How many CPU cores do games need?
 

PC gaming is often a central concern in the purchase of a new PC, but knowing how many CPU cores to buy - whether it's worth the upsell from two to three or four, or even six, is a key issue.

Do gamers really need a quad-core, or six-core CPU, or is a dual-core CPU still good enough? Which game engines are multi-threaded, and to what extent? We've aimed to answer these questions by running some of the latest and most popular games to show CPU scaling across cores. We've also tested Nvidia and ATI hardware separately because graphics drivers can affect how the system works - and of course, if the drivers themselves are multi-threaded it will benefit the gaming experience

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...o-games-need/1

AMD's 3 core series seems to hit the sweet spot