Are 4C/4T quads obsolete for gaming?

[epsilon84]

I've read that a lot on this forum lately, that 4C/4T quads like the current i5 and upcoming i3s are effectively obsolete as gaming CPUs going forward, that they will stutter in upcoming games, that heavily multithreaded games like Battlefield 1 proves that the days of the humble 4C/4T quad are numbered, etc etc.

But is this really the case? I'm of the opinion that the situation isn't as dire as a lot of posters here make things out to be. I've argued that developers will always accommodate for the lowest common denominator, that to make a game unplayable on 4C/4T quads is effectively sales suicide as it would alienate the majority of gamers out there.

Here is Steams survey showing the breakdown of CPU cores amongst its user database:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/
8 core: 0.57%
6 core: 1.44%
4 core: 58.66%
2 core: 36.02%

This means a whopping ~95% of users are either running dual or quad core CPUs. Sure, some of those quads will be 4C/8T i7s (and to a small extent, 4C/8T Ryzens) but I'm sure cheaper i5s outnumber i7s in the majority of gaming PCs. After all, for the best part of the past decade the i5 has been known as the 'gamers CPU' whereas the i7 was always recommended more for productivity and rendering/encoding type workloads.

Assuming that 2/3rds of the 4 core CPUs are i5s, that would equate to 39% of Steam users running 4C/4T quads and 36% of users running dual cores. Would developers want to alienate 75% of gamers by making games run poorly on their hardware? I highly doubt it.

Speaking of actual gaming performance on 4C/4T quads in heavily threaded games, here is a look at the relative performance between a 7600K and 7700K in Battlefield 1 (skip to 3:10 for the multiplayer framerates)

Even at Ultra settings, the 7600K manages minimum framerates of 71-73 fps, compared to 84-85 fps on the 7700K. A measurable difference, yes, but not a night and day difference and not something that would make the game unplayable.

Forza Motorsport 7 is another game that seems to take advantage of more cores/threads, as shown by the strong showing of the 8C/16T 1800X and 6C/12T 1600X:
http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=threads/computerbase：forza-motorsport-7-cpu-benchmark.2520616/

This game shows some of the best core/thread scaling to date, yet despite all this, the 7600K manages a more than respectable 122fps avg / 67fps min and is not all that far behind the 7700K either. Keep in mind also that the 7700K has a clockspeed advantage over the 7600K (4.5GHz Max Turbo vs 4.2GHz Max Turbo)

Even the 2C/4T Pentium G4560 provides more than playable framerates, despite being well behind the pack in terms of overall performance.

Whilst most of the attention of the upcoming Coffee Lake release will be on the 8600K/8700K, I feel that the ~$120 i3 8100 will provide great bang for buck in budget gaming machines (especially when cheaper H series motherboards are released in early 2018) and is still more than powerful enough to power mainstream GPUs such as the GTX 1060 or even GTX 1070 without serious bottlenecking.

What are your thoughts and opinions on this matter? Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts, and please provide sources and data to back up your opinions if possible

 

[XavierMace]

Are their days numbered? Yes. Are they obsolete? No. I've been waiting for 10 years now for games to start properly multithreading. They've gotten better, but still not great about it after 10 years and I don't know many people who keep their "gaming" PC for 10 years. Many games that will (sort of) scale past 4 cores, often have the majority of their load on a single core which means single core performance is still a major factor. That's why you see such respectable numbers from Intel's quads, because of their higher clockspeed and single thread performance.

 

[Crono]

Kaby Lake and newer will be fine for a short while, it's Skylake and older (at stock clocks) that will struggle in certain games like BF1 if you are aiming for FPS high enough for high refresh panels (120/144Hz+) at 1080p.

So no, it's not a dire situation, and higher resolution rather than high refresh shifts the burden back to the GPU. But for anyone looking to have a CPU be "good" for gaming for the next few years, I don't think I can recommend 4-thread CPUs anymore.

 

[maddie]

Maybe we should start by defining the word 'obsolete'. The mere fact that over 90% of CPUs in the steam survey are 4C or less implies that they are not, unless people think that these gamers are fooling themselves. I think some here do have that belief. It's like thinking recreational sportsmen don't enjoy themselves because they can't, in most cases, compete with the pros.

What I think you mean is this.

Are 4C CPUs sufficient to have the best gaming experience? Answer is no.
Can you enjoy gaming on 4C or less? Answer is yes.

