Lately I've been seeing more of them.

Now, do they really need "four plus cores" or can they run well on less than that?

Also, does it have to be Intel's finest, or can AMD's octa-core underdog do the same job too?

It seems to me that they're just trying to increase Core i7 sales at the expense of AMD's and Intel's lesser offerings - Kinda like the "Pentium class CPU" requirement of the '90s.

At 10/22/14 07:57 PM, Painbringer wrote: Lately I've been seeing more of them.

Now, do they really need "four plus cores" or can they run well on less than that?

Also, does it have to be Intel's finest, or can AMD's octa-core underdog do the same job too?

It seems to me that they're just trying to increase Core i7 sales at the expense of AMD's and Intel's lesser offerings - Kinda like the "Pentium class CPU" requirement of the '90s.

Alright, I'm going to sound like a prick but trust me I am not trying to be. I bought my computer with an3.4ghz(turbo to 4ghz) i7 in 2011. i5s should not still be allowed to be sold in stores as they are weak and outdated for gaming/3D work). Basically an i7 quadcore (hyper threaded to work like an 8-core) is the most basic cpu you would want in your PC for gaming. Hell many people are now getting 6-core i7s and even more.
They are just trying to set a minimum standard for PC gaming... which currently is an i5 but soon to be an i7.

the i7 processor has capabilities that no game makes use of, such as hyper threading.

an i5 will perform just as good as an i7 in games. the i7 is only needed if ur doing some heavy, heavy ass shit like 3d rendering applications.

Im just going to say I don't know any games that require an i7 that isn't mobile.

If games are saying they require an i7 to run smoothly then AMD is dead as AMD is all multitasking and has half the power per core as Intel.

i5 and i7 are the same freaking thing except i5 is cheaper and i7 has hyperthreading a feature games do not even do. Hyperthreading is something to do with encoding videos quicker I believe. It's basically a pointless feature unless your into editing a lot and even then it's probably not worth the extra money.

From what i've seen the i3s have hyper threading and are basically the same speed in general as the i5. So there's no really reason to buy a i5 quad core.

Blame lazy programming standards. Seriously.

Quality of software has been going to crap for years and years because most companies would rather do stuff quickly than do stuff right. So you end up with huge bloat you need some ridiculous computer to even run stuff that, if it was programmed half-decently, could run even better on even worse hardware.

Very very rarely are the additional features of high-end hardware actually needed or even used. Even if they are used, it's not ridiculous to write fallback routines for lesser hardware. Programmers are just slop at efficiency these days is all.

If people knew what all their computers of even a few years ago were truly capable of provided majority of software wasn't coded like shit (majority is coded like shit though, unfortunately), they would rightly be incredibly angry.

Because the hardware guys keep making better and better hardware but the software guys just keep doing a shittier job every year to the point it negates the benefit of the advanced hardware anyway.

Basically any high-level-only coders are shit programmers but that makes up like 99% of programmers out there today. Not to mention even a good programmer will intentionally slop it up if management idiotically rushes things all the time, which they frequently do. Take ten times longer to produce and make a product that's ten times better ... or release now. They always choose release now.

you want a i7 I got the i7 4790k and it can run everything I need a high operating frequency of 4.0 Ghz hyper threaded cores and a 8MB L3 cache. i5s are useless. and AMD is no better they are just as if not more useless.

At 10/22/14 07:57 PM, Painbringer wrote: Lately I've been seeing more of them.
It seems to me that they're just trying to increase Core i7 sales at the expense of AMD's and Intel's lesser offerings - Kinda like the "Pentium class CPU" requirement of the '90s.

It is just a way to make money.

At 10/24/14 11:52 AM, DoctorStrongbad wrote: It is just a way to make money.

It's also a way to be incredibly lazy. It's faster and easier to make bloat crap software than to make efficient resource-lean software. So they just get lazier and lazier and expect the hardware to pick up the slack.

There are games that require an i7? Which ones?

At 10/25/14 08:22 AM, Sword-of-Kings wrote: There are games that require an i7? Which ones?

Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Evil Within.

At 10/27/14 06:21 PM, Painbringer wrote: Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Evil Within.

How would they run on a 4670k?

At 10/27/14 06:29 PM, Sword-of-Kings wrote: How would they run on a 4670k?

Good enough, I guess.

Modern games won't try to stop you from running on lesser hardware.

At 10/27/14 06:50 PM, Painbringer wrote:

At 10/27/14 06:29 PM, Sword-of-Kings wrote: How would they run on a 4670k?

Good enough, I guess.

Modern games won't try to stop you from running on lesser hardware.

games like Strider 2014 and GTA IV require a Core i7.

At 10/30/14 08:00 PM, Lich wrote:

At 10/23/14 09:56 PM, Patcoola wrote: From what i've seen the i3s have hyper threading and are basically the same speed in general as the i5. So there's no really reason to buy a i5 quad core.

On an individual strength basis it is still MUCH weaker than a typical i5. 4 logical cores of an i3 vs 4 physical cores of an i5 where the core strength is not split and physically stronger, see where I'm coming from?

i wasn't saying hyper threading was better, in some cases it made performance slower.

however, i am saying that the i3's single threading has proven better than many i5's thous being better. a i3 with 3 physical cores is equal to a i5 quad core. For gaming we want power per core not number of cores.

At 10/31/14 02:29 AM, Patcoola wrote: a i3 with 3 physical cores is equal to a i5 quad core. For gaming we want power per core not number of cores.

