Despite Vulkan, I doubt you'll see a game using an arbitrary number of CPU cores efficiently any time soon. Vulkan doesn't magically make your graphics engine properly multi-threaded, especially as the developers will have to support the older APIs as well for a while. But if price doesn't matter, go ahead and be a lab rat. :P

From what I read it seems you will see the biggest improvements from Vulkan on a system with a fast GPU but not so fast CPU, so upgrading the CPU from an already fast system will probably make no difference.

don't you also need ECC memory with Xeons? and those aren't the fastest on planet.

sounds pretty pointless upgrade tbh. Vulkan is still 2 years away from mainstream imo. Some games will support it from the start but most will not and im quite sure that the Spec version 1.0 isnt the best when it comes to optimizations.

Im sure in a year or two there are 8 and 16 core systems on desktop also. AMD Zen for example, 8cores 16threads and some rumors about 16cores/32threads also (that might be a server cpu though). it should come in Summer 2016.

Quoting: Xpanderdon't you also need ECC memory with Xeons? and those aren't the fastest on planet.

Intel CPUs have the memory controller in the northbridge . So it is the northbridge that determines what type of RAM the system needs, not the CPU.
AMD CPUs have the memory controller on the CPU, which is why the CPU determines what type(s) of RAM the system supports.

I found on this article my answers (a bit old though) :|

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6934/choosing-a-gaming-cpu-single-multigpu-at-1440p/

Quoting: XpanderIm sure in a year or two there are 8 and 16 core systems on desktop also. AMD Zen for example, 8cores 16threads and some rumors about 16cores/32threads also (that might be a server cpu though). it should come in Summer 2016.

Fall (likely October) 2016 for Summit Ridge CPUs.

Quoting: wolfyrionIntel CPUs have the memory controller in the northbridge . So it is the northbridge that determines what type of RAM the system needs, not the CPU.
AMD CPUs have the memory controller on the CPU, which is why the CPU determines what type(s) of RAM the system supports.

I found on this article my answers (a bit old though) :|

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6934/choosing-a-gaming-cpu-single-multigpu-at-1440p/

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but both Intel and AMD have integrated the northbridge for many years now. New Xeons aren't still finicky about FSB ratings, are they?

Quoting: AnxiousInfusionNew Xeons aren't still finicky about FSB ratings, are they?

They're definitely not targeted at overclockers, if that's what you mean.

I always thought Xeon CPUs are not the best for gaming for the set of instructions within them. I mean, is not that they lack them, but priority and functionalities on those processors are different.

My brain might have made it up though, never dared to check if it was true haha.

Anyone tried ck-kernel?
Linux Kernel with the ck3 patchset featuring the Brain Fuck Scheduler v0.467 optimized for gaming?

http://repo-ck.com/ ?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gaming#Core_affinity

For most games which require high framerates and low latency, usage of all of these flags seems to work best. Affinity should be checked per-program, however, as most native games can understand the correct usage. For a general case:

bit.trip.runner -I -n -4
Amnesia.bin64 -I -n -4

Quoting: tuubiDespite Vulkan, I doubt you'll see a game using an arbitrary number of CPU cores efficiently any time soon. Vulkan doesn't magically make your graphics engine properly multi-threaded, especially as the developers will have to support the older APIs as well for a while. But if price doesn't matter, go ahead and be a lab rat. :P

For what it's worth increasingly these days a dual core CPU is a performance bottleneck when porting games as the engines and games are optimised for 4 to 6 cores and forcing the game down to only two cores can result in performance drops. This is mainly due to the fact consoles are all multicore now and some have been for some time so to get the best performance you need to have relatively efficient threading. Older games are less effected as they were designed for less threaded architecture.

It's impossible to parallelise everything so you'll never get 100% usage like you can with a video decode/encode but not's not to say a quad core won't usually outstrip a dual core CPU even if the dual core has a higher clock speed when it comes to the latest AA titles and I would expect this thread to increase as time goes on and more games are designed with the latest consoles in mind.

@edddeduck_feral: My point was entirely about graphics engines. I'm sure console-driven AA(A) game development does provide the impetus to parallelize, but as evidenced by some atrociously sluggish high profile console-to-PC ports, that doesn't automatically translate into good PC performance. Hopefully this is at least partially due to the less efficient, higher-level graphics APIs bottlenecking the performance.