Are games CPU or GPU/VPU limited?

[GZFant]

Let us just say you built a dream system today, IMO an Athlon FX-53 Socket 939 (since I have no idea what 940 is all about) an Nvidia 6800Ultra Extreme/X800 XT PE, whatever you fancy. 1GB DDR and some other great accessories to go with. This system is also NOT being overclocked.

Do you think some of the high end games today like Far Cry, Doom 3 and some others are more CPU limited or GPU/VPU limited?


Also, what is the bottleneck on a high end system like this for every other computer need? Compiling, video editing etc.

 

[CU]

As for games at low res you will be cpu limited but at high res with AA you will gpu limited. I would say the cpu speeds up compiling the most and for video editing the total amout of ram is the bottleneck unless the video work has some very cpu intense filters or something.

 

[Xenon14]

Low resolutions = CPU limited.
High resolutions = GPU limited.

 

[Drizzy]

Wanna know for sure? Check out this article... its kinda both.

CPU or GPU?

 

[GZFant]

I guess what I was looking for was found in that article.

In terms of how I was comprehending the situation was, CPUs right now are much more capable than the fastest video card on the market. Is this a true statement or am I thinking wrong?

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: GZFant
I guess what I was looking for was found in that article.

In terms of how I was comprehending the situation was, CPUs right now are much more capable than the fastest video card on the market. Is this a true statement or am I thinking wrong?

If you have a very fast CPU (such as a Socket939 A64-FX), anything but the very, very fastest graphics cards will be slower than the rest of the system (except for extremely old games, or at very low resolution settings). You can't really make a blanket statement, though -- pretty much any video card will be CPU-limited in Quake3 at 640x480 with all the details turned down, and pretty much every CPU will be GPU-limited in FarCry or Doom3 at 1600x1200 with AA and AF enabled and all the details turned up.