Question Eight core cpu required for Borderlands 4

ondma · Thursday at 1:47 AM

Just wondering what others' thoughts are on this. The minimum CPU requirement for BL4 is Intel 9700 or Ryzen 2700x. Both 8 cores. I realize the 9700 does not have hyperthreading, so a strong 6 core with hyper threading may still suffice. However, this could mark the beginning of the end for six core CPUs, which have been the go to for entry level systems. This, along with the games beginning to require ray tracing capable gpus, seems like a very bad direction for affordable PC gaming.

Edit: the fact that the minimum requirement for AMD is an 8 core, when they do have hyperthreading, to me indicates that HT may not make up for lack of cores.

Comments?

coercitiv · Thursday at 2:50 AM

Quote from support.borderlands.com

MINIMUM: Requires a 64-Bit processor and operating system, 8 cores for processor and 8 GB VRAM for graphics.
RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-Bit processor and operating system, 8+ cores for processor and 12+ GB VRAM for graphics.

Even with this info I'm skeptical that modern 6-core CPUs won't be able to run the game, but we'll see how it goes.

ondma · Thursday at 3:07 AM

coercitiv said:
Quote from support.borderlands.com

MINIMUM: Requires a 64-Bit processor and operating system, 8 cores for processor and 8 GB VRAM for graphics.
RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-Bit processor and operating system, 8+ cores for processor and 12+ GB VRAM for graphics.

Even with this info I'm skeptical that modern 6-core CPUs won't be able to run the game, but we'll see how it goes.

Yea, I think 6 HT cores will run it. How smooth it will be is another question. If it plays out like RT on the gpu side, I think 6 cores will be inadequate sooner than later. And with a cpu, you cant just turn down settings.

Thibsie · Thursday at 4:29 AM

At the time AOTS required 4 cores.
It ran Ok with my dual core Pentium with HT.

coercitiv · Thursday at 4:31 AM

ondma said:
And with a cpu, you cant just turn down settings.

Many games have settings that free the CPU, AFAIK enabling RT usually increases CPU load. During the "rise" of 3D V-cache Zen products, one favorite way for for people defending Golden Cove against Zen 3D was to run games with RT enabled such as Cyberpunk 2077, as the extra load was presumably handled better on the wider Intel CPUs running fast memory kits.

Moreover, the compute capabilities of a modern 6-core far surpass the i9700 or 2700X. Even if we ignore SMT, for gaming a Zen 5 core in the 9600X is likely 70%+ faster than a Skylake core in the 9700. (IPC uplift x frequency uplift), so the 9600X offers ~30% more compute before HT is taken into consideration. Add a modest 15% uplift from HT (assuming the game does not elverage HT that well), and the advantage grows to 50%. So in terms of compute the modern 6-core is equivalent to a 10+ core Skylake.

Here's some recent gaming benchmarks on the 2700X ran by GN:

I timestamped the video to CP2077 because it's a CPU intensive game with good core count scaling. The 7600X doesn't offer 70% more perfomance because it has just better ST, in this game it needs to have better MT perfomance too.

I'm of the opinion that 6-cores will slowly fall behind in gaming, but we need to see more engines focused on multithreading game logic before this happens. One example is Unreal Engine's announced focus on MT, but this effort will only materialize in 2+ years from now.

Epic Games to "address core limitations" with Unreal Engine 6 - OC3D

Epic Games' Tim Sweeney has promised to "address a number of core limitations" of their game engine with Unreal Engine 6. CPU multi-threading!

overclock3d.net

Ranulf · Thursday at 6:41 AM

Doom Dark Ages requires a 10th gen or Zen2 (3700x) 8core cpu as the minimum. I've seen many test it with a 5600X and it ran just fine. Daniel Owen I think had a video on it. So I don't think 6 core chips are in trouble just yet. Certainly not Zen3 or later stuff.

These requirements and price increases are not going to help sell more copies of the AAA+ games coming out.

ondma · Thursday at 1:06 PM

Ranulf said:
Doom Dark Ages requires a 10th gen or Zen2 (3700x) 8core cpu as the minimum. I've seen many test it with a 5600X and it ran just fine. Daniel Owen I think had a video on it. So I don't think 6 core chips are in trouble just yet. Certainly not Zen3 or later stuff.

These requirements and price increases are not going to help sell more copies of the AAA+ games coming out.

Basically it is just going to shift people to consoles, I think. Previously, you could run games on quite old/weak hardware by decreasing resolution/settings. Now, not so much. Games are starting to require powerful cpu/gpu combinations to even play the game.

jpiniero · Thursday at 1:20 PM

ondma said:
Basically it is just going to shift people to consoles, I think. Previously, you could run games on quite old/weak hardware by decreasing resolution/settings. Now, not so much. Games are starting to require powerful cpu/gpu combinations to even play the game.