 

[SPBHM]

I remember some people on this forum claiming 4t was not enough back in 2013 because of that Crysis 3 level or BFMP64 or whatever, and still... I think you have to keep in mind that because a couple of games might struggle, it doesn't mean all that much, for other games necessarily, well the same for the opposite could be true, still, right now I think it's preferable to have more than 4t, but unless you really have a high end VGA it's not a problem for most.

 

[XavierMace]

Exactly. My HTPC is running the Xeon equivalent of the 3570K with a GTX970. It's perfectly capable of 1080p gaming. Is it capable of max settings and 120hz? Not on newer games. Does that bother me in the slightest? No.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've argued that developers will always accommodate for the lowest common denominator, that to make a game unplayable on 4C/4T quads is effectively sales suicide as it would alienate the majority of gamers out there.

Well, you're wrong.

At the height of the G3258 (Haswell OCable dual) craze, there were a couple of games released, that wouldn't even boot on that CPU, due to lack of threads. After some unofficial patches later, it was found that at least one of those games was actually playable on a high-clocked dual-core.

 

[eddman]

Well, you're wrong.

Yes, the lowest common denominator is not the only decision making factor for developers, but IMO quad cores will still be safe for a while.

When G3258 launched, quad cores had already been on the market for more than 7 years and had a ~43% share on steam's hardware survey in april 2014. Developers had to move on at some point and that was the point, even though the majority had dual cores.

https://images.hardocp.com/images/news/1399301710oI3ylZfKmo_1_1_l.jpg

6 and 8 core mainstream CPUs (not counting AMDs former endeavors that did not exactly catch on) just launched this year and as of now have a 2% share on steam.

 

[whm1974]

I highly doubt that the majority of PC gamers are going to buy six and eight core CPUs in large numbers anytime soon. I expect most of them, myself included, will simply wait until they need to upgrade first.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I highly doubt that the majority of PC gamers are going to buy six and eight core CPUs in large numbers anytime soon.

There were many, many AMD fanboy gamers that picked up FX-6300/FX-6350/FX-8xxx CPUs a long time ago. Granted, there are a lot more mainstream and fanboy Intel gamers, apparently, so the FX didn't gain huge market share (and for pretty good reasons).

I think CFL is a good reason for mainstream gamers to pick up 6-core CPUs though, especially if they're on something less than a 4C/4T CPU.

 

[mikk]

This game shows some of the best core/thread scaling to date

Forza scales very poorly with cores, saying that this is one of the best regarding core scaling is incorrect.

 

[whm1974]

There were many, many AMD fanboy gamers that picked up FX-6300/FX-6350/FX-8xxx CPUs a long time ago. Granted, there are a lot more mainstream and fanboy Intel gamers, apparently, so the FX didn't gain huge market share (and for pretty good reasons).

I think CFL is a good reason for mainstream gamers to pick up 6-core CPUs though, especially if they're on something less than a 4C/4T CPU.

My system is good enough that I can't justify building another one, even if I had the cash to spare. I'm sure there are many other PC Gamers who are in the same boat.

 

[epsilon84]

Forza scales very poorly with cores, saying that this is one of the best regarding core scaling is incorrect.

Well, there is sigificant scaling between the 1300X and 1600X. Even between the 1600X and 1800X there is some scalingb which shows it scales beyond 12 threads.

Games simply don't scale with cores/threads like Cinebench. You will hit diminishing returns at some point.

 

[epsilon84]

Well, you're wrong.

At the height of the G3258 (Haswell OCable dual) craze, there were a couple of games released, that wouldn't even boot on that CPU, due to lack of threads. After some unofficial patches later, it was found that at least one of those games was actually playable on a high-clocked dual-core.

As eddman pointed out, we've had mainstream quad cores since 2006 (remember the Q6600?) so by 2014 a 2C/2T was already massively behind the 8 ball in terms of threads. The G3258 made up for its lack of threads with 2 brute force highly clocked cores (when overclocked) but I don't think comparing the G3258 to an i5 or CFL i3 is valid because there is about 2% of users who currently run above 4 cores according to Steam. Its not like everyone is going to suddenly upgrade their systems now that 6C CFL chips are available. It will take years before quads are no longer the majority CPU on Steam.

 

[arandomguy]

Gaming is not specific enough of a work load.

 

[Z15CAM]

So what's a Sandy Bridge I7 2700K running at 4.8 GHz's with 2 AMD OC'd X-Fire 290X on a Z68 Mb under water on a 1440P IPS Display after 5 years with 16 G's of Green Samsung @ 1800 Mhz between 35 and 74C any different.

