why do we need 6 cores?

[Helios1234]

My MSci project was a C++ program which we wanted to give literally as much CPU time of as possible. We ended up doing 12-day runs on dual Westmere Xeon X5650 boxes (12 cores). Even they were pretty slow compared to GPUs, if only we had time to port it to CUDA.

Same for my project as well. We needed more cores badly to get as many runs as possible and unfortunately it wasn't programmed to run on GPUs.

 

[Gundog48]

You don't play BFBC2 or Dirt 3 = 6 cores scaling.
http://www.techspot.com/review/403-dirt-3-performance/page7.html

You don't play or did not know that most games that are based on the UT3 engine will use 4 cores

You don't play or did not know that most games that are based on the Capcom MT Framework engine will use 4 cores

You don't play or did not know that most games that are based on the later source engine will use 4 cores like L4D TF2 ect...

You don't play or did not know that most games RTS will use 4 cores.

I could go on.

I do allot of multi tasking & the difference is night & day.

Maybe an oversight on my part. What I was trying to point out is that going for a faster Intel CPU with a lower number of cores is a far better choice for gaming than a 6-core AMD CPU which I have.

 

[Final8y]

It's not. Unless you are video encoding regularly, there's no point. I encode regularly and have noticed no discernible difference between my original Phenom x4 and my new 1055T. Fact is, hardly anything can make use of 4 cores, no games can make use of 6. Don't make my mistake and just get a nice i3 or i5, much better choice.

Maybe an oversight on my part. What I was trying to point out is that going for a faster Intel CPU with a lower number of cores is a far better choice for gaming than a 6-core AMD CPU which I have.

If starting from scratch then yeah get the Intel but we cant assume that people are starting from scratch.

Updating from an AMD dual to an AMD Quad or Hex is a worthwhile update.