The delay between CCDs doesn’t appear to cause major slowdowns on those processors when playing games.
The delay between CCDs doesn’t appear to cause major slowdowns on those processors when playing games.
It's hard to say definitively. A single CCD works well for gaming, though using a 12-core chip means you're sacrificing some performance. Honestly, I didn't need 12 cores, but it was still enjoyable to play that Cinebench game. Most benchmarks show my 5900X reaching 5150, which is great for desktop tasks—though not the absolute top. This X3D model handles games nicely, even if it's not the best. I'd go for a 4090, but they've been reduced in price.
Discussing 16 cores HT versus 8 cores HT depends on the situation. In ideal scenarios, more threads can enhance performance, especially when a CPU lacks sufficient logical threads. The idea is that each core can handle multiple threads, improving efficiency. However, if most other game threads are heavily utilizing a single core, adding HT/SMT might not help much and could even reduce performance. It seems the balance between core count and thread utilization matters more than just the number of cores alone. Your reasoning about logical usage is sound—more threads can be beneficial when they're spread across different tasks.
The recommended setup is typically 8 cores with high threading enabled. Running 8 cores without threads is insufficient, and even mid-range titles can utilize full CPU power. Having 16 cores provides two dedicated CPUs, but I've found HT off to be unnecessary and it creates bottlenecks in certain games.
Since 12 and 16 cores each have two CCDs, it seems they face more latency issues with HT/SMT disabled compared to 8 cores with HT enabled. This is mainly due to the cross-CCD delay affecting performance. While games are increasingly thread-intensive, having only 8 threads isn't enough for optimal usage. With HT on, you gain 16 threads, allowing most game threads to run efficiently—typically using around 1-2 cores at a time. This extra capacity is what HT/SMT aims to provide by splitting tasks and maximizing core utilization during gameplay.