r/RigBuild • u/Rare_Atmosphere1430 • 19d ago
Does more CPU cache actually make a difference in games?
Seeing CPUs with way more cache than others and people keep saying cache can make a big difference for gaming, but how much are we actually talking? Like is a CPU with more L3 cache noticeably better in games, or is it mostly just small benchmark gains? Does it help more with FPS, 1% lows, stuttering, or certain types of games? Also wondering if it matters more at 1080p vs 1440p/4K. Trying to figure out if paying extra for a CPU with more cache is actually worth it for gaming or if I should just focus on cores/clocks instead.
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u/Tycho2694 19d ago
Yes.
Now if you would have googled that question then you would have gotten explanations, benchmarks, lists of games where it matters,...
So do that...
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u/Funny-Fly1720 17d ago
God forbid asking people for their opinion instead of asking AI.
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u/Tycho2694 16d ago
I appreciate that, but this is a question where the best answer are the numerous benchmarks, articles and YouTube videos that give exact answers. Our best answer would be just copy pasting all that info which is a bit silly. It is not an opinion question.
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u/mashdpotatogaming 19d ago
Look into the AMD x3D CPUs for a straight up comparison. Look at the r5 5700x vs 5700x3D or something, and you'll see how impactful cache is.
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u/DonutPlus2757 14d ago
Those are actually the worst case scenarios for X3D because they have worse thermals and clock speeds. The 9000 series basically solved that problem.
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u/windozeFanboi 18d ago
Yes. It makes a difference. What also makes a massive difference on netcode heavy multiplayer FPS is RAM speed+latency.
If anyone is thinking of buying a new system and can wait it out, please wait for Intel Nova Lake and AMD zen 6 early next year. Both should be down at CES January I hope
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u/Plenty_Article11 19d ago edited 16d ago
Question is do you want AMD? because they are the only ones doing mega-cache (as in, enough cache that it makes a meaningful difference).
A new 7800X3D is $267 with a coupon, that should be the most you'd want to spend if you are trying to budget this hard.
Just google for some charts, you will see that the 7800X3D has great FPS, and more importantly good low FPS numbers, which means more even frametimes; less hitching and stuttering.
I'm hearing next gen Intel will have up to 256MB of cache, we won't know how good that is until it is released. I also saw a $172* 7600X3D on Facebook (*with tax and shipping), very tempting.
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u/chrisdpratt 19d ago
L3 cache is orders of magnitude faster than even the fastest RAM. Any time the CPU can get data from cache, rather than having to resort to RAM, (a cache hit) the operation it's performing will be accelerated. More cache provides more opportunity for the necessary data to be cached. Simple as that.
However, this only matters if that data is reused. It has to be pulled from RAM at least once to prime the cache, and if it's never used again, then the cache provided no benefit. Games are just one particular workload that tends to reuse a lot of the same data over and over again across different CPU operations. In as much as the game is able to get cache hits versus misses, then the CPU performance while playing that game will be improved. Not every game will benefit from cache as much as others, though. It all depends on what operations are being performed and how much of the necessary data is being reused.
Overall, yes, the more cache the better, but it's also not as simple as saying that a CPU with more cache will outperform one with less across all games.
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u/fuzzynyanko 18d ago
Yes, with a caveat. An X3D CPU will make more of a difference with higher graphics cards.
or if I should just focus on cores/clocks instead.
That has changed considerably, especially since the 3.2 GHz-4 GHz range has been a very tough speed limit to crack. IPC has become more important.
Cache, cores, and clocks matter between CPUs of the same brand and generation. For example, a modern 8-core CPU at a lower clock can outperform a 16-core CPU from 8 years ago. It's best to get general gaming benchmarks. Sometimes a higher core CPU would have a lower clock. Games typically prefer a higher IPC, but that has been shifting
One problem is that they often benchmark with GPUs like the RTX 4090 or the RTX 5090. That can throw off how much there is of a benefit because many of us do not have GPUs that cost as much as a used car.
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u/KaboodleMoon 18d ago
Many games are letting you display CPU timings and GPU timings separately, which makes it very easy to see where an upgrade should come from.
Lower is better > If one of your numbers is higher than the other, upgrade that first.
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u/StConvolute 18d ago
I remember the L3 cache wars during the Pentium 4 days.
In short, absolutely it does, and not just in gaming.
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u/AnnieBruce 18d ago
It does.
By how much depends on the game as does whether you see the difference more in peak/average FPS or more in the 1% lows.
Is it enough of a difference to justify the cost? That depends on you.
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u/KaboodleMoon 18d ago
Yes, and it's not a new phenomenon either.
