What is better for gaming: Quad core or Dual core?

So what's better?

Number of cores doesn't really matter its the Clock rate. More cores allow you to do more at a time.

More cores is better, even though a duo core probably runs faster than a quad core. It's no coincidence that all supercomputers are made up of thousands of CPUs. There's an article on Toms Hardware where they actually benchmark a bunch of apps against a quad core CPU. Each time they run the test they turn off a core to see what the performance drop is. They found 1 to 2 cores is a big difference. 2 to 3 is smaller, but not insignificant difference. 3 to 4 is no difference in most apps. That still means that your 4th core is free for the OS to do whatever housekeeping it needs to do.

The i7 stands alone. Phenom 2 Quads are superior to Tri's or Duals. Core 2 Duos are generally better than Core 2 Quads for gaming when OC'ed.themyrmidon

At the moment Dual Core. That reason being that Dual core CPU are fairly cheaper than Quad core, and don't even mention i7 920, you have to fork over 500 USD on ram, CPU and motherboard for a very small improvement. Maybe future games will take advantage of the i7 but I wouldn't blow all my money for one now.

I'd get an E8500 and easily OC it to 3.8 ghz, most games are not optimized for using four cores, specially since a lot of games are released on both consoles and PC. Yes some games will not run that well without quad but the only game that is would be GTA IV. Now for rest of the current games a 2 core will do the job great. A good solid CPU such as the E8500 should perform fairly well for at least another 1.5-2 years. Maybe by that time more games will optimize 4 cores which would sufice for an upgrade. But by that time quad/6 core CPU would be more affordable.

CPU performance in gaming depends on clock speed, CPU design and software design. If a software (game or what ever) is designed to use only 1 core or two cores, the rest will not benefit you with the performance for that program. Now the other cores could be useful if you're multitasking but that's a different story.

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=807&p=7 Here a benchmark to help you a bit Topic Creator


it True in most of case a Dual core at High clock will defeat a Quad at Lower MHZ But since Phenom II X4 955 & the 965 is coming out in September if you get Phenom II X4 955 at 3.94Ghz it can be a Equivalent of E8600 at 4.3Ghz in vast majority of the game that support Quad / Core i7 it should even be more benefic then Dual core by a Good 20-30fps with incoming new game

Like if a game was giving 66FPS with E8600 at 4.3ghz but ad support of Quad core (the Phenom II X4 955 at 3.94Ghz could probabely get 80fps+ Even tough higher then 60fps is overkill more fps alway better cause you load faster / have nearly zero Lag spike possibility or none depending of fps you get

as for me In Heroes of newerth beta I get over 200fPS = I get Zero Lag spike From hardware : so it network lag if there some
But if i play fallout 3 i can get some lagspike in some Fight / load time but most of time it all clean even tough all the mod iv put in

Quad core most definitely.(core i7 mostly)

It will be used more in the future and trying to multi thread past 4 cores is really hard so i dont see anything going past quad cores for as far as applications / games anytime soon.

I also advise a core i7 920 oc to 3.4 or 3.8 with turbo on so single threaded applications get a little boost.

When it gets down to it quad cores are just a dual core with more physical processor and the architecture is the main part, nehalem(core i7) is better optimized for the quad cores which is why i advise core i7 over the core 2 quads.

At the moment Dual Core. That reason being that Dual core CPU are fairly cheaper than Quad core, and don't even mention i7 920, you have to fork over 500 USD on ram, CPU and motherboard for a very small improvement. Maybe future games will take advantage of the i7 but I wouldn't blow all my money for one now.

I'd get an E8500 and easily OC it to 3.8 ghz, most games are not optimized for using four cores, specially since a lot of games are released on both consoles and PC. Yes some games will not run that well without quad but the only game that is would be GTA IV. Now for rest of the current games a 2 core will do the job great. A good solid CPU such as the E8500 should perform fairly well for at least another 1.5-2 years. Maybe by that time more games will optimize 4 cores which would sufice for an upgrade. But by that time quad/6 core CPU would be more affordable.

CPU performance in gaming depends on clock speed, CPU design and software design. If a software (game or what ever) is designed to use only 1 core or two cores, the rest will not benefit you with the performance for that program. Now the other cores could be useful if you're multitasking but that's a different story.

eikast

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=807&p=7 Here a benchmark to help you a bit Topic Creator


it True in most of case a Dual core at High clock will defeat a Quad at Lower MHZ But since Phenom II X4 955 & the 965 is coming out in September if you get Phenom II X4 955 at 3.94Ghz it can be a Equivalent of E8600 at 4.3Ghz in vast majority of the game that support Quad / Core i7 it should even be more benefic then Dual core by a Good 20-30fps with incoming new game

Like if a game was giving 66FPS with E8600 at 4.3ghz but ad support of Quad core (the Phenom II X4 955 at 3.94Ghz could probabely get 80fps+ Even tough higher then 60fps is overkill more fps alway better cause you load faster / have nearly zero Lag spike possibility or none depending of fps you get

as for me In Heroes of newerth beta I get over 200fPS = I get Zero Lag spike From hardware : so it network lag if there some
But if i play fallout 3 i can get some lagspike in some Fight / load time but most of time it all clean even tough all the mod iv put inmarcthpro

Um those CPUs are already out Marc. Where have you been?

So what's better?

brandontwb

iv forgot Phenom II X4 965 Got Benchmarked Yesterday :P but the phenom II X4 955 I was aware it was out i was reffering it reachign 3.94ghz while the 965 it said to reach 4.4ghz in a OC-forum but ad Lot of airflow

If I was buying a system now, I'd certainly buy a quad core. While they're lagging behind dual cores at the moment, I don't think it will be all that long until games start needing to use more than 2 cores to run smoothly. If you buy a Quad now, you're saving yourself another upgrade further down the line.

http://hothardware.com/articleimages/Item1362/cry.png

Here you go. Taken from hothardware.com as you can see.

EDIT: Meant to quote smc91352

No reason not to go with a quad core these days unless you're on a budget that won't allow it.

Quad core

go with the way of the quad-core, if you can get one with a clockspeed that matches a dual-core with an equivalent clockspeed.

look at that, my C2D E6850 on that crysis benchmark that was posted got almost identical fps as a phenom II X4 940. I guess even games like crysis arent fully taking advantage of quads, apart from that i7 920 doing rather well, so all I would need is a high res monitor and a geforce GTX 280..