We all know that when playing games, changing GPUs is like changing computers, but many people may ignore the importance of THE CPU in the entire computer system. It is also often said on the Internet that "if you want to play a game with a high frame rate, you must choose a high-frequency CPU" and "Multi-core CPU does not mean much to increase the frame rate of the game", so is this actually the case?
Recently, we also borrowed a Dell G15 5511 game book, through the control variable method (only adjust the performance of the CPU in the game system - through the system BIOS shield turbo/off the core), the test environment will be kept at a constant temperature of 26 °C, the system BIOS version is 1.8.1, and the graphics card driver is 497.07, to explore the impact of CPU frequency and CPU core number on the number of game frames.
After 8 game measurements, we found that the cpu's main frequency and the number of CPU cores are equally important, and both will greatly affect the cpu usage, thereby affecting the number of game frames.
Here I use the test results as an inappropriate analogy to help you understand:
Think of "games" as different "employees"
"CPU" is seen as "company"
"Cpu Cores" is "Payroll Benefits"
"CPU Frequency" is "Work Fulfillment"
"GPU" is "work content"
"GPU Usage" is "Productivity"
"Game Frames" is "Company Performance"
1, some "employees" have faith in the "company" (the game focuses on CPU performance), every day in the dream of marrying Bai Fumei, and when the "sense of work achievement" is reduced, the "employee work efficiency" will be greatly reduced, thereby reducing the "company performance", the dream is shattered.
2, in addition, there are some "employees" who are very passionate about their "work content" (the game focuses on GPU performance), not caring about which company they work in, even if their "sense of work achievement" is appropriately reduced, it will not have a significant impact on "employee productivity". But at this time, if you want to reduce his "salary and benefits", it will be bad, and you will no longer expect this "employee" to have any good "employee performance".
3, if the "salary and welfare" and "sense of work achievement" are not high, then you can not expect that "work efficiency" will be high, let alone guarantee "company performance".
Isn't that an interesting thing?
The test model configuration is as follows
The Dell G15 5511 has a built-in Intel Core i7-11800H processor and an RTX 3060 display.
In terms of CPU, thanks to the 10nm SuperFin process, the willow Cove architecture, its power consumption performance ratio is higher, and the more obvious upgrade is that the number of CPU cores is more than the previous generation, of which the Core i5-11260H as the beginning of the series has a six-core twelve-thread configuration, while the i7-11800H has reached eight cores and sixteen threads, and the direct competitor has become its own i9 processor.
Test software:
1.GeekBench 5
2.CBR23
Through the basic running score (8988's GeekBench5 multi-core running score and 11899's CBR23 multi-core running score), this year's 11th-generation Core H45 processor has ushered in cross-generation performance improvements, successfully flipping in multi-core performance performance. (All test software in this article is the actual use of my real test and does not represent the position of any brand party.) ）
Comparison of CPU with core (octa-core) different frequency games:
The H45's i7-11800H processor not only has a large core count (increased to eight cores), but also brings high main frequency characteristics. Test two sets of game measured data, one set limits the CPU frequency to maintain at 2.3GHz fundamental frequency, and the other group does not limit its maximum turbo frequency (G15 5511 full core turbo frequency can reach about 4.2GHz).
Through the following comparison of these data, I hope that you can more intuitively understand that the high-frequency CPU can indeed greatly increase the number of game frames.
Click to see a larger image
The visualization of cpu high/low frequency game frame differences is as follows:
Through the above test results, we found 2 rules:
1) In games that are sensitive to CPU performance such as Age of Empires 4, DOTA2, CS GO and World of Warcraft, low CPU frequency will greatly reduce GPU utilization, thereby wasting GPU computing power and resulting in a significant reduction in game frame rates.
Under the same picture quality setting of the same scene in World of Warcraft, the difference in CPU high/low frequency frames is close to 70%
In CS:GO, the CPU high/low frequency frame rate difference is close to 150%
Summary: These more CPU performance-sensitive games require relatively little GPU computing, so the bottleneck in the final game frame count is the frequency of the CPU. That is to say, when the GPU cannot be fully loaded (due to factors such as game optimization, fewer game effects, or CPU performance bottlenecks), if you increase the frequency of the CPU, you can greatly increase the number of game frames.
To extend the inappropriate metaphor at the beginning: When a colleague who has faith in the company is not saturated with his work, a proper improvement of his sense of accomplishment in his work may help him improve his performance. (Is this really the case in the workplace?) Haha)
2) In games that are sensitive to GPU performance such as "Red Dead Redemption 2", "Assassin's Creed Odyssey", and "Overwatch", there are a lot of GPU-eating screen effects in the game. When a game can get the GPU to fully loaded, the GPU's computing performance becomes the factor that has the greatest impact on the game's frame rate. Conversely, when the GPU is under full load, the cpu frequency does not significantly affect the number of game frames.
