Multitasking Benchmark: PC Gaming + YouTube + Discord

[Steve]

Let's look at multitasking performance while gaming. Is there any performance difference if you watch YouTube or stream on Discord while gaming?

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2503-cpu-multitasking-benchmark/

 

[dirtyferret]

Stop posting proof that we should judge CPUs based on performance and not core count Steve! You are making all the fanboys feel bad about purchasing a CPU simply for bragging rights on a forum in order to impress strangers on the web rather than actual user need and we can't have that kind of thinking on tech forums!

 

[paul1122]

Stop posting proof that we should judge CPUs based on performance and not core count Steve! You are making all the fanboys feel bad about purchasing a CPU simply for bragging rights on a forum in order to impress strangers on the web rather than actual user need and we can't have that kind of thinking on tech forums!

I second this comment right down to the 1 of my 16 cores.

 

[Achaios]

I mean, if my Haswell 4/8 CPU from back in 2013 is perfectly capable of doing all that (discord with 40 man raid call in progress, youtube vid playing in the background e.g. Two Steps From Hell - Victory at 720p as background music) comfortably while I am gaming at 3440X1440 (early adopter since 2017 of 3.5K) I don't see why a 5600 wouldn't.

 

[Faelan]

Stop posting proof that we should judge CPUs based on performance and not core count Steve! You are making all the fanboys feel bad about purchasing a CPU simply for bragging rights on a forum in order to impress strangers on the web rather than actual user need and we can't have that kind of thinking on tech forums!

I got 16 cores because I need a cheerleading squad of 14 cores motivating the other 2 for max single core performance when I’m playing DCS World!

What’s even more funny is that I don’t multitask on my gaming PC at all. I alternate between using an iPad or a laptop for things like browsing, YouTube and Discord. It’s just that the CPU with the best single core performance also happens to be the one with the most cores. Maybe Zen 4 3D V-cache will be a better match for my gaming needs than a 13900K with even more cores that will go unused.

 

[brucek]

Kudos for being willing to set all this up just to get to an answer you knew well beforehand.

The two background things I sometimes notice screwing up my foreground game are a) madvr video playback and b) high bandwidth Steam downloads (does it maybe have to do a lot of intensive decompression?)

Both are needless self-inflicted wounds that are easily stopped once I notice them. I'm barely watching the videos anyway, but my default video player is rigged for madvr so I'll often have it in use without needing it / meaning to. And Steam has options to pause or throttle.

 

[Puiu]

These tests are more relevant for older generation CPUs and laptops (sprinkle in a dirty OS too). The latest gen CPUs are powerful enough to handle a few background tasks.

I often have twitch or youtube open (depends on the game and what I want to do) and I do notice a few more hitches and the laptop get hot a bit faster. Although for competitive games like CS:GO I turn off everything.

 

[Gezzer]

Kudos for being willing to set all this up just to get to an answer you knew well beforehand.

The two background things I sometimes notice screwing up my foreground game are a) madvr video playback and b) high bandwidth Steam downloads (does it maybe have to do a lot of intensive decompression?)

Both are needless self-inflicted wounds that are easily stopped once I notice them. I'm barely watching the videos anyway, but my default video player is rigged for madvr so I'll often have it in use without needing it / meaning to. And Steam has options to pause or throttle.

Yeah, I noticed that madvr wasn't all it was cracked up to be and ditched it a couple of years ago. Don't get me wrong it was great in the day when using hardware acceleration was one of the "dark arts". Now I use Potplayer, does out of the box HW acceleration perfectly without having to do all that configuring.

 

[Gezzer]

These tests are more relevant for older generation CPUs and laptops (sprinkle in a dirty OS too). The latest gen CPUs are powerful enough to handle a few background tasks.

I often have twitch or youtube open (depends on the game and what I want to do) and I do notice a few more hitches and the laptop get hot a bit faster. Although for competitive games like CS:GO I turn off everything.

But as Achaios said his Haswell does just fine. And I've found the same thing with my 4790K. I'll admit that Win10 seems a bit snappier on my 10600FK but that's just as likely the fact that it has superior IPC and I've got it clocked a 5Ghz compared to 4.6 for the 4790. Lastly you have to admit that laptops come with a whole lot of other constraints that will effect performance more than desktops.

 

[Gezzer]

I remember the first time I saw a Youtube testing a 1900x in gaming. I was amazed at how many threads were either half utilized or not used at all. If I remember correctly it was like a third for each. While that was quite a while ago I think it still rings true. It's really hard to fully load a modern multi-core CPU. You can only do it with programs that are easily split into portions to run on each thread, like decompressing or rendering ones.

And most programs especially games simply don't work that way. From what I understand even back in the single core days CPUs spent as much time waiting on user input than crunching data. It might be currently less of an issue, but CPUs are also much faster and efficient compared to then, so yeah, still waiting for us slow as mud humans to do something.

Now I'm not suggesting that everyone use a 2 core Celeron. It's just as important that you have stand by resources for any time there's a sudden increase in load. For example when Windows decides it needs to download the latest update in the background. But IMHO beyond 4c/8t there are diminishing returns in most programs especially games, and clock speed, cache', IPC, even RAM amounts will become bigger factors in overall performance.

 

[Q Wales]

Love these component experiments and really appreciate the effort.. even though the chat on this one didn't really come across as objective as usual and you dropped (the more cpu hungry) Fortnite as one of your comparison markers.

 

[PEnnn]

I play any game I want on High (not counting Cyberpunk, because I really don't care for it, yet). And I run stuff in the background sometimes and yet, my PC and games are stable and frame rate is quite good.

My CPU?? 4790 with 16 GB of DDR3! And my GPU? 1660 Super.

Have I considered upgrading? Sure, but why would I?? Maybe just for Windows 11, but that pig can wait a few more years or I can upgrade eventually to Windows 15 or 20..

Till then, Intel, nGridia and AMD can kiss my butt, I ain't upgradin' nuthin!

 

[deemon]

But but but ... whataboutthose5VM's I am running in the same 5950X while still gaming perfectly well? :-D

 

[liljom]

This is one of my 2 favorite tech blogs for a reason
Kudos

 

[DHON JOE]

Y'all couldn't have windows do some updates while Malwarebytes or Norton kicked in?

it's been a year and a half.... time for some new tests?

yes, multitasking benchmarks is more of an art than science, and it's harder to do correctly than straight and simple one task benchmarks.

but if anyone can do it, it's you!!!

P.S. you can show the Other Steve up cause he tried and failed... poor guy