Quad-core or Dual-core ? Which one do I pick ?

[toyota]

I would disagree but the ensuing debate would be pointless. I've run many games "maxed out" with far less hardware than others because I took the time to tweak and optimize everything instead of plug-n-chugging like most people do. Hell, I remember destroying many with my S3 video card in Unreal Tournament, a card which was often laughed at.

please get real. there are many games that cant run at 60 fps "maxed out" on a 4870 and E5200 and you know it.

 

[durace]

you all have missed the point! both are ideal!

a quad or dual will run all games fine.

the main point is the hardware has overtaken the software much...

 

[Gillbot]

please get real. there are many games that cant run at 60 fps "maxed out" on a 4870 and E5200 and you know it.

and there are probable just as many that CAN.

 

[toyota]

and there are probable just as many that CAN.

are you trying to see how many ridiculous replies you can make in one thread? you started this nonsense by taking my direct reply to someone else out of context. all I said was that there are plenty of games a 4870 and E5200 cannot max out and maintain 60fps.

 

[Arkaign]

are you trying to see how many ridiculous replies you can make in one thread? you started this nonsense by taking my direct reply to someone else out of context. all I said was that there are plenty of games a 4870 and E5200 cannot max.

Most currently popular games (Black Ops, BFBC2, Starcraft 2, Mass Effect 2, Mafia 2, etc) would be problematic on a stock 4870 and E5200 config, running the typical 2 or 4gb ddr2 that such a system would be running, at a common 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 display. Max details/settings on any of those games would choke that system way below 60fps average, with possible single-digit minimums in certain situations.

That's not to say one couldn't tweak the settings to look pretty good, and make the thing pretty playable, but all details/settings maxed out? No way. There are many games that are chuggy on full-blown 5870/GTX460 level cards at 1920x1080 unless you back things down a bit. Go try Metro 2033 on a 4870 w/5200 at 1920x1080 at max settings and have fun lol. Overclocking the 5200 to ~3.4ghz or so would help a bit of course.

But yeah, Toyota is correct. It's true that a lot of older titles can do max settings with that config, but basically all popular games released in the past 12 months outside of possibly New Vegas, would be chuggy maxed out.

 

[Markfw]

Most currently popular games (Black Ops, BFBC2, Starcraft 2, Mass Effect 2, Mafia 2, etc) would be problematic on a stock 4870 and E5200 config, running the typical 2 or 4gb ddr2 that such a system would be running, at a common 1680x1050 or 1920x1080 display. Max details/settings on any of those games would choke that system way below 60fps average, with possible single-digit minimums in certain situations.

That's not to say one couldn't tweak the settings to look pretty good, and make the thing pretty playable, but all details/settings maxed out? No way. There are many games that are chuggy on full-blown 5870/GTX460 level cards at 1920x1080 unless you back things down a bit. Go try Metro 2033 on a 4870 w/5200 at 1920x1080 at max settings and have fun lol. Overclocking the 5200 to ~3.4ghz or so would help a bit of course.

But yeah, Toyota is correct. It's true that a lot of older titles can do max settings with that config, but basically all popular games released in the past 12 months outside of possibly New Vegas, would be chuggy maxed out.

I agree, bottom line is, for NEWER games, you need a quad, and a good video card. The card first, then the quad is of secondary importance, but required for many new games at high settings to get a sustained 60 fps.

 

[Gillbot]

please get real. there are many games that cant run at 60 fps "maxed out" on a 4870 and E5200 and you know it.

Hmm, I see no "qualifiers" in there so that must mean that any and all games can't run right?

I would disagree but the ensuing debate would be pointless. I've run many games "maxed out" with far less hardware than others because I took the time to tweak and optimize everything instead of plug-n-chugging like most people do. Hell, I remember destroying many with my S3 video card in Unreal Tournament, a card which was often laughed at.

Hmm, looks like I was right.

I agree, bottom line is, for NEWER games, you need a quad, and a good video card. The card first, then the quad is of secondary importance, but required for many new games at high settings to get a sustained 60 fps.

EXACTLY but since he made a general blanket statement that was way off base to begin with, I decided to humor him and thus further prove my initial reply. An E5200 can run GAMES fine, I never said it would run the newest of the new "maxed out" blah blah blah.
I guess my example wasn't enough of a clue te enlighten him on his off base vague general reply.

Hell, I remember destroying many with my S3 video card in Unreal Tournament, a card which was often laughed at.

 

[toyota]

Hmm, I see no "qualifiers" in there so that must mean that any and all games can't run right?

Hmm, looks like I was right.

EXACTLY but since he made a general blanket statement that was way off base to begin with, I decided to humor him and thus further prove my initial reply. An E5200 can run GAMES fine, I never said it would run the newest of the new "maxed out" blah blah blah.
I guess my example wasn't enough of a clue te enlighten him on his off base vague general reply.

all you are doing is being is a troll which is quite ironic dont you think? I said many games cannot run at 60fps on max settings with a 4870 and E5200. thats a fact and does not need a qualifier and I would think including newer games would have just been common sense.

