Advice: Quad Core or 6 Core?

#1 Posted by Joeasis (53 posts) - 8 months, 21 days ago

Hey guys :) Just a quick question.

I'm about to click buy on a new computer and I've been trawling the net for a while now and my head is hurting. I've taken overclocking and GPUs and price and all that nonsense into consideration, and I'm tired :P

So I thought I'd just try and get a simple answer from the most awesome community on the net.

Quad or 6 (Hex?) core for gaming?

The only games I really play on the PC is the Sims and I'm looking forward to the new Simcity game.

(The other thing I do on a PC is video editing).

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Cheers guys.

Joey.

#2 Edited by AlisterCat (5025 posts) - 8 months, 21 days ago

More cores just help with multitasking. A lot of programs, especially games, still don't take full advantage of multicore processors. It's the speed that is still important. I would just go with 4, though having an i7 is like having 8 with 4 physical cores.

Edit: though it's always good to look at benchmarks for each product and compare.

#3 Posted by PrivateIronTFU (3874 posts) - 8 months, 21 days ago

All you really need is a quad core processor. Plenty fast, especially for your needs.

#4 Posted by ervonymous (903 posts) - 8 months, 21 days ago

I wish I'd gone with Intel when I built this machine but the hexacore AMD 1090T was so much cheaper at the time. I don't think there's any other reason to stray from a quad core intel processor even now.

#5 Posted by Joeasis (53 posts) - 8 months, 20 days ago

Thanks for the replies, guys. :)

#6 Posted by SamDrugbringer (992 posts) - 8 months, 20 days ago

Like the above have said, you really don't need to worry about the cores past 4 that much. Hardly any program can use that many cores, so all it'll do is offload a very small amount of background programs.

Maybe if you're crazy into multitasking it would be worth it.

#7 Edited by DoctorWelch (2611 posts) - 8 months, 20 days ago

There is literally no point to getting anything higher than quad core right now. GPU is where the money really makes the difference on a gaming PC.

#8 Edited by believer258 (7872 posts) - 8 months, 20 days ago

Get an i5.

No, really, I recently made a thread on the subject of processors and also scoured the web for info, and that answer is almost unanimous - i5 2500K processors give the best bang for your buck. Ten dollars more nets you the new Ivy Bridge 3570K. I wound up opting for a 3470 since I don't plan on overclocking, but at the end of the day an i5 is and has been the gold standard.

#9 Posted by PHARAOH (113 posts) - 8 months, 11 days ago

@ervonymous:

I really like my 1100T 6core. If you have the power overclock the crap out of it. Mine is running at 4Gigs and a hint guys the phenom2 turbo core back then really sucks turn it off.

#10 Posted by ervonymous (903 posts) - 8 months, 11 days ago

@PHARAOH: Not that I have any real gripes with it, I just haven't been able to push it beyond 3.6ghz after a BIOS update and I'm tired of fiddling with it.

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