Perhaps 15% less, waiting for upgrade to justify the cost of upgrading?

PS: Running Win7 64 Bit Ultimate.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Gaming is not specific enough of a work load.

Agreed. Depends on the games and how demanding is the user. I am still gaming on an i5 2320. Works fine for me. I play mostly older games and dont play online however.
4c/4t is far from obsolete. May not be optimal for some newer games, but still adequate.

 

[Z15CAM]

I'm not primarily a gamer but do love the sparks to dial in games - I'm basically a Video Viewer and Encoder and it will take hell of a lot more to take my I7 2700K away.

Ryzen looks promising.

 

[arandomguy]

Agreed. Depends on the games and how demanding is the user. I am still gaming on an i5 2320. Works fine for me. I play mostly older games and dont play online however.
4c/4t is far from obsolete. May not be optimal for some newer games, but still adequate.

Sometimes I wonder if it gets lost how diverse the PC gaming crowd actually is.

PUBG today hit 1.6m million peak users while Steam hit 16m peak users. Battlefield 1 MP by historic peak was something under 200k.

 

[bononos]

Quads will probably stick around for a while longer. Its dual cores which are obsolete and they can still run AAA games but experience jitterring.

 

[CatMerc]

Your mistake was saying that minimums being close between the Hyperthreaded and none hyperthreaded CPU means they would feel close in gaming. The graph shows just how erratic the i5 is in Battlefield 1, and trust me, it's not a great experience. My 6600K is not a great match for Battlefield 1.

There's a reason frametime graphs are shown, and this is why.

On that note, they aren't obsolete yet. The absolute majority of games still work perfectly on them. But their days are numbered, and if you're spending 200+ dollars on a GPU these days, I'd say don't go with less than 4 threads on your CPU.

 

[whm1974]

Sometimes I wonder if it gets lost how diverse the PC gaming crowd actually is.

PUBG today hit 1.6m million peak users while Steam hit 16m peak users. Battlefield 1 MP by historic peak was something under 200k.

The PC gaming crowd is very diverse, playing games that will run on anything to AAA titles that bring high end systems to their knees. Most gamers play a mixture of both, and I doubt the the majority of PC gamers have high end systems anyway.

 

[scannall]

If you're building or buying something new, then yeah don't go 4 cores/threads. If it's what you have already, then it's fine. For now.

 

[Christopher Bohling]

I don't know if "obsolete" is the right word, but my experience moving from an i5-3470 to a Ryzen 7 1700 has been significantly positive enough for gaming that I don't recommend 4c/4t for gaming anymore unless you're on a strict budget.

Now I realize the Ryzen 7 is still not the ideal gaming CPU (and I didn't buy it just for gaming purposes) but the difference has been noticeable in games like Mass Effect Andromeda, where I would run into notably thread-limited situations in some of the more populated areas with my 3470 and get little drops and micro-stutter. With the Ryzen 7 those little issues are gone.

I realize that a newer i5 will do better than my old i5, but even looking at some 2017 open-world games it seems like those CPUs don't have much headroom, so I'd be worried for the future.

So basically what I'm getting at is that the overall experience with 8c/16t vs. 4c/4t - even for gaming, and even given Ryzen's meh single-core performance - has been enough better that I can't recommend 4c/4t for a new build unless you can't afford more.

 

[CatMerc]

I don't know if "obsolete" is the right word, but my experience moving from an i5-3470 to a Ryzen 7 1700 has been significantly positive enough for gaming that I don't recommend 4c/4t for gaming anymore unless you're on a strict budget.

Now I realize the Ryzen 7 is still not the ideal gaming CPU (and I didn't buy it just for gaming purposes) but the difference has been noticeable in games like Mass Effect Andromeda, where I would run into notably thread-limited situations in some of the more populated areas with my 3470 and get little drops and micro-stutter. With the Ryzen 7 those little issues are gone.

I realize that a newer i5 will do better than my old i5, but even looking at some 2017 open-world games it seems like those CPUs don't have much headroom, so I'd be worried for the future.

So basically what I'm getting at is that the overall experience with 8c/16t vs. 4c/4t - even for gaming, and even given Ryzen's meh single-core performance - has been enough better that I can't recommend 4c/4t for a new build unless you can't afford more.

Is the important bit.
Once upon a time it was recommended even for people that could afford an i7 to buy an i5, because the difference would be negligible.
Now not so much. If you CAN afford a 4C/8T CPU or higher, go for it. If not, a 4C/4T would do fine, but it won't be optimal.