How many CPU Cores do I Need for Gaming?

There’s no question that laptops have come a long way in terms of gaming performance. However, with all the different processor options available, it cannot be very clear to determine which one is right for you. So let’s get started! In this blog post, we’ll help you decide how many CPU cores you need for gaming. By the end of it, you’ll know exactly what to look for when shopping for your next gaming laptop. 

Related: Are Toshiba Laptops Good For Gaming?

How many CPU Cores do I Need for Gaming?

What are CPU Cores?

Simply put, cores are mini-processors that handle instructions and send them to the main processor (CPU) for processing. So every laptop will have a CPU that consists of one or more cores along with other components such as the motherboard and graphics card.

Here’s how it works:

If you’re shopping for a laptop based on the types of games you want to play, you need to know how many cores a processor has to compare performance. In general, one core is not enough for playing current generation video games. For an average laptop with integrated graphics, two cores can handle some less demanding mobile games, but that’s it.

In other words, the more cores you have, the better your games will perform.

So how many CPU cores do you need for gaming?

Here’s a quick overview of what to look for depending on your budget:

For gaming laptops under $800 / £700… You’ll want at least four cores, but six cores are far better. For gaming laptops under $500… You can’t expect much from a laptop with less than four cores. Six cores are barely ok as well. In short, if you’re looking for serious gaming performance, then your best bet is to look for a laptop with an Intel i5 or higher processor.

In other words, the more cores you have, the better your games will perform.

Related: Top 6 Best Gaming Laptops Under 3000

Also, Read: 6 Best Gaming Laptop For Call Of Duty Warzone

Physical Cores vs. Logical Cores

Before we continue, it’s important to distinguish between physical cores and logical cores.

Logical Cores are independent of each other by design to execute different instructions at the same time. This is why some benchmarks show results above 4 or more cores even though the processor only has 2 ‘real’ physical cores.

Physical cores are actual hardware components inside your CPU. There are two types of physical cores:

Hyper threading Cores function similarly to logical cores, but you get half the performance per core. For example, if a CPU has 4 physical cores with 2 hyper threaded cores, there are 8 logical cores available for games. Cluster-shared Cache consists of a shared cache divided into whatever the processor cores need.

Beware: not all processors have both types of physical cores! Those with hyper threading usually do not include cluster-shared cache because they’re meant to function as logical cores instead of physical ones.

In short, you always want to make sure you’re buying a laptop with physical cores when looking for performance.

AMD vs. Intel Processor Cores Comparison

When it comes to CPUs, there are essentially three manufacturers that you need to know about:

Intel has the most number of unique processor core models. For example, their i5-7300HQ has 4 physical cores with no hyperthreading and no shared cache. AMD is known for having better price per-core performance than Intel. However, they only have 2 unique processor core models to choose from in the mobile market: FX-9830P and Ryzen 7-3700HQ.

Nvidia vs. AMD Graphics Processor Comparison

Only two manufacturers need to be considered for graphics cards when shopping for a gaming laptop: Nvidia and AMD. Unfortunately, there’s no way you can tell which one is better just by looking at the model name. When it comes to graphics performance, you need to take a look at benchmark results to decide whether an AMD or Nvidia card performs better.

When it comes to laptops, there are also two types of graphics processors:

Discrete – non-integrated graphics processors which can be found in high-end laptops

Integrated – non-discrete graphics processors used in all other laptop types, even budget ones.

The main difference between these two is simple: integrated cards can never be upgraded, while discrete cards can (most of the time). You want to look for a laptop with an Nvidia discrete graphics card for gaming purposes.

Bottlenecking

Now that you know how many physical cores your CPU needs, the next factor to consider is whether it can fully utilize them

All CPUs have a maximum number of instructions they can process per clock cycle. If this limit is reached, games will run slowly because the processor has to wait until it gets new instructions from the game.

In other words, if its number of cores bottlenecks your CPU’s performance, then it has reached maximum capacity and won’t be able to perform as well as a better CPU without reaching this limit.

Bottom line: the more physical cores you have, the higher the chance that a game will not bottleneck them. However, other factors like cache size, CPU speed, and the number of threads can affect performance.

So what’s the reason behind this? Simple: modern PC games usually consist of minimal instructions that can be processed by any CPU core available. These instructions will only bottleneck the CPU if they cannot be split into smaller pieces to run simultaneously on different cores.

That said, there are occasions where a CPU cores bottleneck may happen

CPU-dependent games – for example, most strategy and adventure/role-playing games will generally not reach the number of physical cores you have because they tend to rely on single-threaded performance.

So the question is: how do you know if your game is CPU-limited or not?

Process Lasso’s Performance Profile

As mentioned above, only strategy games usually need extremely high single-threaded performance. For all other types of games, you’ll want to make sure that the CPU cores you’re buying are not bottlenecked.

With Process Lasso, you can do this by prioritizing background processes. If the number of cores limits your game, then performance will improve significantly when setting high priority to your game’s process(es). If it’s bottlenecked by the CPU speed, performance will improve when setting high importance to your background processes.

How Many Cores are Enough for 1080p Gaming?

For most games, you can get away with a dual-core CPU. But not all of them. If your goal is to play games at 1080p resolution, then even a budget laptop should handle it without any issues.

More cores will give you better performance when playing graphically demanding games at 1080p, but in order for this to occur, you’ll need a discrete graphics card too. And not all discrete GPUs are created equal.

1080p gaming is still fairly popular, and most games run on the mid-range hardware that gamers can afford today (CPU and GPU). If you’re looking for a system that will play 1080p games at decent settings, we recommend getting a CPU with at least 2 cores, decent single-threaded CPU speed, and a discrete graphics card.

The good news is that you’ll find a laptop meeting these requirements without breaking the bank. For example, a Core i3 7100HQ + GeForce 1050 Ti laptop will handle any modern game at 1080p on high settings. There are other combinations available (like i5 + 1050 Ti and i5 + 1060) – these will give you slightly better performance.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for maximum gaming performance at 1080p, we recommend getting a quad-core CPU or higher, with a high single-threaded CPU speed (at least 3.0GHz).

Related: Best Gaming Laptops For Red Dead Redemption 2

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

It’s important to know your personal computing needs before purchasing a new gaming computer. If you are only playing the occasional game, an Intel Pentium G4560 3.5 GHz Quad-Core will be sufficient for running most games at medium settings with decent frame rates.

For those who play more demanding games or want smoother gameplay on higher graphics settings, consider upgrading to an AMD Ryzen 5 1400 3.2 GHz Hexa-Core processor and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2GB Dedicated Graphics Card, which has been shown in independent lab tests to provide smooth performance even when rendering high-quality graphics that demand speed from both CPU and GPU resources simultaneously.

Let me know if you have any questions related to how many core do you need for gaming.