not benefit from additional ones of either. Of course, there are always a few exceptions...

There are a handful of games that really, really love as many threads as they can get. My understanding is that Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of these titles.

You have made no mention of specific titles so no one here can provide exact guidance for you. If you are trying to decide on a CPU for a general gaming build, there have been many previous discussions on that topic. If you want to ask that same question, provide a budget (money and maybe power) first.

Best of luck.

Generally AAA games. Like Elden Ring, Far Cry New Dawn, 5 and 6, GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2, maybe Cyber Punk and Watch Dogs 2 and Legion.

I have looked at benchmarks for tjhose games and most say they get no benefit from tons and tons of cores. Though you cannot skimp and go lite, but really seems no benefit going more than 8 cores. Even Microsoft Flight Simulator did much better on 5800X3D which is only 8 cores than 7950X which has double cores and far faster clocks to almost make up for lack of extra cache.

And some say even e-cores benefit Far Cry 6, yet Hardware Unboxed benchmarks with e-cores on or off shows FPS improvement all the way with e-cores off and even in Hitman 3 and Hitman 3 was like the only game that had a part dedicated to the e-cores.

Very odd that CS: Go and Starcraft 2 have better performance with e-cores on when they are like single threaded games. Yet some CPU thread heavy games benefit a lot with e-cores off which tells me e-cores not so good for gaming as their latency is very very bad despite in theory Haswell to Skylake IPC.

Though this benchmark below shows less difference and even shows e-cores help a little in Far Cry 6 which contradicts Hardware Unboxed.

Either way I would go with a Ryzen 9 for more than 8 cores as I am not crazy about the e-cores and WIN11 having to be used and general hybrid arch, but the cross CCD latency of dual chiplet Ryzens has me concerned or should it on Ryzen 9 7900X and 7950X??

 

[Vario]

7700X3D is the model to get in my opinion. Don't buy a non 3D Ryzen. This will be the CPU to get for gaming. Also, the more 8+ core parts out there, the more game developers will design games to use them.

Regarding E cores I have them, I leave them on, I don't think about them, the performance in games has been great, and that is Win 10 21 LTSC which is supposedly less optimized for E cores.

 

[P4-630]

Is more than 8 cores still overkill for high end gaming for 1440P with RTX 4090

If I would buy a 4090, I wouldn't run it with a lousy 6 core (compared with the GPU), you will see a bottleneck....

If you can afford such beefy GPU you can afford a beefy CPU imo....

 

[cvaldes]

Again, it depends on the game. I've read tons of reviews that cover multiple games that change one variable and there is never one hardware solution that is best in all situations.

In those reviews that cover 15-20 game titles, there are a handful of CPUs that top the list. The 5800X3D is one of them although it is not always the champion performer for every single title. It is priced very competitively compared to the others at the top of the list and as an AM4 processor, the cost to entry when considering the entire platform (motherboard + RAM) is pretty affordable.

Most of the competitive gamers optimize their equipment for one game.

Game designers are targeting 8-core systems since PS5 and Xbox Series X|S are all 8 core. Apart from budget constraints, it makes less and less sense to settle for a 6-core CPU in late 2022. The SoCs in these newer consoles don't have differentiated e-cores/p-cores so game programmers aren't likely to put tons of effort trying to optimize code for different kinds of cores.

 

[R0H1T]

Then there is Ryzen 7000 X3D chips coming out. Do you think those will hammer even a well tuned 13900K with e-cores off and fast DDR5 in gaming or will they trade blows?

A well tuned x3d 7xxx chip should beat a fine tuned 13xxx Intel competitor, I say this because depending on the level of tuning you can easily extract 1-5% more performance. I've done this mainly through software but you'd get similar results with hardware (tuning) as well, hammer it will not though & neither will the 13900ks to any of the 7xxx chips assuming it doesn't burn your house down first

 

[QuietBob]

A huge majority of games will be content with a modern 4c/8t CPU, unless you're chasing maximum fps. And in most cases the graphics card will have more impact on the frame rate than the CPU, especially when
you crank up the details. That said, a growing number of titles can saturate eight CPU threads, so they will run better on an 8c/16t SKU, where more game threads will get allocated to their own physical core.

There are other benefits to a greater number of processor threads, still. Games will install and load faster, and the initial shader compilation will take less time.

I know of only a handful of games that currently benefit from more than 8c/16t: Cyberpunk 2077, Civilization 6, and Spiderman Remastered among them.

 

[Wolverine2349]

If I would buy a 4090, I wouldn't run it with a lousy 6 core, you will see a bottleneck....

If you can afford such beefy GPU you can afford a beefy CPU imo....