Well, Zen 3 is 5 years old already. Coffee Lake is getting to 7+ years old.

dullard · Thursday at 1:58 PM

How many CPUs were released in the last 2 years with fewer than 8 cores? Few, very few. On the Intel side, I can think of the 100U, 115U, and 105UL. Any others?

Basically, it isn't a big deal. If you really want to play the latest and greatest, you need anything but the most bottom of the line CPU released in the last couple of years.

In2Photos · Thursday at 2:41 PM

dullard said:
How many CPUs were released in the last 2 years with fewer than 8 cores? Few, very few. On the Intel side, I can think of the 100U, 115U, and 105UL. Any others?

Basically, it isn't a big deal. If you really want to play the latest and greatest, you need anything but the most bottom of the line CPU released in the last couple of years.

AMD 7600, 7600X, 9600X, 7600X3D, 7500f, 8300G, 8500G, 8600G
Intel 14100

Just off the top of my head, didn't even include any laptop CPUs.

igor_kavinski · Thursday at 2:50 PM

Not really an issue for Ryzens as their superior SMT will at least extract a bit more performance out of those 6 cores and they should stay slightly more relevant than competing Intel 6 core CPUs.

ondma · Thursday at 5:50 PM

dullard said:
How many CPUs were released in the last 2 years with fewer than 8 cores? Few, very few. On the Intel side, I can think of the 100U, 115U, and 105UL. Any others?

Basically, it isn't a big deal. If you really want to play the latest and greatest, you need anything but the most bottom of the line CPU released in the last couple of years.

So you think it is a good thing that if your rig is more than 2 years old, you should be out of luck?

To answer your question: Ryzen 5 series: 9600X, 7600X(around 2 years ago, maybe slightly more). Older, but still popular Intel 12(13,14)-400. These were considered good low end processors. I know people dont like the steam hardware survey, but according to that, more than 50% of users are still on hex or lower core cpus.

Thunder 57 · Thursday at 6:46 PM

I don't know where the get these minimum requirements from, I've played games with lower than miniums at times. Unless it's something like requiring AVX or a DX feature it usually isn't a real "requirement". I wouldn't be surprised if a 5600X did better than a 2700X. I think they used older generations to let people still using those parts they can play the game.

Would it be better to have a minimum of a 2700X or 5600X? If you put 5600X people with a 2700X/3700X might think they are out of luck. If you put 2700X people with a 5600X might think the same. They might also give a shot since it's much newer. I don't think there's any good answer here.

Same on the Intel side. I imagine a 12400k will have no problem running this

Wolverine2349 · Thursday at 11:44 PM

dullard said:
How many CPUs were released in the last 2 years with fewer than 8 cores? Few, very few. On the Intel side, I can think of the 100U, 115U, and 105UL. Any others?

Basically, it isn't a big deal. If you really want to play the latest and greatest, you need anything but the most bottom of the line CPU released in the last couple of years.

I agree with that.

Though there are a decent number of 6 core CPUs. Now CPUs with less than 6 cores there are not that many and ones that are only dual are few and far between and bottom of barrel.

When is last time there was a single core CPU released.

I was able to buy a dual core 12th Gen Golden Cove Alder Lake though no e-cores and only 2 P cores no HT) Celeron for only $39 form Amazon for my NAS and it is power limited to like 15-20 watt and passively cooled.

Even in 2013, a single core Sempron was like the only singe core CPU I could find and it was like $39 at MC before I moved into my first and forever home from my parents house.

Its probably been a long while you could buy a single core CPU new and 12 years ago was probably close to the last time.

But very recently and even now there are still dual cores brand new though they belong to Intel 12th Gen not 13th and newer.

dullard · Friday at 9:50 AM

ondma said:
So you think it is a good thing that if your rig is more than 2 years old, you should be out of luck?

If (A) you have a multi-year old rig and (B) that rig was bottom or near bottom of the line, then yes you should be out of luck to play upcoming latest and greatest. That is especially true for things that still are months from even being released. There are hundreds of thousands of games out there that you can still play and completely enjoy though.

That is especially true when you can afford $70 for one game but not $200 for a refurbished 12600K CPU and motherboard (or similar for used AMD rigs).

igor_kavinski · Friday at 10:23 AM

Funny that the better 14100F is cheaper than the lamer G7400, at least on my local Amazon.

StinkyPinky · Friday at 10:47 AM

I bet they're saying that to set expectations for older 6 cores, like the 8700K. I'm confident newer 6 cores with HT/SMT will run this just fine.

dullard · Friday at 10:57 AM

igor_kavinski said:
Funny that the better 14100F is cheaper than the lamer G7400, at least on my local Amazon.

