For example, my laptop has an older generation i7 with 8 cores (well, as far as I know it has 4 cores, but they're each split into two "virtual cores"? This is an area of computer hardware that I know little about) running at 1.6 GHz. My laptop is great for running lots of programs at once and programs that can use more than one core (engineering and math software, mostly), but it's not great for something like Dwarf Fortress, which can only use one core.
One issue is that there are lots of different Haswell CPUs, with different numbers of cores, clock speeds, overclocking ability, integrated graphics, and what have you. You might have to look at the different models and pick one that matches the features that you're looking for, but you can ignore CPUs that sacrifice clock speed for more cores. Generally, bigger model number means better performance, and the letter K after the model number means you can overclock it.
In addition, the new generation of Intel CPU (Broadwell) is slated to come out in the fall (it's going to be on a 14 nm process instead of the 22 nm process that Haswell is on, which should mean big gains in performance and power efficiency all around) so it might be worth waiting until then to either get a Haswell CPU on sale or get a brand new Broadwell chip.
Correct me if I'm way off base here, but it seems like you're not much of a PC hardware nerd; if that's the case, I honestly think you'll be fine buying whatever CPU costs $200-$250 right now. If you're not into overclocking or benchmarks, anything at that price point will do you well, and you can ignore my big nerd rants above.
InsanityIncarnate, he did say "exclusively."
but no, you're right.
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Topic: Building a PC exclusively for Dwarf Fortress (Read 15530 times)