When do you really benefit from more than 6 cores in real-world scenarios?

[NewbieOverclocker]

I understand it is a relatively common question, and I have seen lots of benchmarks and tests etc on this, but I still struggle to understand:

when do you benefit from more than 6 cores? When does it make sense to have 8 or 12 cores, instead of 6?

For example, thinking of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 (6 cores) vs the 7 7700 (8) vs the 9 7900 (12), in what real-life scenarios is there a real benefit in having more than 6 cores?
There are loads of benchmarks, eg https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-5-7600-cpu-review , but it's never clear to me how much those benchmark numbers translate into tangible real-world differences

Aside from certain tasks which lend themselves very well to parallelisation, like encoding hundreds of video files, does having more core make sense only if you are constantly carrying out multiple tasks at the same time, eg you have 10 programs open at the same time and all running doing something?

To what extent is getting 12 cores about future-proofing your system, as in, there isn't a lot of software right now which makes the most of 12 cores, but there may be in the near future, so a 12-core system is more future proof than an 8-core one?

I imagine that, in many scenarios, the money you save buying fewer cores would be better spent buying more/faster ram, a faster SSD, etc, but, just in theory, if you already have the best other parts, when would you really benefit from more than 6 cores?

Thanks!

 

[Tetras]

in what real-life scenarios is there a real benefit in having more than 6 cores?

Many workstation apps will scale beyond 6 cores.

does having more core make sense only if you are constantly carrying out multiple tasks at the same time, eg you have 10 programs open at the same time and all running doing something?

Intel did videos where they used the hybrid architecture to demonstrate how you can keep a responsive system even when doing heavy tasks like rendering and playing a game while you wait, so more cores gives an intelligent scheduler the ability to multi-task in a way that would be impossible with just 6 cores.

Many games will now scale beyond 4 cores, though they don't usually benefit much from having more than 12 cores. Hardware Unboxed did tests on this (here) and for the average gamer, they found that things like Discord and a few browser windows didn't require extra cores (I think it was a few fps on a 6 core, literally).

To what extent is getting 12 cores about future-proofing your system, as in, there isn't a lot of software right now which makes the most of 12 cores, but there may be in the near future, so a 12-core system is more future proof than an 8-core one?

For gaming, what we've seen is that single-core performance is still very important and having more cores doesn't address this problem, e.g. a 4 core i3-12100 can beat older 6 and 8 core CPUs, just because it is so much faster than them.

That said, there's an interview with a game developer on MLID (I think Unreal? here) and he talked about where future CPU demands might be going and I can see in 5-10 years that some games will be capable of heavily loading 8-12 cores. If it is worthwhile trying to future proof for that? The past evidence would say no, but buying an 8-core CPU is a different cost to a 16-core. My personal perspective is that: if you want a CPU as a stopgap for 2-3 years until you get e.g. a 8800X3D, then the 7600/7600X (or 12400/13400) is fine, but for 5+ years I'd spend a little extra and buy a 7700/7700X or 13700/13700F. That should give games enough headroom until the PC needs an upgrade anyway. I don't think developers will rush to kill an 8-core CPU, seeing as the majority of gamers are still on 4 or 6 cores.

 

[Quartz]

Outside gaming and video, you mean? Excel is a big one. My brother does reservoir modelling for the oil industry and he and his colleagues have seen big improvements in performance in their multi-gigabyte spreadsheets going from 16 cores upwards. Excel allocates one thread per sheet in a workbook, so splitting the workbook into multiple sheets (e.g. one sheet per wellhead) helps massively. A crucial limitation he's found is that VBA is single-thread only - unrolling macros has helped performance significantly at the expense of spreadsheet size.

He also has line of business applications which benefit from multiple cores, though the benefit tails off as cores increase because of CPU-level (as opposed to core-level) cache limitations (that cache really needs to increase non-linearly with cores).

 

[Vince]

I understand it is a relatively common question, and I have seen lots of benchmarks and tests etc on this, but I still struggle to understand:

when do you benefit from more than 6 cores? When does it make sense to have 8 or 12 cores, instead of 6?

For example, thinking of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 (6 cores) vs the 7 7700 (8) vs the 9 7900 (12), in what real-life scenarios is there a real benefit in having more than 6 cores?
There are loads of benchmarks, eg https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-5-7600-cpu-review , but it's never clear to me how much those benchmark numbers translate into tangible real-world differences

Aside from certain tasks which lend themselves very well to parallelisation, like encoding hundreds of video files, does having more core make sense only if you are constantly carrying out multiple tasks at the same time, eg you have 10 programs open at the same time and all running doing something?

To what extent is getting 12 cores about future-proofing your system, as in, there isn't a lot of software right now which makes the most of 12 cores, but there may be in the near future, so a 12-core system is more future proof than an 8-core one?

I imagine that, in many scenarios, the money you save buying fewer cores would be better spent buying more/faster ram, a faster SSD, etc, but, just in theory, if you already have the best other parts, when would you really benefit from more than 6 cores?