I know that people sometimes need to get the cheapest possible thing just to get by. But, those CPUs really don't belong playing expensive new games.

The best Intel deal right now that can actually game is the 14600K with free 1 TB SSD for $199.99.

https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-14th-gen-core-i5-14600k-raptor-lake-lga-1700-desktop-cpu-processor/p/19-118-470?Item=19-118-470&cm_sp=product-_-from-price-options

Ranulf · Friday at 12:00 PM

dullard said:
I know that people sometimes need to get the cheapest possible thing just to get by. But, those CPUs really don't belong playing expensive new games.

The best Intel deal right now that can actually game is the 14600K with free 1 TB SSD for $199.99.

https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-14th-gen-core-i5-14600k-raptor-lake-lga-1700-desktop-cpu-processor/p/19-118-470?Item=19-118-470&cm_sp=product-_-from-price-options

That is hardly a great deal for a cpu with known problems. The best intel deal is a $150 12600k.

dullard · Friday at 12:12 PM

Ranulf said:
That is hardly a great deal for a cpu with known problems. The best intel deal is a $150 12600k.

The 14600k is noticeably faster in games than the 12600k and the problems have been worked out for new chips. Old chips that were made unstable will remain unstable though so I wouldn't recommend used for this line.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-14600k/19.html

LightningZ71 · Friday at 1:21 PM

In my opinion, you're reasonably safe for a while with Rocket Lake i5 processors and Zen3 6 core desktop processors. Rocket Lake i5 is going to age out first, largely due to having only 12MB of L3. Alder Lake's i5 gets 18-20MB L3 though, so should age a bit better, with the 12600K being better with the 4 e-core cluster. Zen 3 and above (desktop) 6 core processors are going to age better than expected because they get 32MB of L3. The 5600/X is still a very competent processor, and the board supports an upgrade to the 5700X3D if things really get crazy in the near future. While the 3600X may still be usable for a lot of things, and I know people that own that processor that game, it's going to run into some issues in the near future because of the nature of having two CCXs with only 3 cores. Games that are more heavily threaded are going to feel the cross-CCX latency and suffer, though, having 16MB per CCX of L3 certainly won't hurt things.

igor_kavinski · Friday at 1:23 PM

I wish someone would do i7-5775C in 2025 article

ondma · Friday at 1:44 PM

dullard said:
I know that people sometimes need to get the cheapest possible thing just to get by. But, those CPUs really don't belong playing expensive new games.

The best Intel deal right now that can actually game is the 14600K with free 1 TB SSD for $199.99.

https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-14th-gen-core-i5-14600k-raptor-lake-lga-1700-desktop-cpu-processor/p/19-118-470?Item=19-118-470&cm_sp=product-_-from-price-options

A six core processor with an unstable history? No thanks. I know the problems have supposedly been "solved", but I am still skeptical. And then there is the issue of a user without a lot of expertise trying to make sure all the updates are installed correctly.

Bottom line, is I just hate to see it becoming so expensive to play the latest PC games. Having to upgrade GPUs is bad enough, especially with the current prices and availability (becoming better, at least temporarily, it seems) but a cpu upgrade is more difficult to do technically, compared to just popping in a gpu, and especially for Intel may require replacing the MB as well. Gone are the days of just putting in a low power gpu into a modest PC and playing most games, albeit at lower settings. One would almost think there is a conspiracy among the designers, AMD, Intel and nVidia to force users into an expensive upgrade or a completely new system. Naw, that couldn't be, right, could it?

Ranulf · Friday at 1:45 PM

dullard said:
The 14600k is noticeably faster in games than the 12600k and the problems have been worked out for new chips. Old chips that were made unstable will remain unstable though so I wouldn't recommend used for this line.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i5-14600k/19.html

I don't trust Intel saying the problems are fixed on anything K model raptor lake and at $200, the better deal is the am5 chips, the 9600 or 7600 at sub $200 usually. I'd get a 5600x/5700x over a 12600k probably too.

igor_kavinski · Friday at 1:53 PM

ondma said:
One would almost think there is a conspiracy among the designers, AMD, Intel and nVidia to force users into an expensive upgrade or a completely new system. Naw, that couldn't be, right?

I bet the game designers get at least some cool Nvidia swag to push the boundaries of graphics. Or at least, push the GPUs with unnecessary calculations without really improving the scene quality much. There's a thread over at overclock.net where they have examples of how games were still able to awe with their graphics 7 or 8 years ago and even looked better in some scenes compared to the RTX crap of today.

Question Eight core cpu required for Borderlands 4

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