this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Why Gamers DON’T Need More Cores, 6-Cores Still Works Well! - Hardware Unboxed (youtu.be)
submitted 1 week ago by inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] insomniac_lemon@lemmy.cafe 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

This just seems like explaining the difference between GPU-bound vs CPU-bound scenarios, and pointing out how generational improvements have made a big impact there.

Also, probably something about diminishing returns on the computation needed/accepted for games. Or the other side of the coin, the rising floor (with newer hardware) of what negligible CPU usage can achieve (also something like multiseat or server usage).

EDIT: I should say it both reaffirms how good of a deal I got on a 2700 in mid-2019, and is a good thing to remember on how much better new (Zen) cores are. (probably not upgrading any time soon though and still using a 1050Ti as well, though I don't really need an upgrade anyway)

[–] stormeuh@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

To your point of how far new zen cores have come, I have a fun story from work. In short, in my specific use case, my 7840HS (8 zen4 laptop cores) was at parity or outperforming a 1950X (16 zen1 desktop cores), in a fully multithreaded task. The workload was essentially a bunch of RISC-V simulators running independently in parallel through a makefile, so the individual tasks benefit greatly from increased IPC. I'm not sure the entire gain in performance comes from IPC, but it's probably the majority and that is still very impressive.

[–] sleet01@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I got a great deal on a 1950X setup due to a NewEgg sale, and it's been a powerhouse for various "serious" tasks, but each individual core is pretty anemic and that does hurt it in a few games. If laptop cores are matching or exceeding that, I feel confident in sticking with AMD for the next little while.

[–] stormeuh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Those laptop cores are kerbstomping the zen1 cores according to these benchmarks. Double the performance for single-core geekbench, which matches what I observed as well.