Thanks!

12 cores, rookie numbers. Cores I have never really wondered about, I benefit greatly from the 24C / 48T in my machine especially when virtualisation etc comes into play... I do however wonder how people get by on just 16gb ram when my machine idles at 23gb usage with basically nothing happening. I've had scenarios where I'm running like 60% resources on my cpu and 40gb or more of memory usage and my buddies invite me for a game. On a lesser system I couldn't just jump in and play like the machine wasn't doing crazy amounts of other stuff in the background but with these modern chips you can happily join in with basically zero performance loss.

If I also look at just how system resources are chopped up by windows running whatever background stuff my system is running at any given time (its a lot) modern windows does solid work with splitting up resources over as many cores as you can throw at it:



And yes cpu virtualisation I have disabled in windows because I have a separate esxi environment on the same hardware I use for virtualisation tasks.

 

[FredFlint]

Outside gaming and video, you mean? Excel is a big one. My brother does reservoir modelling for the oil industry and he and his colleagues have seen big improvements in performance in their multi-gigabyte spreadsheets going from 16 cores upwards. Excel allocates one thread per sheet in a workbook, so splitting the workbook into multiple sheets (e.g. one sheet per wellhead) helps massively. A crucial limitation he's found is that VBA is single-thread only - unrolling macros has helped performance significantly at the expense of spreadsheet size.

He also has line of business applications which benefit from multiple cores, though the benefit tails off as cores increase because of CPU-level (as opposed to core-level) cache limitations (that cache really needs to increase non-linearly with cores).

I never understand why people use massive spreadsheets, I find them difficult to work with and slow. Its much better to create a basic database app using C# or VB.net. Can even get a third-party spreadsheets control so it looks and works like Excel but much faster and results/updates can be synced easily.

Anyway, for games and internet, a 6 core would do the job, but I still would not get one. Think the Intel low-to mid-range is the best value currently (think they have more than 6, P+E cores).

 

[Vince]

I never understand why people use massive spreadsheets, I find them difficult to work with and slow. Its much better to create a basic database app using C# or VB.net. Can even get a third-party spreadsheets control so it looks and works like Excel but much faster and results/updates can be synced easily.

Anyway, for games and internet, a 6 core would do the job, but I still would not get one. Think the Intel low-to mid-range is the best value currently (think they have more than 6, P+E cores).

Im proper sad I have an SQL Server back end locally for these sorts of tasks. You can just write queries directly into excel to manipulate the data, this massively reduces the overhead from the spreadsheet itself.

 

[FredFlint]

Im proper sad I have an SQL Server back end locally for these sorts of tasks. You can just write queries directly into excel to manipulate the data, this massively reduces the overhead from the spreadsheet itself.

Yes, I know, but I work as a programmer so I code apps for everything, even when I know a simpler method exists

 

[dave28]

multitasking is the answer.

12 or 16 cores can do more work at the same time.

but not everyone will benefit much from it and some can never have enough.

 

[Quartz]

I never understand why people use massive spreadsheets, I find them difficult to work with and slow.

They use them because they work. Excel is a hugely powerful tool.

Its much better to create a basic database app using C# or VB.net.

If you're a programmer. I suggested my brother learn Matlab but he doesn't want to spend the time. And time is money. He is very well remunerated for what he does. He has consulted / presented at government level. Excel spreadsheets are also easy to understand, transparent, and easily transportable.

 

[no_1_dave]

I like gaming while also encoding.
In the past I couldn't use my PC while encoding video but now I can play games with minimal performance loss. It's great

 

[Bencher]

I understand it is a relatively common question, and I have seen lots of benchmarks and tests etc on this, but I still struggle to understand:

when do you benefit from more than 6 cores? When does it make sense to have 8 or 12 cores, instead of 6?

For example, thinking of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 (6 cores) vs the 7 7700 (8) vs the 9 7900 (12), in what real-life scenarios is there a real benefit in having more than 6 cores?
There are loads of benchmarks, eg https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-5-7600-cpu-review , but it's never clear to me how much those benchmark numbers translate into tangible real-world differences

Aside from certain tasks which lend themselves very well to parallelisation, like encoding hundreds of video files, does having more core make sense only if you are constantly carrying out multiple tasks at the same time, eg you have 10 programs open at the same time and all running doing something?

To what extent is getting 12 cores about future-proofing your system, as in, there isn't a lot of software right now which makes the most of 12 cores, but there may be in the near future, so a 12-core system is more future proof than an 8-core one?

I imagine that, in many scenarios, the money you save buying fewer cores would be better spent buying more/faster ram, a faster SSD, etc, but, just in theory, if you already have the best other parts, when would you really benefit from more than 6 cores?

Thanks!

Don't get a 6 core in 2023. Even if all you do is gaming your system will be faster and more responsive with 8 cores. Loading times, shader compilation times (which are kinda becoming more common place nowadays) are better on 8 cores.

