How Much CPU Does CS:GO Use?

I ran a quick test on CS:GO to see how much CPU it was using. Turned out to be more than I expected, regularly getting 60-80% on an i5, sometimes in excess of 80%.

This screen cap is taken on my system with an i7 4790K hyperthreading off (aka "i5 mode"), using a GTX970 at 1080p. It was taken during online deathmatch. With hyperthreading on it was similar usage, but only using the 4 real threads makes it easier to see how much the CPU is being used.

If you're looking for a CPU and can afford an i5, it would seem like a quad-core CPU is useful even for an "old" game like CS:GO.

Interestingly though, when running with 2 cores + hyperthreading activated, the usage didn't go up by a whole lot:

This cap is with 2 cores and hyperthreading activated — essentially an i3^†. It gets into the 80-90% more regularly, but it's not that much more. I can only guess the engine is a bit clever in scaling what it does based on the resources available. I did notice a few frame drops into the low 100s, but the gameplay didn't feel particularly different.

_{† The i7 has a higher base clock speed and a much bigger CPU cache, so it's not a true test for how an i3 would behave}

DDR3 Dual-Channel vs Single-Channel Performance

It was suggested to me that with modern CPUs/motherboards, running with dual-channel memory was unnecessary because there's no difference. My understanding was there is a modest performance increase in using dual-channel. I decided to do a quick test to see.

For the test I used Handbrake (0.9.9) to transcode a 187MB 1080p video. This isn't a true benchmark because the conditions are maybe too uncontrolled (hence it's a "quick test"), but I thought using a real-world application like transcoding would give an idea of the performance difference if any.

I swapped between a single 4GB RAM stick and 2x2GB sticks. It was in my low-powered HTPC, so it took a while. These are the results:

RAM type	Run #	Time taken
1x4GB	1	4m 55s
1x4GB	2	4m 48s
1x4GB	3	4m 49s
2x2GB	1	4m 36s
2x2GB	2	4m 37s
2x2GB	3	4m 35s

It works out to about a 5% performance improvement using dual-channel, which is consistent with other things I've read. How that translates from a processor intensive task like transcoding to everyday use I'm not sure, I suspect it would be unnoticeable though.

Rest of the system specs, for reference:

• OS: Xubuntu 12.04.1 (64-bit)
• CPU: G2020
• Mobo: Asus P8B75-M LX
• RAM: G-Skill NT 1x4GB or G-Skill NT 2x2GB
• SSD: Kingston V300 60GB
• HDD: Toshiba 1TB 7200RPM
• GPU: Gigabyte GT610
• PSU: Antec EarthWatts 380