 

[Gillbot]

all you are doing is being is a troll which is quite ironic dont you think? I said many games cannot run at 60fps on max settings with a 4870 and E5200. thats a fact and does not need a qualifier and I would think including newer games would have just been common sense.

and all I said was there are also MANY that CAN. Let's just end it there.

 

[namtran512]

I agree, bottom line is, for NEWER games, you need a quad, and a good video card. The card first, then the quad is of secondary importance, but required for many new games at high settings to get a sustained 60 fps.

Remember, depends on the game. SC2 is more of a CPU dependent game than GPU (as long as you don't need max eye candy, which is actually MORE annoying then anything).

 

[Markfw]

Remember, depends on the game. SC2 is more of a CPU dependent game than GPU (as long as you don't need max eye candy, which is actually MORE annoying then anything).

OK, to sum up the last zillion posts, a number of newer games are cpu bound, even on good video cards, and need a quad to work well. A FEW older games also do the same, but far fewer.

Lets say I play an assortment of games, and only 2 need a quad. I think I would really get frustrated, and buy a quad just for those 2, especially since they are probably newer, and better graphics, etc.

So, lets just all agree, that sometimes you need a quad and sometimes you don't, and the variability probably differs for every user.

Each to his own.

 

[evolucion8]

There's some games that uses Quad but don't need it. Mass Effect 1 and 2 uses all the 4 cores close to 75%, and yet it runs very fine on a Dual Core setup. That's efficiency, unlike GTA4. :sneaky:

 

[Jason- Bauer]

I had Dual Core, moved to Quad on the same system = loads better. Go quad. Simples.

 

[nemesismk2]

I had dual core and then moved to quad, all of my games were playable with the dual core cpu but I thought would get a quad because the difference in price was too close.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Moving from dual to quad a couple years ago didn't change much for my gaming habits (I play mostly the same titles now that I did then, actually) but it changed my computing habits.

On a single or dual core machine, I would play WoW. On a quad core, I will play WoW while watching Hulu and surfing the web. And when the AV scan kicks on at midnight, nothing so much as blinks.

So, regardless of what is maxed out by what, I've definitely warmed up to the idea that having a really fast ____ isn't always as important as having a whole bunch of ____.

 

[nemesismk2]

the biggest difference was when I moved from single core cpu to my first dual core cpu. dual to quad core I didn't notice such an improvement.

 

[nwo]

the biggest difference was when I moved from single core cpu to my first dual core cpu. dual to quad core I didn't notice such an improvement.

I sure as heck did.

I went from a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo to a 2GHz i7 Sandy bridge (laptops). I can finally do video editing now. I can watch movies without seeing nearly 100% cpu utilization. Converting a video to an mp3 went from ~30 sec to ~5 sec. Or, I can do my video editing/compression while playing WoW without any major lag!

So much more multi-tasking power now, and I love it! If you're strictly a hardcore gamer and not a multi-tasker, you're probably not going to see a noticeable performance difference (in most games) going from a dual core to a quad core (for example i3 2100 to an i5 2400).

 

[flatiron]

Very informative post and replies Thanks.

 

[taniablonde2009]

Very informative post and replies Thanks.

indeed

 

[Thatspro]

Based on the list, most of the games i'll be playing aren't multi-threaded, but i also got this CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103871 for $100, Quad for $100 is a steal imo, and it runs at 3.0 ghz, and i can easily overclock that.

 

[llee]

does hyperthreading help offset some of the performance disadvantages that dual cores have in multi-threaded applications?

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Depends on your native resolution. The lower the harder the cpu need to work to catch up. Two faster cores is better than 4 slower ones. With games higher clock wins. But a quad gives you that extra for the background programs. Just get it up past 3Ghz

 

[Mekkie]

Hello, first post here!

I'd just like to point out, that World of Warcraft has enabled the use of more than a dual core CPU now.
This is done by changing your processAffinityMask corresponding to the number of cores you have and/or threads available in the config file.

 

[nemesismk2]

I sure as heck did.

I went from a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo to a 2GHz i7 Sandy bridge (laptops). I can finally do video editing now. I can watch movies without seeing nearly 100% cpu utilization. Converting a video to an mp3 went from ~30 sec to ~5 sec. Or, I can do my video editing/compression while playing WoW without any major lag!

So much more multi-tasking power now, and I love it! If you're strictly a hardcore gamer and not a multi-tasker, you're probably not going to see a noticeable performance difference (in most games) going from a dual core to a quad core (for example i3 2100 to an i5 2400).

yeah I mostly use my pc for gaming and not for anything serious lol

 

[sangyup81]

I'm leaning towards AMD Tri-Cores or Intel Dual-Cores with Hyper-Threading (2 cores, 4 threads) for gaming

This way, clock speeds can be high enough without temps and voltages getting too high.