 

[jigger]

Do you really need 6 cores? 2 will get the job done eventually.

3 systems.

4c 8t. Can use for pretty for much all my works types, issue is it’s slow in completing and the desktop is unresponsive for large periods. Work flow is limited and tasks have to be run in series.

12c 24t. Can run more tasks at once while in a much shorter time and maintain a responsive desktop. Some occasional serial workflow required. Solid single and multi task performance. Great value for money system.

16c 32t. Can handle many tasks simultaneously while running a fully functional desktop. Very good performance no matter what I throw at it.

 

[jigger]

My average system core count is 12.8 so I benefit every day.

 

[FredFlint]

One more example, pre-loaded games on Steam take a long time to decrypt and install, more cores probably help speed it up. I don’t know if this is still the case as I stopped pre-loading stuff as it was faster to wait for the release and download it then.

 

[tommoT.Striker]

To be honest you can get away with four cores if all you do is just surf and watch movies and play the odd games. I have a 1065G7 Surface Pro with 16GB and it's just fine for this.

But having a 24 core rig for 4 years now changes your workflow. You can do everything all at once, no longer one project at a time. Only challenge is removing bottlenecks to ensure everything is utilised. I had 64gb Ram for a long time holding up the GPU and CPU usage. With 128Gb it runs much better. If you compile code, encode or upscale videos, render, run VMs, then the more cores you have the more time you save.

But if you're just a gamer, 8 cores will sort you for a while and trying to future proof with more cores hasn't been too worthwhile, considering the single core speed has increased a fair bit since Zen 1 and the 8700k days albeit by using more power to support higher clocks..

 

[NewbieOverclocker]

This is slightly off-topic, but:

On Excel: TBH if you are getting to the point where you need so many cores in Excel, it means you shouldn't be using Excel but something else.
Excel is great for quick, one-off calculations but scales very poorly.
The more your task is complex, business-critical and/or needs to be run periodically, the more you shouldn't be using Excel.

Also, Excel is not "transparent" at all. For the same level of complexity, a well-written piece of code will be much more transparent and easier to read and audit than a well-put together spreadsheet.
A nested if with 6 conditions is easy to read and understand in any coding language. 6 nested IFs in Excel are a nightmare.
if this > that then take green else take white is easy to understand; if(c4>m6,sheet2!l20,sheet4!m17) is much harder to audit and more error prone: what is m6? should it have been n5? etc etc

Just think that things live version control and unit tests are impossible to do properly in Excel and VBA; the mere fact that most spreadsheet people don't even know what those concepts mean says it all, really.

Look up what happened with the London whale scandal at JP Morgan. Part of the problem was a calculation error in Excel. Sure, the world is full of code with worse errors, but with code there is a well established framework to test for and catch these errors - not so with spreadsheets.

 

[NewbieOverclocker]

To be honest you can get away with four cores if all you do is just surf and watch movies and play the odd games. I have a 1065G7 Surface Pro with 16GB and it's just fine for this.

But having a 24 core rig for 4 years now changes your workflow. You can do everything all at once, no longer one project at a time. Only challenge is removing bottlenecks to ensure everything is utilised. I had 64gb Ram for a long time holding up the GPU and CPU usage. With 128Gb it runs much better. If you compile code, encode or upscale videos, render, run VMs, then the more cores you have the more time you save.

But if you're just a gamer, 8 cores will sort you for a while and trying to future proof with more cores hasn't been too worthwhile, considering the single core speed has increased a fair bit since Zen 1 and the 8700k days albeit by using more power to support higher clocks..

OK, so, for someone who doesn't use specialised software optimised for loads of cores and only plays the occasional game, I guess 6 cores would be enough?

When people say more cores let you do more stuff at the same time, what exactly does that mean? If we exclude CPU-intensive tasks like video encoding, does having multiple windows of things like Teams chat, Zoom video call, some Office software, a few browser tabs etc open benefit from more than 6 cores?

 

[jigger]

OK, so, for someone who doesn't use specialised software optimised for loads of cores and only plays the occasional game, I guess 6 cores would be enough?

When people say more cores let you do more stuff at the same time, what exactly does that mean? If we exclude CPU-intensive tasks like video encoding, does having multiple windows of things like Teams chat, Zoom video call, some Office software, a few browser tabs etc open benefit from more than 6 cores?

Most mobile phones could handle those workloads. What system do you currently have?

 

[NewbieOverclocker]

My current system is a 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 1600X with 16 GBs of RAM, bought 6 years ago

 

[james.miller]

if this > that then take green else take white is easy to understand; if(c4>m6,sheet2!l20,sheet4!m17) is much harder to audit and more error prone: what is m6? should it have been n5? etc etc

Whilst i completely agree, anybody building spreadsheets of any kind of importance without properly naming sheets, using tables and named ranges should be shot. It's not hard to make them much more readable than that.