For a new rig - Is multi cores/threads the way to go above single/fewer core performance?

[Gimpymoo]

For a "do it all for you" rig, are we in a position yet where "more cores/threads" trumps single core performance?

Are we on the cusp of a "multi threaded heaven" or are we just simply nowhere near?

When looking at most "consumer" rigs, they are nowhere near.

Regarding games, if the rumours of next gen Playstation being Ryzen driven, could PC gaming go back into the dark ages of shoddy ports if 8 core titles are watered down to fewer cores on PC?

 

[Panos]

For a "do it all for you" rig, are we in a position yet where "more cores/threads" trumps single core performance?

Are we on the cusp of a "multi threaded heaven" or are we just simply nowhere near?

When looking at most "consumer" rigs, they are nowhere near.

Regarding games, if the rumours of next gen Playstation being Ryzen driven, could PC gaming go back into the dark ages of shoddy ports if 8 core titles are watered down to fewer cores on PC?

Next round of consoles are Ryzen + Navi based. More close to upper tier PC than dead low end.

PC ports might be watered down, given that there is a huge number of PC users with quad cores still, though they are already suffering on new PC tiles. See Monster Hunt world, BF5 and few other new titles this year. Where even the Ryzen 1600 at 4ghz performs better than the quad core Kaby Lake on those titles. Let alone the ancient quad cores. (again referring to new games)

Currently from all the games I play only those based on the Clausewitz engine are still single core high speed dependent.
And these games already show how bad this engine is, when the latest titles (Stellaris, HOI IV) break even a 8600K @ 5.2Ghz.
on the other hand we going to have more multi core games as we move away from quad core restriction lasted over a decade.

Though 8 core is not the new limit. Games like the X Foundations, is going to support 32 core CPU!!!!

 

[subbytna]

Bang for buck, 2600 cpu is the way to go.

If money is no object then a 8700k or wait until the new 9***series arrive

 

[Vince]

Bang for buck, 2600 cpu is the way to go.

If money is no object then a 8700k or wait until the new 9***series arrive

What? What kind of aspirations are these? If money is no object you would only rock an 8700k and wouldn't be looking towards a hedt platform given that the op states its a "do it all" rig (that will stand the test of time)? If money is no issue and you're looking at an all rounder that will last years, something like a Threadripper 2950x or if you really twisted my arm and convinced me with some sort of jedi mind trick power a 7980xe, would be where my money goes.

As for the op for any proper workstation that is put to work in almost any meaningful way that is not gaming, I would take a high core/thread count chip over a low core count high frequency chip every day of the week even if I drop a couple of frames in my favourite title, the experience is just better, If you want to actually be able to use a machine while it renders, perhaps game as well while its rendering and compiling code projects at the same time, something like an 8700k will literally be screaming at you to stop at this point where something like threadripper or that 7980xe will happily play along. If literally all I use the pc for is web browsing and gaming then the absolute best gaming chip right now then the 8700k or that 8086k are the ones to go for but for almost anything else its just an average or even below average chip (perhaps controversial but it's true).

 

[kitfit1]

What? What kind of aspirations are these? If money is no object you would only rock an 8700k and wouldn't be looking towards a hedt platform given that the op states its a "do it all" rig (that will stand the test of time)? If money is no issue and your looking at an all rounder that will last years, something like a Threadripper 2950x or if you really twisted my arm and convinced me with some sort of jedi mind trick power a 7980xe, would be where my money goes.

Mmmmmmm, yep, must be a really difficult choice........................................£850 or £1800 give or take a few quid.

 

[Vince]

Mmmmmmm, yep, must be a really difficult choice........................................£850 or £1800 give or take a few quid.

The choice would also be made even easier by the fact I'm running a 1950x atm and that sneaky £850 chip slots straight in. This is also why you would need the mind trick.

 

[kitfit1]

 

[crinkleshoes]

Single core performance still wins... as long as you have enough cores.

I remember readying stories of some people struggling with certain quad-core CPUs in BF1.

Hex-core 8700k is still the best gaming chip, by a large margin... and it's plenty quick enough for everything else, even a bit of video encoding or photo work... heck, some people use laptops for that.

Unless you're going to use so many cores really often, I don't see the point.

I "downgraded" from the 10-core 6950X @ 4.5GHz to get a 5.2GHz 8700K... and it's much faster in most of the things I do.

AMD IPC is still lagging significantly behind Intel... so I wouldn't choose that for gaming.

Even though I almost started a new project with 2990X... I changed my mind to stick with what I have as I don't do enough video work or similar things that need the cores.

 

[Panos]

Mmmmmmm, yep, must be a really difficult choice........................................£850 or £1800 give or take a few quid.

1920X a 12 core chip is at 350s these days

 

[jigger]

For a "do it all for you" rig, are we in a position yet where "more cores/threads" trumps single core performance?

Are we on the cusp of a "multi threaded heaven" or are we just simply nowhere near?

When looking at most "consumer" rigs, they are nowhere near.

Regarding games, if the rumours of next gen Playstation being Ryzen driven, could PC gaming go back into the dark ages of shoddy ports if 8 core titles are watered down to fewer cores on PC?

Depends what you are looking to do with the system. IPC and clockspeed makes some kind of sense for benchmarking/gaming with very highend cards at low resolutions. Move away from that scenario then cores count for a lot more.

