Dual core or Quad core for gaming?

NeVeR

Just having a chat with my mates and was wondering would it be better to get a dual core 3GHz + (price wise) compared to quad core

Thinking of building a new PC... mainly for gaming in the new year.

Also just on windows 7... can you use more then 2gig ram with it ?

Farcear

Games aren't optimised for multi-core yet, so an overclocked dual core would be better than stock speed quad core. You can even get great value tri-core processors from AMD.

Windows 7 32-bit can use up to 3.5 gigs of RAM. the 64-bit version can use up to 128GB RAM. If you're building yourself, I would guess that you'll end up getting 2x2GB dual-channel RAM and using a 64-bit operating system; Windows 7 or a Linux distro,

IrishGrimReaper

NeVeR wrote: »

Just having a chat with my mates and was wondering would it be better to get a dual core 3GHz + (price wise) compared to quad core

Thinking of building a new PC... mainly for gaming in the new year.

Also just on windows 7... can you use more then 2gig ram with it ?

2GB would work fine. But nowadays the price for 4gb isn't much so it's better to get 4.

Dual Cores used to be better, but every game that's gonna come out now will have quad core support(most will anyway). Besides there's not much price deference between a good dual core system and an Phenom II x4.

BadCharlie

I would get a quad for gaming this day and age.

fasty

Farcear wrote: »

Games aren't optimised for multi-core yet, so an overclocked dual core would be better than stock speed quad core. You can even get great value tri-core processors from AMD.

Windows 7 32-bit can use up to 3.5 gigs of RAM. the 64-bit version can use up to 128GB RAM. If you're building yourself, I would guess that you'll end up getting 2x2GB dual-channel RAM and using a 64-bit operating system; Windows 7 or a Linux distro,

Actually most of the big engines are... DICE's Frostbite engine, Source, Unreal Engine, CryEngine. The way tech is going these days, it's all about multithreading and getting as much of the game's visuals done on the GPU as possible and games have been shifting to that for the past few years.

Dublin_Gunner

Get a Quad, you can get a Q8300 for like €125 in Komplett, or a Core i5 for €185.

The AMD Phenoms are plenty good enough for gaming too, and they're even cheaper, even the X3's are pretty good, and for even less money, the Athlon II x4 is absolutely great value, at ~€90.

And yes, you can use more than 2GB with Win 7, as you can with Win2K, XP, Vista....

If you mean 4GB, well then any of the main 64bit PC OS's support that. So XP x64, Vista (64bit) and Windows 7 (64bit).

RoyalMarine

plus Quad core just sounds sexier!

Leman_Russ

Get a quad.

L31mr0d

If you are going to overclock heavily, then get a dualcore. If you aren't going to overclock (or will be only overclocking slightly) then get a quad core.

For RAM, get a x64 OS, get 8GB+ of RAM, then make a 2GB RAM disk for your pagefile (ideally it would be better to disable the pagefile, but some applications and games require it)

If the PC is mainly for gaming then throw a lot of your budget into the graphics card. Decide on your graphics card first then divvy up whatever is left of your budget for cpu and memory. If you can get a quad core and 4GB+ of RAM. If you can't a dual core and 2GB+ will be fine.

Overall a weaker graphics card will impact on your gaming a lot more than a weaker cpu and less ram.

Dublin_Gunner

L31mr0d wrote: »

If you are going to overclock heavily, then get a dualcore. If you aren't going to overclock (or will be only overclocking slightly) then get a quad core.

This makes no sense in 2009 / 2010. Quads overclock at LEAST as well as dual cores.

Core i5. Value & Performance. How about the CPU overclocking itself if your app (game) only needs two cores? You don't even need to know how to overclock, the system does it for you.

Even still, Core i5 at 4.2Ghz without special cooling? (Though I must admit, 3.8Ghz is closer to reality for most)

With Turbo Boost (rev 2) disabled (it gets confused by overclocking), we successfully boosted the i5-750 from 2.66GHz to 4.2GHz by setting a CPU multiplier of 22, a Base Clock of 191MHz, a vcore of 1.425V, an IMC voltage of 1.3V and setting the CPU PLL to 1.9V. This overclock boosted the overall Media Benchmarks score from 1,474 to 1,953 and added another five to 11fps to gaming performance.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/09/08/intel-core-i5-and-i7-lynnfield-cpu-review/3

For RAM, get a x64 OS, get 8GB+ of RAM, then make a 2GB RAM disk for your pagefile (ideally it would be better to disable the pagefile, but some applications and games require it)

Making a 2GB 'ram disk' for the pagefile will yield little to no benefit. Windows needs the pagefile, and wasting your RAM on it is not a good idea. your RAM is best used as, well, RAM.

This was an idea that really only even sort of held remotely true back in the A64 days - I used to see this thrown about the place all of the time, but never saw a single shred of evidence to back it up.

