Are 6 Core CPUs Enough for PC Gaming?

[Achaios]

Ahh, do you mean for gaming? For 4k? Even then, don't exaggerate. I'm a friend of CPU does not matter, but those are just too old with DDR3 and PCI-E 3.0 and so on.

My 2013 4770K is absolutely fine for my gaming needs which is why I haven't upgraded yet.

Neither DDR3 nor PCI-E 3.0 is a hurdle in any way.

As for "4K" I have been playing at 3440X1440 with my Haswell CPU and a 1080 since 2016.

I know you people find this hard to believe but you know 3440X1440 has been a thing since the last decade and last decade CPUs are just fine to play at that resolution.

 

[JuanDegr]

My 2013 4770K is absolutely fine for my gaming needs which is why I haven't upgraded yet.

Neither DDR3 nor PCI-E 3.0 is a hurdle in any way.

As for "4K" I have been playing at 3440X1440 with my Haswell CPU and a 1080 since 2016.

I know you people find this hard to believe but you know 3440X1440 has been a thing since the last decade and last decade CPUs are just fine to play at that resolution.

Good for you! I truly mean that. I just meant, eventually, the day will come... Anyway, "just buy stuff if you need it" is a good motto to live by.

But I can relate. My old i7-4790K walked a long, long way with me until I switched to AMD. I started with the 3600x, then the 5700x (which was, in my memory, the biggest upgrade step 'felt') and then to the 7950x3d (just to partner up my 4090 with a 'decent' CPU). And yes, the framerate is better (4K is my resolution), everything is better, and MT is a lot faster. But to be totally honest, the 5700x would have been sufficient for years to come because the perception of everyday performance, the 'real' difference for the user, so to speak, is not night and day (as sometimes suggested in the reviews). The same goes for DDR5 frequencies and timings; no real difference between 6400 (what I have now) and 5600 (my old kit). You can also spend so much (too much) money on faster RAM (especially Intel XMP), but you will not see the difference in everyday usage unless you fire up your benchmarks. But I know a lot of folks spending much on their hardware don't think so. They religiously pursue any contrary opinion (in psychology, this is called cognitive dissonance, and it is a central part of our consumer society, just like sublimation and fear of missing out). I build like 2-3 rigs every year, so I am a big hardware geek, but I try to stay reasonable. That's why I thought Steve's latest article ("CPUs don't matter for 4K Gaming? Wrong!") was so problematic, because, in my own experience, they don't.

I normally like his stuff, but that article felt forced in the wrong way (trying to be innovative and revisit a common point, proving what most 4K gamers and also most other hardware experts believed to be true is actually wrong). Steve had three carefully curated game engines, where the CPU somewhat matters at 4K (to make a point and force the framerates into CPU-bound situations), and even then he puts a 3600 against the fastest gaming CPU on the market, a 7800x3D. That is really stretching it, even if the 3600 was "so popular" in its day. That felt unreal and forced, and then some of the folks (but still, apparently only a minority) in the comments even felt educated by the fact that a mid-class 5yr old 6-core CPU can lose some FPS against the fastest gaming CPU in 4K. I mean, come on. The lengths to go just to make some vain point nobody else in the benchmark industry does. That was, in my opinion, ridiculous or even misleading for some inexperienced readers. Of course, you should not use a too-old CPU with a very modern GPU, I believe that too (but even then, in your case, if it's all ok, use that and don't let that FUD and FOMO get to you).

TLDR: Run that 4770K until it hurts.

 

[Gezzer]

Seems I've hit a nerve and for that I apologize.

But I also still stand with my original opinion. For the most part 6 cores will be fine. Until it's not. In the end it's not hardware, it's software that dictates what a user needs. For example in my latest system I'm running a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, not so much for the 8 cores, but for the extra cache', since it's a gaming system. And I'm well aware that it gives up non gaming performance with the extra cache' and lower clock speed.

But that's the thing I bought it for the current average game, and while there are certain games, like Cities 2 that it'll stumble a bit with, that's fine. The final decision on what to run will always be a trade off. There is really no universal will run everything like a beast system. For example, will it run Crysis is still a valid question. Why? Because the game is only single core aware and responds best to higher clocks and better IPC than multi cores.

There's no way around it. So anyone stating you have to have anything is wrong, period. In the end the user has to decide what they need and then fit it within their budget, knowing it was the best they could do with current tech and budget.

 

[Etienne3]

A poorly asked question always gives a stupid answer.
You are so focused on demonstrating the importance of the CPU bottleneck that you don't even see when it's not there.
So when you test the 7700xt, you are forced to play on the low or medium options to convince yourself of the importance of the CPU: but outside of competitive fps, no one plays on medium or low!
Because if we take the 7700xt and the adapted resolution 1440p, your results clearly show that in ultra, an option that 99% of players take by default, there is almost no difference between the 3600 and the 7600.
That doesn't stop you from writing for Hogwarts Legacy "The 7600 still far outperforms the 3600": not only not by a wide margin, but not at all in ultra!
Likewise on starfield, still on 7700xt in 1440p, while the performances are strictly the same in high and ultra, you insist on the "margins" allowed by the downgrade, 12% for medium and 28% for low: but who will go from high to medium for 12% gain, and even worse who will go low?
No one goes down...even to double performance.
You simply don't see that what matters for the majority of players is to play at minimum high or very high, at acceptable frequencies, typically 48-75 Hz allowing VRR on ordinary screens, and to obtain the best of what costs the most, I.e. the GPU.
You simply need a cpu correctly sized to the gpu, that's all!
In this case a 3600 or equivalent is more than sufficient for a 7700xt or equivalent and the CPU upgrade does not bring anything in this case.