Intel i9 officially announced

[Pemalite]

OdinHades said:
So are those just rebranded Xeons or is there more to it?

Yes and no. HEDT is usually the same chips as Xeons anyway just with different verification processes.

Ka-pi96 said:

Dumb question but... what do multiple cores in processors even do? Sure an 18 core processor sounds a lot, but how much does it actually increase performance?

Actually relevant to me too, unlike graphics card stuff, since the PC games I play are all processor intensive rather than graphics intensive.

It does whatever the software wants it to.

If you have a game that is only using 4 threads, then most modern processors will use the spare TDP to boost higher anyway.

Plus just because a game is only using 4 threads doesn't mean you won't see a benefit with 8 or more cores.
Windows has a ton of background services, run a virus scanner, transcoder, encoder, itunes, browser, steam, origin, torrents, xsplit, servers, maybe a few programs like Photoshop in the background... And not take even a slight performance hit in your game.

It also allows you to future proof. I'm still running my 3930K which is 6 years old at this point and it's still not even breaking a sweat in the latest games, it could probably outlive two console generations at this rate! haha

The Core 2 Quads managed to stick around for almost a decade running the latest and greatest titles thanks to it releasing with more cores than what software was demanding at the time.

malistix1985 said:

Some games make use of it but most only use less cores (up to 4) I am sure the PS5 and next Xbox will use more cores since more cheap cores is cheaper then less faster cores.

PC gaming is usually held back by the mainstream market, which isn't bad but when you buy a PC these days its very good to keep in mind which parts will be more "future proof"

Look at the sandy lake 2xxx series when people said you could buy a 2500k over a 2600k because NO game used the HT (8 logical cores vs 4) option but in the past period of gaming the difference between these 2 processors is NIGHT and DAY.

Same goes for benchmarks right now the cores in Ryzen or i9 won't gain much short-term performance gain but 3-4 years from now you will be very happy you spend that extra money especially since processors can go a long time with no upgrades unlike graphics cards.

Well. The Playstation 3 had 1 PPE and 6 SPE's. (8 SPE's all up, 1 disabled, 1 for the OS and such) and the Xbox 360 had a Hyper-Threaded 3-core processor (6-threads) and it had zero effect on game threading on the PC. Most games of that generation on the PC are only dual-threaded with only a few using 4 threads.
This generation the Playstation 4 and Xbox One have 6-7 cores for gaming, the Switch has 3 if I remember correctly...

So I think it is safe to say that the number of cores in Console land has minimal effect on the PC, the PC can run multiple "console cores" worth of work on a single CPU core anyway.

But like you said, platform longevity is the real draw card of these chips, especially in regards to gaming.

Plus CPU performance in single-threaded scenario's is starting to slow down as the low-hanging fruit to increase CPU performance has been picked... So if Intel and AMD are struggling to go faster... Then they will just have to go wider. And the long-term outlook is for very large and wide CPU's.

The Core Wars has begun, it has.