a multi-core world

[robbiess]

as I consider various options for a new pc it looms on me that most of you out their are probably using a many core processor which your probably not going to use regularly if ever yet alone the need for so many cores.

I mean how many people actually need 12 virtual cores who REALLY does video render and even if your running a "modest" over clock of 4.5ghz on your "mid-range" core i5 when you're reading this. ask your self what was the most demanding task your pc did today?
if it's gaming i'll tell you staright up a apu will have performed neye on the same for £80

ivy bridge i3's are coming soon so even the apparent advantage it has with hd4000 graphics will be negated and h77 has very much the same feature set as z77 with overclock ability lost only

I'd very much like to hear you thoughts on this and what cpu and applications you're running

 

[jamesriley94]

Not an APU...
As you're relatively new to these forums, you probably wont know that we spend every day giving exactly the same advice to people. We arent stupid you know

Ignoring AMD for the time being...
Agreed i3s will perform exactly the same at a 3960x in gaming, (unless you're using quad 680s or somethink as it may bottleneck) but an i3 with a single 680, will perform the same as a 3960x with a single 680.
We tend to recommend the i5 3570ks here as they will perform better in certain applications that some users may use, and for the price you may as well.

If anyone comes on saying they want a 3930k for a gaming rig, then we do always advise that down to an 3570k, as todays games will thrive more on gpu power rather than cpu grunt.

 

[robbiess]

i point here using the non fx 651 has the same processor as the3870k with the graphics chip removed as you see beets the i3 even! and fm1 boards are generaly cheaper
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc...tion-apu-1057509/review/page:2#articleContent

 

[andrewmchugh]

Not an APU...
As you're relatively new to these forums, you probably wont know that we spend every day giving exactly the same advice to people. We arent stupid you know

Ignoring AMD for the time being...
Agreed i3s will perform exactly the same at a 3960x in gaming, (unless you're using quad 680s or somethink as it may bottleneck) but an i3 with a single 680, will perform the same as a 3960x with a single 680.
We tend to recommend the i5 3570ks here as they will perform better in certain applications that some users may use, and for the price you may as well.

If anyone comes on saying they want a 3930k for a gaming rig, then we do always advise that down to an 3570k, as todays games will thrive more on gpu power rather than cpu grunt.

Thats because most games tend you use just a single loop for everything including networking. For graphics cards, apis are none thread safe so unless there is complex collision detection or similar only a single core will be used.

 

[jamesriley94]

You can tell who the computing science student is cant you

Regardless - there's no point in having masses of cores like in the Bulldozers, when a faster core performance like in an Intel processor will give greater performance. Hence why the latest generation of AMD processors sucked in real world performance. You're even better getting an i3 over an 8 core bulldozer in gaming because of this.

I did use AMD - but in reality, all thoughts of thinking they're as good and they're cheaper is ridiculous. Far better getting out of the loop as soon as you can and getting a proper processor from Intel

 

[robbiess]

in REAL world aplications ie day to day use gaming ect... your cpu doesn't give much performance boost in games even where multi core support has been implemented such as battlefeild 3 their is only a marginal range between performance of top and low end modern cpus.

boot times, aplication load times, game performance and how many people render or edit pictures not that many and about the sli/crossfire over 90% of the discrete graphics card market use one card only

 

[seumasbeathan]

^Not true

I have a Pentium G840 and It massively bottlenecks my 5870, so there is a big difference between high end and low end

 

[jamesriley94]

Exactly - hence why we advise people to drop down to i5s from 2011, and drop to 3770ks instead of 3570ks...
Also why we tell people to drop from FX 8150s to i3s because they'll perform better for a lower cost...

We seem to be arguing the same points :S

Seeing seumas' reply - I do disagree about the low end part - didnt really read it before. Anything above an i3 is generally fine though