Mithsavvy wrote:
You are arguing for the sake of arguing. There have been tests done by Toms and Anandtech on upgrading old machines on value. The best performance by a large factor was an upgrade to the video card. Obviously, these discussions are based on "all other things being equal". Someone trys to throw in an example using a Core2Duo. Well of course it wont produce good results. I'm surprised the game even loaded at all.
My point was that instead of making sure you are running a high end i7, shift your money more towards the graphics adapter and settle for a bit lesser of a processor. The game may be "processor intensive" but it is also "gpu intensive". The cpu is asked to do a lot more when your grpahics adapter is crap.
So yea, I'm not talkin about adding a $500 graphics card to a commodore 64. I was merely pointing out that the focus should by on the graphics adapter at the expense of the other components if forced to cut somewhere.
And the only FPS I have ever played, literally, was Call of Duty 2 on xbox 360.
You said:
Mithsavvy wrote:
Id find a used older pc with a lesser processor.
That could refer to a huge range of CPUs, including a Core2Duo (which a ton of people are still using).
I'd argue that for MMOs, the CPU is just as important as the video card. One can always scale down the graphics quality, the same can't be said for the load the game puts on the CPU. The OC'ed 4670k I referenced only gets 30-35 FPS in heavily populated areas, and that's near top of the line for CPUs. There is nothing I can do about that bottleneck.
Also, you have to take in to account how much easier it is to upgrade the video card later as opposed to the CPU (and quite possibly motherboard).
Bottom line, my advice is: for single player games focus on GPU. For multiplayer games/MMOs you should worry about both CPU and GPU.
Really, as they say "sh*t is situational". A lot depends on which games you'll be playing as well as the resolution you run at.
Edit: I just noticed this line:
Quote:
The cpu is asked to do a lot more when your grpahics adapter is crap.
This doesn't make any sense. If the GPU is the bottleneck the CPU will be doing less work. In fact this is exactly how I check to see which component is holding me back. If the task manager shows 60% CPU usage and I'm only getting 30 FPS, it's likely the video card that is the bottleneck (you can check this by looking at the GPU usage. It will likely be at 100%).
@Catwho: That build is similar to what I would recommend as well (for someone who doesn't want to spec/build the thing from scratch).
Edited, Oct 24th 2013 4:27pm by Pickins