Am I going to be ok with a dual core CPU for gaming?

Hey, I'm gonna buy a new laptop soon and it comes with an i5-2630M, 2 cores and 4 threads. With a NVIDIA GT 555M graphics card.

I plan on playing single player games like Resident Evil 5, Bioshock series or The Last Remnant and of course maybe some of the recently released games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and TES V: Skyrim.

Is a dual core good enough for those games?

Im fairly sure none of the games you listed use more than 2 cores anyway, its actually a bit of a joke how many modern games only use a couple of cores.

Im fairly sure none of the games you listed use more than 2 cores anyway, its actually a bit of a joke how many modern games only use a couple of cores.

SapSacPrime

The bigger problem is you are going to be gaming on a laptop.

The bigger problem is you are going to be gaming on a laptop.

GummiRaccoon

I got a laptop with a dual core i5 and a GT540m, it has consistently impressed me with game performance. I recently played Bioshock 2 on the highest settings with 2xAA on it, and got 60fps constant for the most part. You should be fine with those games.

Skyrim Medium with the laptop he mentioned : Deus EX Human revolution on High is way more greedy then bioshock 1 & 2 at max if he as to buy a laptop id look for something that is not GPU Soldered Because in few year or next year instead of dump the laptop he can put a better gpu bough via ebay or specialized store in that matter saving money in the process :P

but it still a good laptop as long you don't mind runinng half of new game at low / med setting and at downscale resolution = pixel that are off

but it expensive : Id recommend you go desktop if you really like to play games and just carry ur case around lol

as long you got a core i3 Any generation most of CPU Limitation is removed for laptop gaming what matter is the Video card unit going from IE GT 540M to GTX 560M make a big difference much higher then the cpu :IE i3 Mobile vs i5 Mobile

I got a laptop with a dual core i5 and a GT540m, it has consistently impressed me with game performance. I recently played Bioshock 2 on the highest settings with 2xAA on it, and got 60fps constant for the most part. You should be fine with those games.

with_teeth26

im not suprised bioshock 2 and 1 are both based on the unreal engine.. same engine that powers the ancient UT3 and rainbow 6 vegas 1. any system req. on bioshock 2's box are over exxaggerated i was playing rainbow 6: vegas 1 on medium @ 1440 x 900 on a pentium d 2.8ghz and an hd 2400pro XD

Yeah, you'll be fine. Most games only really take advantage of two cores (and even for the ones that do take advantage of four cores, the premium you pay for a quad core may not be worth it), plus by the time quad cores really are necessary you'll probably be in the market for a new laptop anyway.

Im fairly sure none of the games you listed use more than 2 cores anyway, its actually a bit of a joke how many modern games only use a couple of cores.

SapSacPrime

[QUOTE="SapSacPrime"]

Im fairly sure none of the games you listed use more than 2 cores anyway, its actually a bit of a joke how many modern games only use a couple of cores.

LPG13

At the same time, it must be asked whether going for a true quad-core is worth it considering the video card it'll be paired with; it may not be worth going for a quad core if the video card will, in both instances, hold back the processor.

[QUOTE="SapSacPrime"]

Im fairly sure none of the games you listed use more than 2 cores anyway, its actually a bit of a joke how many modern games only use a couple of cores.

LPG13

I own a G510 keyboard and most of the games he listed, I play them with core temp or afterburner up (I switch between the two) and actually they only use 2 cores most of the time and deus ex only used one last time I played it. It has nothing to do with the evil console ports either because Shogun 2 doesn't use more than two cores a lot of the time and only uses one when loading.

Skyrim is CPU heavy but you got a decent one so shouldn't be bad at all... Yeah you'll be fine but like SapSapPrime says more games utilise dual-cores than they do Quads so it's not so much an issue right now much like even though blu-ray is faster and holds more than a DVD, DVD's are still the preferred medium due to higher adoption of DVD Drives plain and simple. Why make games that only 60% can utilize when you can make games that 99% will utilize(numbers are for effect).

It's all for money and always will be.