Six cores provide sufficient power for gaming tasks.
Six cores provide sufficient power for gaming tasks.
I've noticed the debate about needing just six cores for gaming versus the need for more for smoother performance. Some argue that going beyond six cores is unnecessary, comparing apples to oranges—just like choosing a basic car and upgrading later. Others believe investing in more cores now ensures better smoothness and a premium experience without frequent upgrades. People often focus on the base model but opt for higher trims when they feel the difference.
6 cores can game, but 6 core isn't "all you need", benchmarks easily show there is performance to be gained Let say i have to pick between a 5600 and a 5800x3d for a 3000usd build, and the 5800x3d gets me 10% more fps on the lows, then i'd probably go with the 5800x3d, but neither choice is definitive. Or here's another thought, if someone was doing a build with a 3090ti, would they be using a 6 core cpu? unlikely, the 12700k was just 300usd awhile back. As for personal experience, going from a 8700k to a 5950x exposed frametime issues even with a 1080ti.
Analyzing core numbers for gaming alone seems too basic, yet if you're not tight on budget I’d target an 8-core setup today to ensure smooth performance in the coming years. Eight cores are acceptable but offer a more accessible experience. This assumes using recent chips like Coffee Lake, Zen 2 or newer. Even with six cores, it still works, though it’s less powerful. In my case, I use a 5800H for gaming and a 11700K on TV systems. My 7920X (12 cores) is great for streaming but underperforms in games if you want top speed. Edit: Previously I had six cores (8086k, 10600k), and honestly I don’t see much difference in games, though they’re more GPU-dependent. Switching to eight cores makes sense since current consoles have them too, making it a clear advantage for developers now and later. For pure gaming, eight fast cores seem ideal. Ignoring the 5800X3D, I’d prefer the 5800X over the 12 or 16 core versions on AMD platforms.
Doom Eternal performs excellently on my setup with ray tracing turned on. It runs smoothly on a 6-core/12-thread CPU, 64 GB DDR4 RAM, NVMe SSD, and an RTX 2070. It’s more than sufficient for me. While it isn’t the toughest title, it offers plenty of visuals and is up-to-date.
It comes down to your typical usage. If you play games without streaming or running many Chrome tabs and background apps, 6C should suffice. You won't get the top-tier performance, but it's solid enough for gaming. If you need to run several programs alongside game and Discord, more cores might be better. It really depends on your needs. Cheers!
I rely on my setup as a regular user for everyday work—creating 2D graphics in Autodesk and Corel, listening to music, and enjoying some games to unwind. It handles all my needs with plenty of power.
I recently upgraded to a 12700kf from an 8700k, even though there are significant IPC differences between the two. I pushed the 8700k to its limits in many games, but it remained smooth. The titles that maxed out the 8700k used only about 7/8 of the cores, not operating at full capacity. I didn’t expect much from the E-Cores on the 12gen, but since I’ve begun using Process Lasso and dividing tasks between the P and E cores, my gaming experience has been very smooth. Six cores are sufficient for gaming, but having a few extra cores is especially helpful when running multiple applications alongside games.
I possess a 5900x configuration, mainly because I prioritize productivity. Those extra cores aren't necessary for gaming just yet. The GPU remains the main bottleneck in most applications. The advantage of more cores varies greatly depending on the game. Classic titles usually run on a single thread or rely heavily on one powerful thread. In such scenarios, a single high-speed core is more beneficial than several slower ones. Previously, options were limited to few fast cores or many slow ones. Alongside games that barely utilize them, choosing a faster CPU was often wiser for general use. Today, CPUs with numerous cores still deliver strong performance, making it easier to balance workloads. While some older games may behave unpredictably with too many cores (though they can be disabled temporarily), modern titles are increasingly capable of leveraging more cores efficiently. This shift encourages a preference for additional cores. The ideal number still hinges on the specific game. If a title doesn’t heavily tax the CPU, a quad-core setup might suffice. But if it demands rapid processing—like sudden enemy spawns—having an idle core can reduce latency instead of overloading an already busy core. I believe six cores were once considered the optimal balance between cost and performance. I expect this number will rise as engines improve their ability to parallelize tasks, especially with higher clock speeds becoming less common.
I've seen a range of performance shifts during upgrades from the 5GHz 8700K to the 5.1-5.3GHz (mostly 5.1) 10900K with a 3080. Sometimes it feels subtle, other times it's a noticeable boost in gameplay. Part of this could be attributed to increased cache size—12MB on the 8700K to 20MB on the 10900K. There are also moments when the cores really shine, like during shader optimizations where the older model lagged noticeably. The same applies to software launches and heavy computing tasks such as unpacking Steam installs.
I no longer enjoy gaming on a six-core setup. Even after building an eight-core i9 9900K in 2019, I moved to video editing and chose the i9 10900K, which remains my top pick. After that, I gifted it to my son for editing and returned to my old i7 8086K for gaming—only a week passed before I decided. I didn’t like it, so I ordered another i9 10900K rig. I’m fine with eight cores. My R9 5900X originally came with a 5800X core. When prices fell on the 5900X, I bought one. They feel just as good, so I won’t miss them when I get a 5800X3D.