More than 8-10 CPU cores just for games, is it pointless?

[g67575]

I noticed that some games do benefit from the 10900/10850's 10 CPU cores, but the difference is small vs 8 core CPUs like the 10700k and 5800X.

None of the CPU benchmarks I looked at showed any advantage in gaming for CPUs above 10 cores.

So, should gamers stick to 8-10 core CPUs for now? Then save their money for AMD 5nm /10nm Intel CPUs released in the next 1-2 years? Surely, that would be much better bang for buck?

Also, PS5/Series X games are optimised/designed for 8 CPU cores, so I'm doubtful most developers will bother optimizing for 10 or more CPU cores on PC ports.

 

[g67575]

Tbf, I think some strategy games like TW:Warhammer 2 may use 12-16 CPU cores in scenes with lots of units them, particularly in large 4 player matches.

 

[g67575]

What's interesting is, in gaming the 10900k often beats the best AMD CPUs, example here:
https://overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_ryzen_9_5900x_and_ryzen_9_5950x_review/19

Just very slightly ahead here too:
https://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd_ryzen_9_5900x_and_ryzen_9_5950x_review/22

 

[g67575]

I've heard this said a lot about 4K resolution. It's not really true, the games with high CPU utilization at 1080p resolution, will still have high CPU utilization at 4k resolution, providing the graphics card is powerful enough to cope with the higher res. The CPU utilization is generally only reduced if the GPU can't cope (running at lower framerates).

This is even more true with DLSS 2.0 enabled with 4k resolution, which can drastically reduce the load on the GPU (it's similar to running at lower display resolutions), and likely increasing the CPU utilization. The GPU utilization can usually be lowered quite a bit just by tweaking graphics settings too (if needed).

Higher clocked CPUs with more cores (8-10 CPU cores but maybe more in the future) tend to result in higher minimum framerates, especially when combined with high speed RAM.

 

[g67575]

All you need is 6 cores maximum for a game. 5600X performs same as 595X when it comes to gaming

I think this is only true for the 5600X, which seems to get excellent performance in just about every game. It's a very efficient CPU and a significant upgrade.

Most other 6 core CPUs will perform significantly less well though. Cyberpunk 2077 seems to prefer 8 core CPUs though. 8 core CPUs can also offer faster turn times in games like Warhammer II and Civilization 6, but the difference isn't massive.