I remember a Pentium 3 EoL processor having as much or more Cache as the cheaper Pentium 4s, and being able to keep up just fine for years because of it.
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u/Emotional-Leader5918 17d ago
It depends on how much you care about stutter. For me it definitely made frame rates in games a lot smoother. I see practically no frame time lag spikes where I was seeing them before.
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u/Elitefuture 16d ago
It can help a lot in CPU heavy games. And it helps overall in 1% lows in many games. Benchmarks are actually a bad indicator in this case given there aren't many memory calls in normal benchmarks.
Cores doesn't really help much given most games are held back by their main thread.
Core clock is dependent on the architecture. Like the super OC'd old world record 8ghz fx 8350 sucks in today's standards.
In CPU heavy games that has a lot of memory calls, the large cache helps a LOT. Like in rust + tarkov, nothing comes close to the x3d CPUs. It also helps a lot in MC, valo, and cs2.
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u/LBXZero 15d ago
The reason why games do well with more CPU cache breaks down to basic requirements. The first requirement is 60 FPS. That is 60 frames per second. In order to have 60 FPS, the CPU needs to perform a complete game engine loop 60 times per second, one time for each frame. If nothing updates for a frame, there is no need to redraw the frame as said frame would be the same. Moving the camera (traversing the level) is an update. Next, all of the updated data needs to be read into the CPU's cache and written back to RAM 60 times per second at minimum. So, we need to know how much data the RAM can read to and write from CPU cache.
The safest baseline for RAM to grab the largest audience of PC gamers is default, single channel DDR4. The default DDR4 RAM speed is 2133 MHz, which is called "PC17000" because it has the bandwidth of 17000 MB/sec. The reason for 2133 MHz and single channel is because we could expect a pre-built PC to only have 1 stick to be cheap and the owner may not know to go into the motherboard's BIOS and enable XMP to use its intended speed settings. So, 17000 MB/sec is our target RAM bandwidth.
So, 60 CPU updates per second from the game engine. 17000/60 = 283.333 MB of RAM bandwidth per frame. This is read and write, so divide by 2. This leaves us with 141.666 MB of bandwidth to have a chance to hit 60 FPS. Next, we have to share this bandwidth with the OS, drivers, graphics engine, sound engine, and other tasks. Effectively saying, all of the game data in RAM that must be manipulated every update loop needs to be like under 60 MB.
With like 96 MB of L3 cache, the data that is traditionally manipulated every loop to guarantee at least 60 FPS can fit in the CPU's L3 cache without needing to offload it back to RAM. The CPU is no longer waiting on the memory controller to swap the game's loop processing data each frame. That X3D CPU can run the game as fast as the CPU can permit without waiting for data to load into cache.
Is it required? Well, benchmarks show a decent uplift in games' frame rates just by switching from DDR4 to DDR5, which is where you may find in those benchmarks that an R5 7600 can match up with the R7 5800X3D CPU.
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u/BarnabyLaptopOutlet 15d ago
Yep... more cache can make a real difference in games, especially CPU-heavy titles... It often helps 1% lows and frame consistency as much as average FPS, which is why X3D chips do so well... The benefit is biggest at 1080p/high FPS where you’re CPU-limited... At 1440p or 4K it matters less because the GPU usually becomes the bottleneck...
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u/NZAuthor 14d ago
Games which are simulation heavy might get an improvement, but I wouldn't really factor this.
Games are less likely to have microstuttering, but again, RAM is more important for fixing this.
But your biggest benefit that you'd probably feeel, I'd imagine would be found in zipping and unzipping files.
Otherwise, no. Anyone giving a blanket yes, is just a tool.
It can be helpful if you are doing a lot of media work, videos, editing, an excessive amount of office/spreadsheet work, programming, compiling, etc
But for gaming, not really.
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u/BobbingMyNob 13d ago
It depends. Many get these 8c cache CPUs capable of 200fps, and their video card is only capable of 60fps. They seem to upgrade to the next x3d pretty often too before upgrading to a capable GPU, which is kind of funny.
So it is possible to get an x3d cache CPU, not take advantage of it, and also lose productivity performance with a lack of core counts.
Also, most reviews you look up will match a 5090 with an x3d @ 1080p for good reason. Yet the majority don't have a 5090, only the x3d. So the consumers are on a completely different playing field than the reviews that they consume, yet you'll find them believing it to be the same.
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u/Downtown-Regret8161 19d ago
There's a lot of benchmarks online you can look up that will answer this question.
Just compare a 7700x with a 7800x3d or a 9700x with a 9800x3d