For years, you could find up to four computer cores in a consumer processor, but for some time now the number of cores has been on the rise. This can be a big advantage for many content creation programmes, but what about games? For a long time, the common wisdom was that four cores were enough, but is that still true in 2018? Or are you nowadays better off with a multi-core monster PC if you don't want to lose frame rate? To answer this question, we ran multiple benchmarks so you can read our findings here.

How many processor cores do you need? The last time we asked - and answered - that question was in 2014, four years ago. At the time, we were running the test on an Intel Core i7 4960X, a hexa-core processor with HyperThreading. At the time, this processor was the top model in the consumer segment. We combined it with 16GB DDR3-1600 memory and an ASUS P9X79 Pro motherboard. The whole system was running on Windows 7, the most predominantly used operating system at the time.