Having more ram (4GB is plenty for gaming, 8GB is a waste for that) will result in a far more responsive system, disabling the pagefile will only make windows create one when it needs it, leading to massive slow downs.

lmimmfn

dont get a dual core, quad all the way, more and more games need a quad( i.e. run pretty crap on a dual no matter what the frequency ) e.g. GTA IV, Prototype, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and loads of games that run much much better with a quad e.g. Lost Planet, Dragon Age Origin, Dirt 2 to name a few.

PogMoThoin

World in Conflict


Crysis


Unreal Tournament 3


The difference between Core2Duo and i7 both at 4.1Ghz is almost 50% in most cases with the same gpu, this is just three of the graphs
Full article here

Farcear

Lesson being, only *need* a quad if you're going to Crossfire -- and cann see 200fps. (CPU being the weak link instead of a GPU, ah the overkill-ness of it all )

PogMoThoin

Farcear wrote: »

Lesson being, only *need* a quad if you're going to Crossfire -- and cann see 200fps. (CPU being the weak link instead of a GPU, ah the overkill-ness of it all )

No, its pointless buying a dual core now, even with a single gpu. All above games are 2-3 years old and they now see huge benefits with a quad and a single modern gpu.
Hard to believe Crysis is 2 years old, graphically its not been bettered.

Dublin_Gunner

Pogmothoin - while those graphs seem to accentuate the issue, I'd have to make a couple of points to bring things into perspective.

1. Differences are more apparent at CPU bound resolutions and settings.

2. A lot of the games in that article don;t show nearly as much gain.

3. The differences are as much to do with CPU architecture as they are the number of cores - they really should have thrown a Core 2 Quad in there, to validate the 'more cores is better' opinion.

4. There are many cases where at GPU bound resolutions and settings, that a 2.7Ghz Core 2 Duo on DDR2 platform is just as fast as the Core i7 4.1Ghz DDR3 platform...

This test also further reduces the Core 2 Duo's advantage, as its the only DDR2 platform there - both the Phenom & Core i7 have an advantage of having much higher memory throughput.

As its a Core 2 Duo, VS Phenom X4 V Core i7, its reallly not an apples and oranges test of whether more CPU cores are better in most cases, but just shows that the Core i7 is the fastest CPU - which everyone already knows!

Leman_Russ

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Hard to believe Crysis is 2 years old, graphically its not been bettered.

Lies.

leninbenjamin

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Hard to believe Crysis is 2 years old, graphically its not been bettered.

There's a very good reason for this. As a piece of technology the CryEngine 2 was ground breaking, so many new shading techniques went into it's creation. However, as a game engine it's an absolute nightmare to work with, highly unstable. Most projects that license have either been seriously delayed, or scrapped it altogether. And coupled the with the fact the average hardware at the time was utterly incapable of fully handling it, the industry were seriously put off its next gen features. So it's not really that they couldn't better it, it's more that they simply weren't arsed.

Shattered Horizon though comes very close. It's let down more by weak artistry and some uninspiring design in parts, but some of the lighting effects are absolutely stunning.

ooPabsoo

better off going for the quad,most new games coming out will be optimised for quads

cherryghost

whoever recommend the Q8*** series, just no. It was the worse generation of quads, i wouldnt go near them. Q9*** all the way, or a Q6600/6700X if ya can pick those up cheaply 2nd hand

The Phemon x4 Black editions are going for bargain prices right now, buy one of them and overclock to your hearts content, truly great value.

Core i5s are best value for money now at the moment.

Solitaire

Hell, an X4-630 is probably a better bet than a Q8*00 and it costs a fraction of the price!

Tr1PoD

Get the i7 860 or the i5 750 if your on a budget. There is no reason not to get one of these quad cores unless you are really trying to build a super cheap machine.

If a game uses all 4 cores then great if not then these processors overclock themselves depending on how may cores are being used. For example if only one core is being used on the 860 it auto overclocks to 3.4ghz. The older i7 cpus such as the 920 arnt as good at this.

One thing though, turbo mode does not seem to be fully enabled by default for these processors. You will need to enable c-state c6 in the bios for the auto overclock to work to its full potential.

leninbenjamin

Tr1PoD wrote: »

Get the i7 860 or the i5 750 if your on a budget. There is no reason not to get one of these quad cores unless you are really trying to build a super cheap machine.

Just be aware of the PCI bandwidth limitation. Some SLI/CF setups will suffer. And then of course it seems USB 3.0 and SATA piggy back off the PCIe lanes on p55.

Tr1PoD wrote: »

If a game uses all 4 cores then great if not then these processors overclock themselves depending on how may cores are being used. For example if only one core is being used on the 860 it auto overclocks to 3.4ghz. The older i7 cpus such as the 920 arnt as good at this.

That's a limitation of the multiplier, turbo mode on the newers ones is set at x23-or x24 whereas the i7-920 it's limited to x21. They can still overclock quite happily though, it just means you have to alter the bclk yourself. They do generate a bit more heat than the newer ones though (due in part to the HT implementation i think).

NeVeR

Cheers guys.. Thanks for all the replies.. I've been away few days so thats why i didnt reply.

Thanks