How many CPU Cores do I need for a better gaming experience? This is the question that every gamer asks before buying a gaming pc for himself.
The answer to this question depends on the games you want to play and some other factors we will discuss in this article.
Also, we will discuss how many cores a normal computer uses nowadays and how many cores are required for modern games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, PUBG, etc.
You will also know how the number of CPU cores affects the performance of your computer and how many cores are good for playing games.
So before answering your question about how many CPU cores you need for gaming, let’s first discuss what the CPU Cores are.
What Are CPU Cores In Computers:
A CPU core, also called a processor core, is the central processing unit of a computer. The term may also refer to the physical area on a motherboard or circuit board that contains multiple transistors or logic gates that operate together to perform calculations.
The number of cores in a processor is an important consideration for consumers buying new PCs and laptops.
A computer with multiple cores can handle multiple tasks simultaneously, speeding up its performance.
However, each task must take advantage of multiple cores before running faster on a system with more than one core.
A dual-core processor has two CPU cores, while quad-core processors have four CPU cores. Most computers today have at least one dual-core processor; some have more than one.
Read More: How Many Watts Does A Laptop Use While Charging?
How many CPU cores are required for Gaming:
The answer to this question depends on the game you want to play on your computer and what kind of hardware you are running on your computer.
There are some basic truths about how many CPU cores are needed for gaming, but they don’t always apply in every situation.
For example, one-player games like StarCraft don’t benefit from multiple cores because they don’t have much going on at once (although they benefit from high clock speeds).
But games like Battlefield 4 or Crysis 3 can push more than one core at once and benefit from having as many cores as possible.
And then there’s the fact that some games won’t run well on older CPUs even if they can technically handle them.
So if your machine has an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 clocked at 2.66GHz, and you want to play Battlefield 4, it will probably be playable (at least if your graphics card isn’t holding back performance too much). The core count of your CPU is important for gaming but not as important as other factors.
In Short: The more cores you have, the better. But don’t go overboard.
But in general, Six Cores are enough to play every computer game. If you want to play games that are not heavy in size, then even Four Cores are enough to get a good gaming experience, but Six Cores are recommended for heavy games.
CPU Core Requirements for Modern Computers:
The CPU Core requirements for modern computers are a bit complicated. The problem is that the number of cores per processor has increased dramatically in recent years, but the clock speed of processors hasn’t kept up.
For example, if you look at the Intel Core i7-7700k, it has four cores at 4.2 GHz each, which adds up to 16 cores. But this is only half as many cores as the AMD Ryzen 1700 with 8 at 3.0 GHz each, which adds up to 32 cores!
This means you need more cores to do more things simultaneously (like playing a game while downloading another one).
However, modern CPUs have enough speed to handle most tasks by themselves, so if you’re only doing one thing at a time, having more than 4 cores isn’t as important.
How Many CPU Cores Affect The Performance Of A Computer:
The number of CPU cores is one of the most important factors determining a computer’s performance.
However, it’s not as simple as saying that more cores mean better performance. Many other factors are involved in determining how well your computer will perform, including how fast those cores are, whether they can be overclocked, and what motherboard you have.
A computer’s performance depends on how fast its CPU can process instructions and data stored in memory. When you run a program, the CPU fetches instructions from memory and executes them.
If there’s not enough room in memory for all the instructions, your computer might slow down or freeze while waiting for data to load from storage drives such as hard drives or solid-state drives (SSDs).
To avoid this problem, you need enough RAM so that programs don’t have to load instructions into memory as they run repeatedly.
Theoretically, a dual-core processor is twice as fast as a single-core processor. But in real life, it depends on the workload and software used.
For example, if you are playing a heavy game requiring heavy processing power, you will see better results with more than fewer cores.
However, if you are playing games like Minecraft or any other games that are not heavy enough and do not require heavy processing power, adding more cores will not make much difference in performance.
What’s the Optimal Number of CPU Cores for your Gaming PC:
The optimal number of CPU cores for your gaming PC depends on how many games you plan to play.
The more CPU cores you have, the better performance you will get from your pc because each game is different, and you may find that six cores are overkill for some titles while two are underpowered for others.
Generally, if you’re playing less demanding games like League of Legends or Overwatch, an Intel Core i5 processor with four CPU cores will be more than enough.
But if you’re playing more demanding titles like Battlefield V or Far Cry 5, then an Intel Core i7 processor with six CPU cores will perform better.
Based on the number of available cores, you can use benchmarking software such as 3DMark and Passmark’s Performance Test 9 to see how well your PC performs in various tasks.
This should give you some idea of what kind of performance boost upgrading from a quad-core processor to an eight-core one would give you.
Get the Right Amount of CPU Cores for your Gaming PC:
You might think having more CPU cores is better, but it’s not always true. A lot depends on what kind of gaming you’re doing and how many cores you need in your processor.
If you are still confused about getting the right amount of CPU cores for your gaming PC, don’t worry, we will explain in detail.
By considering some factors, you will be able to get the right amount of CPU cores for your gaming computer:
- For which purpose are you going to use your computer?
- How much time will you spend on your computer n a day?
- How long will you play games on your computer?
- Will you want to play high-end video games, or do you want to play competitive games?
- Will you want to do productive work such as encoding or rendering apart from gaming?
You can get the right number of CPU cores for your gaming computer by answering these questions. But in short, we recommend you go with four to six CPU cores to play heavy and low-size games.
Bottom Line Of How Many CPU Cores You Need For Gaming:
How many CPU cores do I need to play games? How many CPU cores are enough for playing low and heavy-size games? And how to get the right number of CPU cores for your gaming pc?
We hope that after reading this in-depth article about deciding the CPU cores for gaming, you can now decide on the cores for your gaming computer.
In general, 4 CPU cores are enough for gaming, and most gamers use 4 CPU cores, but if you want to play some heavy games on your computer, then 6 CPU cores will give you better performance over 4 cores.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Are 6 CPU cores enough for Gaming?
Yes, 6 CPU cores are enough for playing both low-size and heavy-size video games on your computer.
Indeed, most games don’t use more than 4 cores. But there are some exceptions and even some games with very demanding algorithms that can benefit from multi-core processors.
The latest generation of consoles has 8 cores (Xbox One and PS4). Do you think this will change in the future?
We think that in the next generation of consoles, we’ll see more powerful CPUs and GPUs with many more cores. The most powerful GPU today has over 1,000 shader processors!
Are 8 CPU cores overkill for Gaming?
There are a lot of questions about 8 vs. 6 core processors and which option is better for gamers. But the question I’m getting more often these days is, “8 cores are overkill, right?” the answer to this question depends on what you mean by “Overkill.”
It’s true that if you’re only going to be using one CPU core, then an 8-core processor isn’t any better than a 4-core or 6-core processor.
However, if you’re using multiple cores simultaneously, the answer will vary based on how many cores your game engine uses and how many threads it can handle at once.
Suppose you’re playing games like Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty, Ghosts that use more than one thread per core.
In that case, an 8-core processor will likely give you a significant boost in performance over even a 6-core processor (which would have an advantage over a quad-core).
If you’re playing games like The Witcher 3 or Shadow of Mordor that use only one thread per core, an 8-core processor won’t give you much advantage over a 6-core chip.