An i3 is a dual-core that tries to do the work of four.

At 10/30/14 08:00 PM, Lich wrote: You only need what the software and/or game itself is able to utilize by design. @NeonSpider done a wonderful job of describing the recent past, today's and most probably the future situation with the failure of programming standards/optimization for games and applications to run more efficiently and better on existing/older hardware.

The problem, in addition to being one of bad management (management rushing programming teams to "hurry up and finish") is that there's just not very many actually good programmers in comparison to how many exceedingly mediocre and worse programmers are out there. Combine that with the fact employers frequently are unable to tell the difference between a good programmer and a mediocre or even lousy programmer (since, to tell a good programmer, you yourself have to actually be somewhat good) and you end up where we are today.

High-level-only programmers are mediocre programmers at best. One doesn't need to constantly program at a low-level, but should be able to if need be and should understand it. And the problem is 99% of programmers out there today don't have any clear understanding of how things work at a low-level but yet think they're as good as or better than low-level programmers of the past, when they're not at all. The very best programmers are capable of low-level programming. No exceptions.

There's a bit of Dunning-Kruger effect going on.

And it's a fact that for best optimization one absolutely needs a basis in low-level understanding of how a computer actually works. For non-programmers this might seem strange, but majority of programmers out there don't actually understand computers and it's entirely possible to make software at a high-level without a full understanding of computers.

At 10/23/14 06:51 PM, beakerboy wrote: the i7 processor has capabilities that no game makes use of, such as hyper threading.

an i5 will perform just as good as an i7 in games. the i7 is only needed if ur doing some heavy, heavy ass shit like 3d rendering applications.

My i7 4790K turbos up to 4.4 GHz, and is the fastest single-thread performance CPU from either Intel or AMD right now. That said, an i5 certainly will not perform on its level in games for that reason alone.
I should also mention that my turbo is tweaked to max at 4.6 GHz on all cores as well.

At 10/31/14 09:58 AM, TehNoobzKilla wrote: My i7 4790K turbos up to 4.4 GHz, and is the fastest single-thread performance CPU from either Intel or AMD right now. That said, an i5 certainly will not perform on its level in games for that reason alone.

While that is the fastest CPU in raw speed alone, the earliest i7s can still be beat by newer i5s and even i3s in single-core performance.

At 10/31/14 04:51 AM, Painbringer wrote:

At 10/31/14 02:29 AM, Patcoola wrote: a i3 with 3 physical cores is equal to a i5 quad core. For gaming we want power per core not number of cores.

An i3 is a dual-core that tries to do the work of four.

only if hyper threading is enabled and implemented that way, otherwise the I3-4360 is very competitive to the i5-4690, in benchmarks you can see that the i5-4690 is not double the power of the i3-4360. So the i5-4690 is inefficient and anyone considering a I5 should skip them and get a I7 instead.

At 10/31/14 03:31 PM, Patcoola wrote: only if hyper threading is enabled and implemented that way, otherwise the I3-4360 is very competitive to the i5-4690, in benchmarks you can see that the i5-4690 is not double the power of the i3-4360. So the i5-4690 is inefficient and anyone considering a I5 should skip them and get a I7 instead.

Well of course a non hyper-threaded dual-core is going to be more energy efficient than a quad-core, because it cannot get as much work done in the same amount of time!

A dual-core under full load will obviously consume less energy than a quad-core doing more than half.

At 10/31/14 06:59 PM, Painbringer wrote:

All Intel CPU's are amazing in energy efficiency, especially the S models, the Intel Core i7 4770S is only 64 watts.

Can't wait to see Broadwell when it comes outs.

At 10/31/14 07:36 PM, Patcoola wrote: All Intel CPU's are amazing in energy efficiency, especially the S models, the Intel Core i7 4770S is only 64 watts.

That's only a theoretical thermal maximum. Normal and idle use would be lower, while a stress test or overclocking would make it higher.

Can't wait to see Broadwell when it comes outs.

I've read that Skylake will be coming out at about the same time: Same 14nm process, new architecture.

At 11/2/14 09:24 AM, Lich wrote:

The way i see it, you can save your self a lot of money and get an i3 which seems to be very competitive to the i5 just with less cores. or you can save your money and get a longer lasting "better investment" i7 that appears to be Intel's true quad core (excluding Xeon).

But of course there is nothing wrong about getting an i5, it's all about what you need it for. But it does seems to me that the i5 is just abit waste full compared to the i7,

At 11/3/14 06:36 PM, Monster-64 wrote: I know that Brink requires an i7.

You're kidding, right?

At 11/3/14 07:51 PM, Monster-64 wrote: Shit. I thought that game required an i7.

Hope you didn't buy expensive new hardware just to play it.

At 10/22/14 07:57 PM, Painbringer wrote: It seems to me that they're just trying to increase Core i7 sales at the expense of AMD's and Intel's lesser offerings - Kinda like the "Pentium class CPU" requirement of the '90s.

xeon beats up i7, and i7 extreme to be honest.

At 10/31/14 07:36 PM, Patcoola wrote:

At 10/31/14 06:59 PM, Painbringer wrote:

All Intel CPU's are amazing in energy efficiency, especially the S models, the Intel Core i7 4770S is only 64 watts.

Can't wait to see Broadwell when it comes outs.

Heh you haven't seen anything. The i7 4650U runs at like 10W. My tablet uses that CPU.