If you’re thinking of building a new gaming rig, there are two words that you would have read and heard repeatedly. CPU and GPU.
GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is vital for gaming. In simple terms, it’s a chip that helps display things on your screen. Graphics, animations, videos — the GPU controls anything displayed in a game. So, it’s quite apparent that getting the best gaming GPU is very important.
However, that leaves us with a question regarding precisely what a CPU does for gaming.
Defining the role of a CPU isn’t that simple. So, we thought we’d clear things up a bit for you. 🎮 ✨
Defining a CPU
The CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of any computer. It’s also called a processor, and its primary job is to manage, process, and execute commands. Again, that definition seems rather vague. This is because the CPU does many things, and defining them in a single sentence is very difficult.
Let me put it this way. If your computer is an organization, the CPU is the manager. It directs all the other components of the computer and gets the job done. Again, this is a somewhat oversimplified definition, but let’s limit ourselves to this for this article.
CPUs and Cores
If you’ve heard of CPUs, you must have also heard the word “Core” a lot of times. A core, in essence, is the actual processor. It is capable of performing one task at a time. For a faster and more reliable processor check I.MX 8 family of processors.
Here’s something important: Irrespective of how fast the processor is, it can perform only one task at any given point in time.
So, as the number of cores increases, does the computer’s speed. Also, the strength of the core is essential too. The strength of a core is determined by something called the IPC (Instructions Per Cycle). IPC is a points system that measures how fast a processor is. It measures how many instructions a processor can handle within a specific period. So, you want a high IPC score.
Core strength is crucial for gaming. You see, most games today use two or four cores. They are incapable of using more cores even if the processor has them. So, it would be best if you had strong cores that can render games using very few of their cores.
Now, some games use more cores, and increasingly, more developers are optimizing their games to utilize more cores. However, it’s very much a work in progress. So, even today, most of the games (including ones that use a lot of graphics, visuals, and whatnot) use only two to four cores.
CPUs And Gaming
Now that we know we need higher core strength, let’s look at what a CPU does in gaming. Without going all techy on you, let me put it this way: the GPU isn’t that smart. It can execute tasks exceptionally quickly, but it doesn’t know what needs to be done. It needs instructions. And you guessed it; the CPU tells the GPU what to do.
That’s just the beginning. The CPU, in essence, handles everything that isn’t visuals or graphics. So, there’s audio. But that’s not it. In our i3 vs. i5 vs. i7 breakdown, we look into how CPUs with different specifications affect gaming.
Imagine this. You’re playing Call Of Duty: Whatever Version. You have a gun with you. You can see your character, the game world, some members of your team, and so on. All this is rendered by the GPU. That means that anything you see is made possible by the actions of the GPU.
But, when you shoot someone, the CPU calculates the damage. If your other team members happen to be computer-controlled, the CPU tells them where to go. The GPU executes it, yes. But it’s the CPU that decides where that team member needs to go.
Inputs are also controlled and processed by the CPU. So, when you move your mouse to aim and click the fire button, it’s the CPU that calculates how much movement needs to happen. It understands that you’ve pressed the fire button. It calculates the loss of ammo in your arsenal.
It also calculates the damage of the opponent while simultaneously accepting further inputs. There are a lot of statistics in a game. The CPU keeps track of all that. Collision detection, saving, respawning, the AI, the UI — basically everything that isn’t visuals is controlled and managed by the CPU.
Again, it also tells the GPU what to do. The GPU executes the commands of the CPU. So, in essence, the CPU very much controls the game and your gaming experience.
Now, if you think that you’d need a supercomputer to do all that, it’s not so. We often don’t understand how fast and powerful a processor or a CPU really is. You can play any Call of Duty game with just a two-core processor apart from the latest one. That’s how good processors are when you optimize your PC for gaming perfectly.
These days, as I mentioned earlier, more games are being developed with multiple cores in mind. So, there are games that can make use of 12 cores simultaneously. However, they are very, very few in numbers. So, as of today, four to six cores should be fine for casual gaming and even professional gamers don’t use processors with more than 8 cores. Again, there are exceptions. This is the norm.
What CPU Should I Buy For Gaming?
Now, there are only two real players in the processor industry. Intel and AMD. Intel gaming processors are amazing. However, in recent years, AMD gaming processors are catching up very quickly.
We’ve compiled a list of the best gaming processors in the market. You can go through that list here. In essence, when you’re buying a CPU for your gaming rig, make sure that you have at least four cores. Intel is better than AMD for gaming. The gap between them is not a lot, but there’s definitely a gap.
However, if you happen to do a lot of video editing, streaming, 3D animation work, and so on, AMD is far better than Intel. The multi-threaded performance of AMD processors far outweighs the loss that you make in gaming. As you can notice, most of the best processors for streaming are manufactured by AMD.
So, that’s about it, actually. Tell us what processors you’re thinking of buying. We love hearing from you!