Intel E-Core ON vs OFF - are E-Cores Needed at All?

Intel 13th Gen Core i9 13900K E-Core ON vs OFF l 1080p l

Ad - 0:00
Games :
Returnal - 0:19
The Last of Us Part I - 2:27
CoD Warzon 2.0 - 6:58

System:
Windows 11
G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL38

[TestingGames]

Games :
Returnal - 0:19
The Last of Us Part I - 2:27
CoD Warzon 2.0 - 6:58


System:
Windows 11
G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL38

[mcgmgc]

Additional information from my own testing:

On the 12900K at release you used to get a lot more frames and better lows with the E cores OFF (they fixed that later - which is good) and on the 13900K, from what I've tested, the 0.1% and 1% lows are always better with the E cores on. There's no reason to turn them off. What many people do these days (OCN 13900K thread), including me, is run 8P cores 8 E cores with HT off. You can use HT as well if you want. HT off doesn't lower your FPS in the many games that I've tested (looking at the exact same area for a while, FPS stays the same, tho I am sure some random game might cry for having HT off so you'll have to test your main games to see how they behave with HT off). HT off lowers your load temps massively (especially when at 150W or so) and also let's you overclock another 200 MHz while staying at the same voltage (or close to it)

Games overall feel smoother when the E cores are ON. I am not sure how many of them have to be on in order for that smoothness to be there - haven't tested that yet, but I can confirm that at least 8 E cores on works smoothness / 0.1% / 1% lows wise.

[introvertman]

E cores handle background tasks, when there is little tasks like these testings with usually fresh install windows they wont show much improvements, they shine more when your system is full of bloatwares

[mathesar]

E-Cores are good for handling windows background tasks while gaming which would explain the decreased 1% lows with them disabled.

[Cars.]

They are important in many cases not only for gaming cause they are considered to be cores

[ProTroy_]

Yes the E-Cores are needed. The results show that the AVG frame rate is higher, the .1% and 1% lows are better, less CPU utilization, faster response time and less input lag

[yancgc]

Wtf happened with Warzone 2.0? The performance halved with E cores off that shouldn’t be happening

[PeterSereda]

In some PC's if you switch off e-cores you'll get more power to p-cores and higher clocks boost.
Just try to do it on your own PC

[masterofdiesaster]

the same would be interesting with background tasks active

[gerald]

At first Windows wasn't optimised but they patched it some time ago.

[tamaskovacs]

You did something wrong on Warzone (as also others commented) - I have 12700k with E-cores disabled and P cores overclocked to 5, 2 GHz + ram (Samsung B-die) overclocked and tuned + RTX 4080 with result above 200 fps (low settings) at 1440p. You can also watch "Frame Chasers" there he always disable E-cores and overclock P-cores and getting even more fps.

[ThisAintPizzaHut]

I was JUST searching for a vid like this last night! You psychic, TG?!

[SillyTubereal]

Isn't it common sense? More cores = better?

[PatEagle]

Some of these DX12 games scale with many cores. And the more cores you have the more DDR5 bandwidth helps as well.

[DieTabbi]

What happend with Warzone? P core only 62 fps at which resolution? And the 4090 only around 50Watts? Something wrong.

[AdaptacionGamer]

what the operating system does is give the lighter tasks to the E cores to leave the heavier ones to the P cores, if you deactivate them it is obvious that you will lose performance, also in a system without support for two types of cores, the P cores will always be the main ones, windows 10 and 11 have support

[michalf]

the E cores are needed as much as a dog needs a 5th leg

[nileredsexperiment]

Damn, Warzone was the only game to be greatly impacted by the E-cores being disabled.

[ssserega]

hmm 🤔 p-core+e-core more power consumption, but the temperature of this processor whose E-core is turned off is not lower than that of the one that is turned on! Strange, why is that? 7:08 - P-core only - why gpu chip - 1440 mhz??? and mem - 5002 mhz???

[xblur]

The benefit of turning off E-cores is that you can further push the P-cores clocks. I was able to go from 5.6 on the p-cores to 5.8 when turning off e-cores, and I think that would roughly make up for the difference, while avoiding issues with some games not liking e-cores (like CS2 with the massive fps drops with ecores enabled)