If you are a streamer, then you must know that a powerful CPU is required for the streaming process, but the question here is how to pick a CPU for streaming & how many CPU cores are needed for streaming.
If you explore these questions, you are in the right place. I have done some good research about the CPU requirements for streaming & I am writing this article intended to provide you with the best possible answer to your question.
So, How many CPU Cores Do you Need for Streaming?
According to the expert’s recommendation, you need 6 CPU cores; however, the CPU cores between 6 to 12 would be sufficient for streaming because the more CPU cores you will get, the more efficiently you can run streaming software. Moreover, the CPU cores between 6 to 12 can successfully handle multitasking-related tasks & usually ease the load of your CPU.
After getting the short answer, you might be wondering why you need higher CPU cores for streaming. Your question is answered in detail in the below section, so keep reading this article to the end.
Why Do you need Multiple CPU Cores for Streaming? (5 Major Facts)
CPU’s cores read and execute program instructions & having multiple CPU cores always gives an advantage because having more CPU cores means your CPU can understand instructions of various tasks.
Even for the streaming purpose, more CPU cores provide better efficiency & in the below section, I have explained why do you need more CPU cores for streaming.
Load on the CPU
In the old days, every CPU comes with just one CPU core that focuses on just one task, but today CPUs have multiple cores that focus on different tasks.
Within multi-core CPUs, a core can work on one task while another core works on different tasks, so the more core a CPU has, the more efficient it will perform.
If your CPU has six or more than 6 CPU cores, then it usually eases the load of your CPU, and therefore it boosts your streaming experience.
Multitasking
In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks over a certain period. And multitasking is such an essential factor for streamers.
A CPU that offers multiple cores may perform significantly better than a single-core CPU of the same speed. The multiple cores allow PCs to run multiple processes simultaneously with greater ease, increasing your performance when multitasking.
As a streamer, you must run heavy multithreaded software, and experts recommend that to run several heavy streaming applications simultaneously, you need 6 to 8 CPU cores.
Thus the CPU cores between 6 to 8 provide an extra advantage for the streamers.
Handling Background Applications
The 6 CPU cores or more are suitable for gaming & streaming because, during streaming, 4 cores will handle your streaming applications while the other 2 CPU cores will handle your background applications.
At the same time, if your CPU has 4 CPU cores or fewer, it cannot handle the background applications, which will further impact your streaming performance.
Bottleneck
A bottleneck is when a PC is performing a very demanding application, and it appears that some aspects of the application should be performing better. If the CPU load is very high and significantly higher than the video card’s load, then the CPU is causing a bottleneck.
The bottleneck is not a good thing for the streamers because if your CPU or GPU is bottlenecked, you can’t get more performance out of it.
The 6-core CPU will not bottleneck most cases; therefore, the 6 or more than 6 cores CPUs are advantageous for the streamers.
Hyper-Threading
Although streaming requires multitasking but does not require hyper-threading because most of the programs associated with streaming do not utilize the functions of hyperthreading.
Until hyper-threading can be a beneficiary for the streamers because hyper-threading splits a CPU core into 2 virtual cores called threads, some streaming applications & software take better advantage of the multiple threads and run the streaming programs faster with extra threads.
Based on these 5 significant reasons, it is understandable that you need multiple CPU Cores (6 or more than CPU Cores) for streaming.
Also Read: Is Windows 11 Good for Streaming?
Is 4 CPU Cores Good for Streaming?
No! CPU with the 4 CPU cores are not enough for streaming because 4 CPU cores will bring too much load on the CPU during streaming & besides that, in terms of multi-tasking perspectives, the 4 CPU cores are not sufficient at all.
Is 6 CPU Cores Good for Streaming?
Yes! the CPU with 6 cores is a suitable choice for streamers; it will ease the load of your CPU, and the 6 CPU cores allow PCs to run multiple processes and applications simultaneously. Moreover, the 6 CPU cores can comfortably handle background streaming applications.
Is 8 CPU Cores Good for Streaming?
Yes! the CPUs with 8 cores are an excellent choice for the streamers & these CPUs are also future-proof for the streamers. The 8 CPU cores ease the CPU load; besides that, these CPUs are very capable of multitasking.
Final Thought
This article is intended to explain to you how many CPU cores are required for streaming & based on all the facts, it can be said that CPUs with 6 cores & more than 6 cores are suitable for streamers. At the same time, the CPUs with 4 CPU cores are not enough for the streamers.
I hope this article is helpful for you, and if you want to know more about streaming, CPUs, computers, and other technology-related things, then keep following this blog constantly.
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