Yes I agree. I am not going to go with a 6 core. Question is if more than 8 cores is worth it. I would go with a more than 8 core config except I have 2 things that give me pause. With Intel, you get no more than 8 good P cores and I do not like the e-cores nor the hybrid arch. So it would be an 8 core CPU for me.

With AMD, they have up to 16 powerful cores, but is it an issue them being on separate CCDs for cross communication latency for gaming. If so are 8 strong cores more than enough for gaming?? Or could I get the 7950X and lock all OS threads to weaker CCD and lock my game to the stronger one and maybe slight performance uplift?? Or is the dual CCD thing not at all an issue with game threads talking to each other in real time with no performance slowdown as I know games are so sensitive to that stuff unlike productivity apps and VMs that can scale to as many cores as you throw at them with no care towards latency cross communication.

 

[P4-630]

Read reviews/videos and compare.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

What is ML?? You mean Intel Meteor Lake?? Do we even know yet what Meteor Lake will bring as there has hardly been any info on it other than it is supposed to be released in late 2023. Will it have more than 8 strong cores options available??

Wow. I meant Raptor Lake banghead.

Both Intel and AMD have gone for the burning firey furnace approach, so temperatures are a moot point.

Platform cost? AM5 holds upgrade potential but has a higher initial cost. Zen 4 is a back-end redesign of Zen 3, which was a front-end redesign of Zen 2. I think AM5 is getting some beastly good CPUs coming to it.

As for the core count vs CCD latency, below is a little news story about that.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Posts Significantly Higher Gaming Performance with a CCD Disabled

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16-core processor exhibits some strange behavior with regards to the max boost frequency spread among its cores. A multi-chip module with two 8-core CCDs (CPU complex dies); we noticed early on in our review that the cores located in CCD-1 boost to a higher frequency than the...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[cvaldes]

Yes I agree. I am not going to go with a 6 core. Question is if more than 8 cores is worth it. I would go with a more than 8 core config except I have 2 things that give me pause. With Intel, you get no more than 8 good P cores and I do not like the e-cores nor the hybrid arch. So it would be an 8 core CPU for me.

Another thing you have not done is state how your current equipment is insufficient for your current usage case. You finally listed a few games that you actually play but you have given no indication what your current hardware is, what resolution you are playing at and where you'd like to be.

Are your games stuttering badly? Do you want to jump from 1440p to 4K@120Hz? Do you want to turn on ray tracing?

Debating the pros and cons of processors isn't all that productive unless some real goals are stated. After all a CPU is a tool, just like circular saw or a food processor.

If I buy a stand mixer, how many horsepower the motor is probably won't matter if I'm just mixing up batter for small batches of cookies a couple of times a month. If I'm trying to crank out multiple loaves of bread every day, that's a different situation.

Right now, there is very little context and we had to ask you to list games. What's your hardware? What's your budget? What's your goal? Do you have a timeline or are you willing to be patient for prices to drop?

There's always something better around the corner. The Ryzen 7800X3D will likely outperform the 5800X3D. It will likely cost more. It will definitely require a platform change (new motherboard + DDR5 RAM).

 

[Wolverine2349]

A huge majority of games will be content with a modern 4c/8t CPU, unless you're chasing maximum fps. And in most cases the graphics card will have more impact on the frame rate than the CPU, especially when
you crank up the details. That said, a growing number of titles can saturate eight threads, so they will run better on an 8c/16t SKU, where more game threads will get allocated to their own physical core.

There are other benefits to a greater number of processor threads. Games will install and load faster, and the initial shader compilation will take less time.

I know of only a handful of games that currently benefit from more than 8c/16t: Cyberpunk 2077, Civilization 6, and Spiderman Remastered among them.

For those games that do benefit from more than 8c/16, does it give them only higher FPS in CPU bottlenecked situations?? Does it just load them faster?? Or do the actual NPCs in densely populated areas come by faster??

 

[phanbuey]

So to give some examples -- there's no 'perfect' system, there's always going to be some tradeoff depending on use case. That being said 8 cores is the current sweet spot.

6 cores will judder in some badly coded games (cyberpunk) when assets spawns are aggressive (high pop density) or if you're running a bunch of stuff in the background (music etc.). 5800x3D can have noticeable dips/judder in games that have poor cache management (Rust) but overall is great. 7900x/7950x will stutter in games that can't schedule according to the CCD they use.

That leaves really the 7700x, 5800x3d, and 12/13700s as the sort of 'least problematic' sweet spot. 7800X3D will most likely be undisputed gaming king for a good while when it does come out.

 

[Wolverine2349]

I am trying to future proof a build a bit so it can last video card upgrades and even drop in a CPU upgrade potentially? I know with AMD they stated they are supporting AM5 through 2025, but will that mean it will work with Zen 5?? If not it is almost pointless except 3D vcache upgrade. Cause its possible they still use same socket but require a new chipset like Intel has done before??