Actually buying a new computer this timeFollow

Thanks, Kao. I'll be referring back to this often over the next few weeks.

Edited, May 1st 2010 12:33pm by AshOnMyTomatoes

It's been ~250+ since at least January.

I'd say go with the non-i7 quad core for your budget. I'd personally recommend the i7-920/930 from microcenter(If there's one near you and they still have them cheap) with a 1336 mobo, but it seems to be a bit out of your price range.

I have 19 on mine.

I like that when I come downstairs at night, I don't need a light: the blue blinkenlights are lighting up the living room just fine.

I agree here; the most important component of a gaming machine is the video card. After that, any necessary power and cooling requirements the video card needs. Even memory is more crucial than CPU, to a point. My Athlon X2 4000+ at 2.1Ghz works fine, coupled with a decent video card.

A low end CPU is generally a bottlekneck to a high end video card

Yeah, almost never in real world situations. It's a simple architecture issue. It's the reason discrete video processing even exists. On a per dollar basis, it's silly. CPUs are just ahead of where they need to be to do what they do for games. GPUs aren't. It's far more likely that GPU manufacturers will just start delivering integrated on board CPUs for gaming than it is CPU manufacturers will do the reverse. Different markets, different priorities, different design architecture. That could obviously change someday, but right now spending $200 on a CPU *to play games* is a waste of money. If you're in a situation where a $200 CPU is required to drive your video solution, you're spending $5,000 on a machine. Which, hey, if that's your thing, great. When it's 1/4 of the cost of the system, it's just not a great idea. The idea is the value proposition, right? What's the least you can spend for an acceptable gaming experience, not what's the ideal experience?

A $75 cpu is withe a single core Core 2 solo2.5 Ghz, or a 1.8 GHz dual core core 2. That would be a huge bottleneck in a system with a 285 GTX. and with windows 7 ability to offload non game processes to secondary cores, that would be an even bigger problem. It is a simple Archatexture issue. You toss a Core 2 3.0 GHz $150 Wolfdale CPU in there instead of that Core 2 solo, your FPS is going to easily double. Certanly there are diminishing returns, but a $75 cpu in a gaming machine is just a bad idea. When you get into the Core i7 family, the entire paradigm shifts because nwo your memory controller is onboard your CPU, and your ram restrictions go from being your chipset, to being whatever the fastest ram you can cram into your machine is. You put that same 285 GTX in a system with a core I7 processor and the same DDR3 ram you had with the Core 2 3.0 GHz Wolfsdale processor, and you are going to see another 15-20 FPS on average asuming no settings change. If you just want to laod the game and run around at minimum settings without doing anything, then sure, a $75 CPU might load the game. But it "is" your limiting system resource at that point. Buying an underpowered CPU is the waste of money. If you stick a $75 CPU in your computer, don't call it a gaming rig, because it isn't.

The effect of CPU on a gaming system largely depends on the game you are playing. FPS with a limited number of entities and a preloaded map? Almost all video. Strategy sim with multiple units? Alot mroe CPU than other games. A MMO? Depends but in raiding situations with lots of entities and respawns, CPU is huge. There is also the sound Codec drivin off the CPU (usually soundmax, small hit I know, but on a lower end CPU noticable), any Antivirus or other background firewall tasks that might happen to kick off in the middle of the game on accident, DirectX itself,not to mention the various browser windows people tend to have open when gaming. Need some extra overhead room for things like that.

heck, you can see exactly what dependancies and system resources are being used by a various game using Sysinternals or Dependancy Walker http://www.dependencywalker.com/ While I am 100% certain we both could find exception cases either way, for the most part, I think you will find that when you start upping the resolutions and throwing those extra crossfire / sli cards in play, you end up utilizing a much bigger chunk of CPU than you might think.

I don't think we disagree on the overall scope, I think the disagreement comes in level. We both think video cards are important. I just think that an adequate CPU to drive that video card and the non video card OS processes is also quite important.

Some further reading on the subject: (pre Win 7, so doesn't give as much weight to the multi core argument as you would see now) http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1

Raw proces power vs price
http://backoffice.ajb.com.au//images/DynamicImages/Product/buyers-guide-cpu-table.jpg
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/GroupTests/148016,buyers-guide-40-cpus-tested-for-budget-mid-range-and-gaming-pcs.aspx

I suppose it comes down to your definition of acceptable gaming experiance. I'd say the minimum acceptable perfomance for me would be medium settings, no lag, at least 30 FPS on any game out there in any situation in that game (raiding, melee fight, etc). That would be bare minimum though. I'm used to 90-120 FPS on maxed settings with no lag, but I realize i'm a graphics snob. I suspect CPU prices must have risen considerably since you last bought one.

A $75 cpu is withe a single core Core 2 solo2.5 Ghz, or a 1.8 GHz dual core core 2. That would be a huge bottleneck in a system with a 285 GTX. and with windows 7 ability to offload non game processes to secondary cores, that would be an even bigger problem.

Ok, wrong. Firstly you clearly don't understand how Windows 7 kernel scheduling works in this scenario, but let's set that side as it's irrelevant to gaming anyway.

Secondly here's an actual $70 CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116076



It is a simple Archatexture issue. You toss a Core 2 3.0 GHz $150 Wolfdale CPU in there instead of that Core 2 solo, your FPS is going to easily double. Certanly there are diminishing returns


Yeah, clearly there are. They start showing up dramatically at around $75. You could have arrived at this conclusion with half as much ego and 4 seconds of effort. Now, if you'd like, explain to me how buying an actual $150 cpu instead (and, the important part, subtracting that money from the GPU budget) is a better idea.

Hey, you were only off on the processor speed by 50%. Given your usual error rate when giving hardware advice, I'd chalk that up as a victory.

http://www.benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/I7%20920%20Bottleneck%20Analysis/P18.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cache-size-matter,1709.html

First of all, **** measuring contests involving PC hardware rarely do well for the perception of either side. Second, I don't think Smash ever said there wouldn't be a performance gain. From what I read, his implication was that by upgrading to such a CPU, you might have to subtract from the GPU budget, and clock cycle for clock cycle, that's generally a bad idea for gaming. It's all about balance, Kao, and if I am going to have to make a sacrifice for a gaming machine, I'd rather start with a better GPU and upgrade the CPU later, if necessary.

poor moe, I hope you recover.

nerd fights are hawt.

The flip side to that argument is that by far the hardest component of your system to replace is the CPU. You basically don't ever want to do that if you can avoid it. Buy a board/CPU combo that will run current and near term hardware very well and then add the other bits.

You always get a point of diminishing returns. In this specific case, the difference between a $75 CPU and a $150 CPU is significant, and while that extra $75 spent on a video card will also be significant, it wont be so in the long run. I'd rather get the more expensive CPU and a medium powered video card, and plan on upgrading the video card in a year or two. In that time, the value I'll gain by the upgrade will be worth many times more than if I'd spent the extra money on a faster video card when initially buying the system, and my CPU wont be a bottleneck issue either.

Doing it the other way around doesn't work. You don't get the extra money you spent on today's video card back when you upgrade it. You do retain the benefits of the extra money you spent on a better CPU though...


Obviously, this assumes a modest budget, but that was the case here, right?