 

[Radox-0]

As other's mentioned, depends on your use case. I have both a 7980XE and 8700k and both have their uses.

For a majority of users and gamers, the 8700k is the way to go. Some games may make use of more cores, but the 8700k with its Architecture (it actually shares the same IPC as the 7980XE at like for like single threaded clock speeds) and ability to hit higher clock speeds, it will usually lead the pack. Its why I suspect the 9900k or whatever its called will be even nicer with 2 extra cores if it retains the rest of the coffee lake specs (IPC, Ringbus, cache setup, Memory compatibility etc)

The 7980XE though is a powerhouse, more so when overclocked. However even though it has massive single core performance like the 8700k, thanks to Mesh, it will usually fall behind in tasks like gaming when the CPU is the boundary. For tasks that can actually leverage all the cores, it rips my 8700k a new one. Similarly and it may sound contradictory, bar a few games, for normal use I can rarely tell the difference between the 8700k and 7980XE as usually the limitation is with my GPU. If I was running a higher refresh rate panel, then a gap may open up. Similarly another annoying point with HEDT is it takes like 30-40 secs to boot vs 6-10 secs for my mainstream build, but thats a pet peeve.

TLDR for most users the 8700k or its 8 core replacements will smash through most tasks. I expect by the time games can actually leverage more cores and the point when the 8 core on mainstream loses out to higher core count CPUs which all have a latency penalty, then these CPUs will be obsolete anyways.

 

[humbug]

What? What kind of aspirations are these? If money is no object you would only rock an 8700k and wouldn't be looking towards a hedt platform given that the op states its a "do it all" rig (that will stand the test of time)? If money is no issue and you're looking at an all rounder that will last years, something like a Threadripper 2950x or if you really twisted my arm and convinced me with some sort of jedi mind trick power a 7980xe, would be where my money goes.

As for the op for any proper workstation that is put to work in almost any meaningful way that is not gaming, I would take a high core/thread count chip over a low core count high frequency chip every day of the week even if I drop a couple of frames in my favourite title, the experience is just better, If you want to actually be able to use a machine while it renders, perhaps game as well while its rendering and compiling code projects at the same time, something like an 8700k will literally be screaming at you to stop at this point where something like threadripper or that 7980xe will happily play along. If literally all I use the pc for is web browsing and gaming then the absolute best gaming chip right now then the 8700k or that 8086k are the ones to go for but for almost anything else its just an average or even below average chip (perhaps controversial but it's true).

I agree with subbytna, Skylake-X clock for clock actually has 10% worse gaming performance than Ryzen 2000.

8700K is the best gaming CPU, Ryzen is better than Skylake-X

 

[jigger]

I agree with subbytna, Skylake-X clock for clock actually has 10% worse gaming performance than Ryzen 2000.

8700K is the best gaming CPU, Ryzen is better than Skylake-X

If you ignore every other aspect and all the things wrong with the 8700K and just look at 1080p benchmarking with very highend Nvidia cards, then yes. Otherwise I'd have to say 6-8 core Ryzen, with the 2950X maybe the best chip money no object.

 

[kitfit1]

1920X a 12 core chip is at 350s these days

I was replying to a quote comparing the 2950x to the 7980xe, so where did you suddenly pull the 1920X from and what relevance does it have to my post ?

 

[arc@css]

Unfortunately, the price seems to have risen. The last time I checked it was around £500.

 

[Panos]

If you ignore every other aspect and all the things wrong with the 8700K and just look at 1080p benchmarking with very highend Nvidia cards, then yes. Otherwise I'd have to say 6-8 core Ryzen, with the 2950X maybe the best chip money no object.

Sacrilege, most people are gaming at 720p with GTX1080Ti
And nobody is using AMD GPU or anything less than GTX1080Ti or gaming at resolution higher than 1080p.

/sarcasm

the bellow benchmark proves your point tbh. Compare 2560x1440 on 8700K @ 5ghz with 2700X (or 2600X) at stock speeds with precision boost..... 0 difference.
Same story on all games currently at 2560x1440 and up.

https://gamegpu.com/rpg/ролевые/shadows-awakening-test-gpu-cpu#.W4vI_mtz4ww.reddit

Also must add RAM is a serious factor for Ryzen performance

http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-me...ryzen-7-2700x-on-the-amd-x470-platform_205154

 

[Troezar]

Sacrilege, most people are gaming at 720p with GTX1080Ti
And nobody is using AMD GPU or anything less than GTX1080Ti or gaming at resolution higher than 1080p.

/sarcasm

the bellow benchmark proves your point tbh. Compare 2560x1440 on 8700K @ 5ghz with 2700X (or 2600X) at stock speeds with precision boost..... 0 difference.
Same story on all games currently at 2560x1440 and up.

https://gamegpu.com/rpg/ролевые/shadows-awakening-test-gpu-cpu#.W4vI_mtz4ww.reddit

Also must add RAM is a serious factor for Ryzen performance

http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-me...ryzen-7-2700x-on-the-amd-x470-platform_205154

Exactly and 1440p is getting more accessible with cheaper faster monitors and faster GPUs. I'll be buying with 1440p+ in mind, even considering TR for the superior platform and sacrifice a few frames for longevity and the upgrade potential.