Minecraft: Is it really just pure Ghz or does the type of cpu make a difference?

[Lcarvone]

I am in the process of upgrading my younger kids computers. They both are starting to play Minecraft much more frequently and from what I have read the game is much more CPU dependent than anything. My question is should I focus solely on Ghz or is the generation of cpu have any bearing?

Example, I already have an old Dell Dimension 8400 in storage with 4gigs of DDR2 and a Pentium 3.8Ghz. Would a AMD Trinity A6-5400K (3.6 Ghz stock or 3.8Ghz turbo) with 4gigs DDR3 run just as fast because of the equal speed or would the "newness" of the Trinity provide higher fps? What about a Core i3 Haswell 4370 which also runs at 3.8Ghz?

Price consideration for cpu only with cost from Newegg....

Dell = no cost
Trinity = $45
i3 Haswell = $160

Any and all thoughts are appreciated

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It depends on the video card too, of course.

A Pentium 4 that old is going to chug regardless of clockspeed - the A6 and the i3 are both significantly more powerful clock-for-clock as well as having two cores instead of one.

In terms of bang-for-the-buck, the A6 would win - handily shaming the system you have for not too much money. The i3 would be a much better CPU for most computing tasks, but you'd probably wind up needing a graphics card too (the onboard graphics would work for minecraft, but not as well as the onboard graphics on the A6.) Which makes it even more expensive.

But for a kid's Minecraft machine, an A6 and an SSD would be a night-and-day step up from an old Pentium.

 

[Stuka87]

What video card are you using?

Either of those CPUs would be a huge improvement for you.

 

[digitaldurandal]

The architecture makes a huge difference. Ghz is just the speed at which data is cycling through the architecture, some architectures may take multiple cycles to complete a computation that another architecture can do in a single cycle.

This is why the P4 at 3.8 Ghz is slower in most games than the higher tier architectures at slower speeds.

I don't think Minecraft is very demanding however and the CPU you should buy is dependent on your GPU and your future plans. If you buy a P4 motherboard you will not have any real upgrade path without replacing the motherboard.

 

[Lcarvone]

What video card are you using?

Either of those CPUs would be a huge improvement for you.

Currently my daughter has a Geforce GTS 250 which I would swap out into the new system

 

[lord_emperor]

Dell = 60fps
Trinity = 600fps
i3 Haswell = 6000fps

I might be exaggerating or not who knows. The point is Minecraft is not a demanding game. I used to play on a Pentium E5400 with 4GB RAM and an NVidia 210 512MB all running under Linux. There's no practical difference compared to my actual gaming PC.

If your kids want to set 50,000 blocks of TNT and watch the explosion you might want to get an i7 though.

 

[mnewsham]

Currently my daughter has a Geforce GTS 250 which I would swap out into the new system

These days that is considered fairly low end, it is just as powerful as the integrated GPU in the AMD Kaveri A10 APUs.

But, it is still good enough for what you propose I suppose.

 

[ThinClient]

After having run several servers, myself, Minecraft is more known for being RAM hungry than anything. There are serious problems with that game's coding.

 

[Stuka87]

These days that is considered fairly low end, it is just as powerful as the integrated GPU in the AMD Kaveri A10 APUs.

But, it is still good enough for what you propose I suppose.

The GPU in the Kaveri is faster than a GTS250. The GTS250 was a VERY low end card when it was released, much less compared to the R7 class GPU in a Kaveri.

To the OP, do not re-use that GTS250. If you get an AMD APU, just use the integrated GPU. Down the road if you want something faster, you can buy another GPU. You can find R7-260X and GTX-750s for good prices these days.

 

[DigDog]

the answer is NO.

one thing is speed, the other is architecture. consider this the equivalent of a car vs a lorry in terms of carrying capacity.

new architectures have far more processing power at the same clock speed than older ones.
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/499/Intel_Core_2_Duo_E6600_vs_Intel_Core_i3_i3-4130.html
this chart shows you a comparison of two dual core, 3.4Ghz cpus. same speed, but the i3 has far more "carrying capacity".. ok you get my drift.

btw, minecraft doesnt really need a strong gpu, its all about cpu. i played it on a 4350..

 

[Yuriman]

It depends on the video card too, of course.

A Pentium 4 that old is going to chug regardless of clockspeed - the A6 and the i3 are both significantly more powerful clock-for-clock as well as having two cores instead of one.

In terms of bang-for-the-buck, the A6 would win - handily shaming the system you have for not too much money. The i3 would be a much better CPU for most computing tasks, but you'd probably wind up needing a graphics card too (the onboard graphics would work for minecraft, but not as well as the onboard graphics on the A6.) Which makes it even more expensive.

But for a kid's Minecraft machine, an A6 and an SSD would be a night-and-day step up from an old Pentium.

I'd like to toss in that the A6 has a cut down iGPU compared with the A8 and A10's, and though still faster than 43xx's iGPU, it's not so far ahead. In 3dmark, it has a roughly 20% advantage, so if you need a video card for the i3, you'll probably need it for the A6 too. Being AMD doesn't make it automatically faster.

CPU bottlenecks don't help either:

Source: http://www.sweclockers.com/recension/19400-amd-a6-7400k-kaveri-med-tva-karnor/1

I think either would run Minecraft acceptably, though, but if you're going to add a discrete card, a Pentium would be a much better choice.