Brief CPU/GPU bottlenecking from TR

[thilanliyan]

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/18095

It would have been nice if they had done multiple games but they didn't unfortunately.

 

[GaiaHunter]

As every article on this seems to point, with a few exceptions for gaming you go as this:

1) Choose the resolution you want to play;
2) Choose a graphic card that will allow you to play at that resolution;
3) pair it with the best dual/tri/quad core your leftover money can afford and try to make sure that CPU can reach 3.0+ GHz. More cores for multiple GPUs are preferred, try to get as a minimum an E7xxx/E8xxx or Atlon II X2/Phenom II X2.

 

[BFG10K]

This has really become quite a raging topic on the internet, and I've seen a lot of these articles pop up after I posted mine. I'm glad the truth is finally coming out and people are being made aware of it.

From the article:

But generally speaking, these days, even a $90 Athlon dual-core is likely to run most games well, with the possible exception of more complex PC-native RTS games and the Great Exceptions, Crysis and Crysis Warhead. Note the frames rates consistently in excess of 120 FPS for Left for Dead 2 and Wolfenstein in our Lynnfield review, for instance. I do advise gamers to avoid quad-core CPUs with really low clock speeds. A higher-frequency dual-core is a better bet when the going gets rough.

I agree completely, but I’d apply the same reasoning to Crysis and Warhead. With Warhead I got zero movement from dropping my E6850 down to 2 GHz and while I got a little in Crysis, I also used a physics-heavy demo. Had I been using a regular demo I likely would’ve gotten no movement. The fact is, both titles are massively GPU limited.

Also Digit-Life did an excellent multi-core comparison and they found that even with games that use all four cores, performance was still limited by the speed of the fastest single core because one core was loaded much more than the rest. So I agree completely that a higher clocked dual-core is a more robust solution than a lower clocked quad-core.

That’s exactly why I plan on getting a 3.46 GHz Westmere. I’m certainly not paying for two extra cores in the hopes that I might be massively multi-tasking or running a rare game like GTA4. But that extra MHz will always be beneficial in any CPU limited situation I might run into, including the situations a quad-core would benefit.