Go to Guru3d.com's website and check out their CPU/GPU Scaling review and you will see how wrong you are in 90% of all. Most games won't use that many threads and higher clocks speeds and lower memory latencies are going to give you the best gains. At high resolutions your taxing your GPU much harder than the CPU, so unless your planning on running games at low resolutions with SLI or Crossfire(...and why?), it won't help as much.
I have a degree in Computer Science and I'm a Systems Administrator. I like to think that I know what I'm talking about since I work with hardware on a daily basis, but any person who knows what they're talking about will tell you that SB-E is overkill for games as they are today.
I apologize for calling the author an idiot, but seriously, do some research before you start calling people out.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-cpu-scaling-performance-review/
...and to quote the review:
Edit: Also unless you're running crossfire 7970s, this is a very realistic perspective on CPU scaling as it is just as fast as many current multi-gpu solutions. Also, benchmarks are designed to push everything in your system hard, that is their purpose, I'm talking about games and real world applications.
First, I'm not going to knock another review site. But what I will say is that perhaps I have a different perspective, and different usages than what some people employ. That doesn't mean either of us is wrong, it's merely that I prefer to look at the situation differently.
The main difference in my perspective, which has been my perspective for years now, and posted on these forums over the years, is that when running multiple VGAs with high resolutions, it's not raw CPU core speed that matters...it's memory bandwidth.
So, with that in mind, any perspective that explores performance differences, mainly focusing on raw core performance, or the multi-threaded nature of applications, isn't going to portray the same perspective that I have.
You are right..core perforamnce makes little difference. IN fact, although many sites do not explore this, I feel that the real differences between CPUs in gaming isn't based on mathematical poweress, but is actually more focused on CACHE performance. Of course, because the heirachy of cache design within an OEMs product lines only differs slightly, the actual appearance of core perforamnce in gaming only differs slightly.
I agree 2 FPS is minimal, and unimportant.
But take a look here:
What's going on here? we have a much "slower" CPU, AMD's APU line, giving nearly 50% more performance than the high-end 1100T. Of course, these are not INtel results, but the same plays true. In system configurations that are memory bottle-necked, the 3960X excels.
Perhaps Core performance in gaming, and explorations of such, is a wasted task? If you want to present a certain perspective, yes, it works. But rather than focus on a single aspect, I like to look at hte whole picture, and the whole picture, including my daily use of a 3960X, quite accurately gives me more performance than any other platform does...
And you are right. The extra cores are NOT what gives that performance.
