However, in the event that you do happen to have one, the Ryhas the same single-core score as the i3-10100 at about 430-440 points, depending on which reviewer you look at. I have not seen both of these CPUs in stock for a couple of months now. While it may not be the best performing CPU here, it is one of the least expensive CPUs at the time of writing this. This four-core CPU scores around 430 points on the Cinebench R20 Single-Core benchmark test. That being said, here are some of my recommendations: Best four-core CPUs If you are playing other games, however, consider looking at Comet Lake as they have a good value. If you are playing Cities: Skylines only, I recommend a Rocket Lake or Zen 3 CPU. Now that IPC + clock speed and how they impact performance have been covered, here are some recommendations for CPUs that may be worth considering if you are building/buying a computer for Cities: Skylines.Īt the time of writing this, Intel’s Rocket Lake and AMD’s Vermeer (Zen 3) architectures have the highest single core performance, however Intel’s Comet Lake CPUs offer the best value. Most of the time, any CPU with more than 8 threads should be fine. Skylines can also benefit from more threads, as that is how AI parts of the game such as pathfiding, water simulation, etc. From there, look for a CPU that has a high clock speed within that architecture. Since Cities: Skylines is single-core dependent, it is important to look for an architecture that has a high IPC. Look how quickly CPU 1 can overtake CPU 2 just by having a higher IPC:
CPU 1 has an IPC of 1, while CPU 2 has an IPC of 1.5. To put clock speed and IPC into perspective, think of two CPUs that both run at 50 MHz. These benchmarks take into account a CPU’s clock speed and IPC. The only way to reliably see which CPU has the best single-core performance is by running benchmarks like Cinebench R20 Single-Core. Intel Comet Lake vs Intel Rocket Lake, or even Intel vs AMD.) This is wrong, because as stated earlier clock speeds can only be compared if the CPUs are from the same architecture. I often see people claim that CPU 1 is better than CPU 2 in Cities: Skylines because it has a higher clock speed, yet both CPUs have a different architecture (eg. Clock speed can ONLY be compared between two CPUs if their archiecture is the same.