The highest quality comparison of "Red Dead Redemption 2" is only 1FPS difference in frames
The lowest quality comparison of "Red Dead Redemption 2" is only 6FPS
Even if the game's picture quality setting is reduced, the GPU occupancy rate of games such as "Red Dead Redemption 2" and "Overwatch" is still in a full load state, and at this time, regardless of whether the CPU frequency is high or low, the impact on the game frame rate is basically not more than 10%.
brief summary:
The frame rate of these GPU-sensitive games will be more limited by gpu performance, so the bottleneck of the final game frame rate is the performance of the GPU. If you do not upgrade the GPU, you can increase the number of game frames by reducing the image quality effect settings (such as reducing shadows, ambient occlusion and other effects to greatly reduce the GPU load).
To extend the inappropriate metaphor at the beginning: a colleague who loves his work will always put himself in a state of "inner volume", and then give him a little extra salary, maybe he can roll more strongly!
Then some people may ask, like these more biased GPU performance of the game is not completely dependent on the performance of the CPU, casually buy a dual-core i3 processor can also fight a hard time?
Then you'd be very wrong, because the CPU is the core of the computer system, and different games have different optimization logic. Many new AAA games are actually very dependent on the CPU's multi-core performance, if the CPU multi-core performance is weak, it is still unable to fully call the GPU usage, resulting in a significant drop in the game frame rate.
If you want a horse to run, you can't let it not eat grass!
The following tests confirm this:
Cpu co-frequency (high frequency) different core (octa-core vs dual-core) game comparison:
Red Dead Redemption 2 is also high-frequency, with an octa-core 36FPS higher than a dual-core
Also a high frequency, "Red Dead Redemption 2" in the dual core, the CPU utilization is full, and the GPU steals the idle. In contrast, the frame rate of the eight cores is 116FPS, and the dual cores are only 80FPS, with a difference of 45% in frame numbers.
Overwatch is also high-frequency, with eight cores running 292FPS more than dual cores
Overwatch is more typical in this game, running only 31FPS under dual cores (it feels like a fake RTX 3060), while eight cores can run to 323FPS, which is 10 times the frame difference.
In addition, when cpu multi-core performance is weak, the impact of CPU frequency on game frame count is also very obvious:
CPU vs. core (dual-core) Compare games at different frequencies
"Red Dead Redemption 2" has the lowest picture quality, dual-core different frequency comparison
Also dual-core, Red Dead Redemption 2 uses a high-frequency CPU to maintain at least 71% of the RTX 3060's utilization, which can maintain 80FPS, while the low-frequency CPU abolishes the RTX 3060 graphics card, and the frame rate is only a pitiful 41FPS.
Overwatch is low-quality, dual-core at different frequencies, and the frame rate is 31FPS
But Overwatch can be said to be a pure exception, hardly eating CPU frequencies (really a good employee), only very sensitive to multi-core performance, as long as it is given eight cores, the frame rate is immediately 300FPS+.
Overwatch is low-quality, with eight different frequencies and a frame rate of 300FPS+
It seems that whether it is "welfare benefits" or "work achievement", they are very important things to ensure "employee efficiency" and "employee performance".
The more CPU cores, the better?
In fact, it is not that the more CPU cores the higher the number of game frames.
Official Intel game test data
Combined with the previous Intel official 12 game test content, if the game performance of the octa-core CPU is 1.00, then the benefit of the octa-core is actually not large. Therefore, it can be inferred that the vast majority of mainstream games are still optimized for CPUs with up to eight cores.
(All test software in this article is the actual use of my real test and does not represent the position of any brand party.) ）
To sum up:
The CPU is the brain in the computer and plays an extremely important role. The frequency of the CPU and the multi-core performance will affect the maximum performance of the GPU in the whole system, a CPU with high frequency + multi-core characteristics can make the GPU not "idle", and make the frame rate of the game more stable and the frame limit is higher.
Even in the face of poorly optimized or well-provisioned games, higher CPU frequencies tend to result in higher game frame counts. In addition, from the game "Overwatch", it can also be seen that it cannot be generalized that online games eat more CPU, and single-player eats GPU more, depending on the number of special effects in the game.
So if you have a high-performance discrete graphics card, and the game you play is more "miscellaneous", then it is best to match the processor with a large number of cores and a higher CPU frequency on the market. If the money is not bad, it is recommended that you can overclock the i9 processor. If the game you play is more biased towards the single-core performance of the CPU, then you can choose a CPU with stronger single-core performance, which will be more cost-effective. If you play more games with high quality effects, and also pay attention to the multi-core performance of the CPU, then at least the 11th generation Core i5 starts (six cores), and it is best to go to the i7 (eight cores).
If I want to recommend a specific game model, then I think the DELL G15 5511 is worth considering. At present, most of the games on the market that can run the RTX 3060 graphics card to 130W are still facing the problem of out-of-stock, and the DELL G15 5511 has a stable supply, the price is also in the reasonable price range of more than 8000 yuan, and it is also equipped with a 100% sRGB color gamut, a 165Hz high refresh rate e-sports screen, 512G solid-state drives and 16G memory, and the most critical is the 11th-generation Core i7-11800H processor with eight cores, which can play RTX very well Performance of the 3060. In addition, the latest firmware also allows it to support the unique direct connection function, which is very cost-effective.