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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3670 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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How do you tell whether a CPU is better or worse (other than whether it's more or less expensive)?

With graphics cards, I know that there are more or less CUDA cores or their AMD equivalent, that there's a certain amount of video ram. More is better.

But with cpus, what is there? More cores = more expensive but most applications only seem to use 1 core so what's the point? All CPUs are roughly 3.5 Ghz, maybe going a bit higher on the most expensive models or if you overclock them. I heard that some CPUs manage to get more done in their herz, like the difference between a lamborghini driving a hundred km but only taking two people, vs a truck carrying a dozen people somewhat more slowly. Some CPUs have efficiency cores for background processes or OS, whatever that means. I get that higher numbers means that they're better but how are they better?

most applications only seem to use 1 core

That depends on which applications you use.

Buy a CPU with more cores?

The majority of programs (games included) are lightly threaded, which means they only need a few cores to run. Games released as late as 2013 could easily run on just one core. For a long time, having more than a few (2–4) cores brought no benefits to the overwhelming majority of games.

But the times are changing, and more and more modern games are beginning to take advantage of the extra cores and threads of modern CPUs. As of early 2020, the best CPUs for modern gaming are 8-core CPUs! In the future, if the core count for "best gaming CPU" changes, it will go up, not down.

There is still a lot of truth to the old wisdom though; in particular, single-core and single-threaded performance are still the best determinants of a CPU’s performance in almost every game.

Non-gaming programs that may benefit from higher core counts include file compression, video encoding, 3D rendering, and server applications. If you are going to be using your computer for any of those sorts of tasks, then you may benefit from a more expensive CPU. Otherwise stick with a mid-range CPU, unless money is not a concern.

I heard that some CPUs manage to get more done in their hertz

The technical term is "instructions per cycle". Newer generations of CPUs will have better IPC scores.

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