Intel i5 750 Performance Test: 2 cores vs 4 cores
Conclusion
Once again we see that the CPU makes little to no difference in a wide range of situations if you use the highest playable settings. Out of 21 tested games, even the two that showed slight performance gains (Unreal Tournament 3 and Far Cry 2) would’ve shown far bigger differences from a GTX480 compared to a GTX470 with regards to performance and/or image quality.
It’s reasonable to expect anyone with a single high-end GPU like a GTX470 to be running something like 1920×1200 with 2xAA, while CF/SLI owners will obviously go higher, like 2560×1600 with 4xAA. After all, that’s the whole point of buying high-end graphics cards. Nobody buys high-end graphics cards to run games at 1280×1024 with no AF or AA so they can show four cores getting 200 FPS while two cores “only” get 150 FPS.
If you’re currently on a decent dual-core platform with a low or middle class video card, absolutely do not be afraid of upgrading to a high-end graphics card if you have a 1920 (or better) monitor and/or you like using AA. When games are configured to use the highest playable settings, in the vast majority of cases the graphics card will influence gaming performance the most, often to the point of completely bottlenecking the system.
Of course if you’re building a brand new rig from scratch, get yourself a mid-range quad-core (e.g. an i5 750) so you can future-proof yourself for 2-3 years. In addition, it goes without saying that you should buy the fastest graphics card you can afford.
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It should be noted that these findings do not apply to BFBC2. you need a quad core for that one. everyone knows that.
fausto: yes, it’s true, BFBC2 can use more than four cores. But the question is, does it matter? It didn’t matter in the case of my UT 3 and Far Cry 2 results, and both games can use more than two cores too.
Here are some 5870 Crossfire BFBC2 benchmarks:
http://www.techspot.com/article/255-battlefield-bad-company2-performance/page7.html
At 2560×1600 with 2xAA (bottom graph), there’s a complete flatline because the GPU bottlenecks the system at ~73 FPS, even with an i7 920 underclocked to just 2.22 GHz. This is on 5870 CF, which is a very powerful GPU system; a single GPU will flatline much earlier, perhaps even at 1920×1200.
Now here are some CPU scaling tests in the same game:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/battlefield_bad_company_2_tuning_guide,7.html
Remember the 73 FPS flatline on the 5870 CF system above? All we need is a core i3 540 to reach it. They’re probably two different benchmarks, but my point still stands.
Providing you run your games at the highest playable settings, any decent dual-core CPU is capable of saturating your graphics system into being the primary bottleneck in the vast majority of cases.
I hope people understand this is the fundamental point I’m trying to get across in all of these CPU articles.
Anyway, thanks for your comments.
Would have liked to see more 1920×1200 and 1920×1080 results. Most people fall into these resolutions and few are using a 30″ monitor at 2560×1600 . 30 inch monitors are still out of reach for many bacause they’re pretty darn expensive.
I’m doubting there would be more than 5% difference in most games 1920×1080, but maybe a few would be 10% or so.
Me thinks GTA IV should be included here. My E6750 is @ 3.5Ghz from 2.66. I was messing around inside my PC shutting it on and off and the BIOS thought there were issues so it reset to defaults. I didn’t notice until I launched GTA IV and performance was shit. After I re-applied my OC it performed like I remember. GPU was GTX 275 @ 1920×1080, 16xAF with optimal settings used.
I suspect that if you included a few RTS games, like Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, where CPU matters more, you’d find that it does matter in some cases, although whether or not it justifies the costs (rather than spending the difference on a better GPU) is open for debate. It all depends on what you need your CPU for.
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