Is a 1GHz CPU good enough?

[Leon]

Interesting article. He tested GF4MX, GF3TI, and GF4 on 1Ghz Athlon.

Proves that you can easily bring GF3 to its' knees, even with 1Ghz cpu

 

[Nocturnal]

its good enough.

 

[BFG10K]

A 1 GHz CPU is pretty standard these days - average if you will. Even most OEM systems are coming with processors faster than 1 GHz these days.

 

[Blayze]

depends on what you do. Im still happy with my 800 mhz Athlon system.

 

[Ryan]

Maybe I should pop one into my PII 266 machine

 

[Biggs]

If you're a hardcore gamer and care about fps all the time then 1Ghz simply a'int enough.

 

[Mitzi]

<< If you're a hardcore gamer and care about fps all the time then 1Ghz simply a'int enough. >>



But the same can be said about graphics cards, memory, hard drives etc etc

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Depends what you want to do - enough is somewhat open to interpretation....

I'm getting by on an athlon 750 without any problems, but I'll be upgrading soon just for the luxury of extra speed.

 

[bjc112]

<< If you're a hardcore gamer and care about fps all the time then 1Ghz simply a'int enough. >>



1ghz can be plenty, if u have the ram, video, and all that good stuff, your perfectly set

 

[Pocatello]

I guess my 600MHz PIII is not good enough anymore?

 

[nortexoid]

i hear that...

and what, my athlon 700 is garbage? - i can't even tell the difference between it and highend XPs and P4s in most 2d applications.

something compelling to upgrade? - clawhammer maybe...if and only if it runs cool/queit.

 

[try]

I'd take a 1GHz/133 P3 over any non-northwood p4 under 2 GHz.
And I'd take a P III Tualatin 1.26GHz 512K over any northwood processor under 2Ghz.

Remember that the p4 was designed to be cheap and clock fast, not to be a petter proc than the p3.

 

[bjc112]

i hear u on that, except i wouldn't go as far to say 2ghz... even though it wasn't made to be built better, a 1.8 p4 would crush a p3.....

 

[Wolfsraider]

<< I'd take a 1GHz/133 P3 over any non-northwood p4 under 2 GHz. >>



well hmmm... have you used both because i have and i wait on the p3 1 gig to load what my p-4 1.5 is already running and they were started at the same time and as far as speed goes i do video editing and the speed of the p-4 is considerably faster lol

me and a friend do a lot of lanning and we swap off the p-3 and p-4 because he says its an unfair advantage so i'd disagree with you on that on lol

 

[apoppin]

It appears that many of the repliers did not read the article or note the conclusions they reached:


<< Most modern games will probably benefit more from a faster CPU than a "faster" video card >>



So the answer is "depends" with most serious gamers NOT finding a 1.1Ghz CPU to be "fast enough".

In my own case - to get improvements in Max Payne, RtCW, SS, etc. - last year, I did upgrade my CPU from 800 to 1.24Ghz without upgrading my (last gen.) Radeon 64 . . . my NEXT upgrade will be a 2.0+ CPU and a next gen videocard.

Yet I find my notebook's 866 PIII-M and last gen 16MB DDR ATI Radeon "good enough" to play the abovementioned games (although I lower the resolution to 800x600) . . .

Depends what you mean by "good enough" . . .

 

[Nocturnal]

my uncles e-machines came with a 1.3 ghz celeron. pretty decent, but seemed slow to me.

the video is crappy.

1ghz is great.

 

[apoppin]

No, not an e-machine?

!!!



Does it have anything but integrated graphics?

To compare . . . my laptop has a dedicated videocard (ATI 16MB DDR Radeon) and a PIII866-M. My friend has a 1Ghz Duron Notebook with 32MB integrated graphics (configured similarly to mine). I get about 1900 on 3DMark2001 yet he gets less than 500 with his . . . and his other (Sisoft, etc.) benchmarks beat mine.

Yet I can play the latest games . . . he is stuck with NOLF and earlier games . . . (oh, and my battery lasts 2.5 times longer).

 

[Ziptar]

1Ghz is great! especially when you have two!


I am running a pair of 1Ghz Durons (running at 1.15Ghz) in my system. They can handle everything I throw at them... Mostly MOH:AA and VCD encoding. Of course I have 1Gb of DDR and a GF3 to help them out.


They are great, I have thought about going to XP's but to be honest I can't see spending the money when these guys run so well. The Morgan Durons (with 3D Now Pro and SSE) are excellent gamer CPU's.

 

[grrl]

I don't game, so my 1 gig Tbird is plenty fast. I don't plan on upgrading for a while.

 

[BD231]

Pretty weak if you ask me

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< I don't game, so my 1 gig Tbird is plenty fast. I don't plan on upgrading for a while. >>


same here, except i have a duron 750

i'd rather build an army of pentium 2 linux boxes and set up a network than waste money on a 2Ghz cpu and gf4 4600 that will be "obsolete" in a year or less.

 

[travler]

I do game quite a bit. From the looks of this i may hold off a couple more months on upgrading my 1G athalon and PC133 SDRAM. When/IF gateway ever gets
my GF4 ti-4400 Im sure ill see huge FPS increase over my slightly OCed Radeon 32MB LE. Just og t medal of honor and i have to turn everything way doen in multiplayer.

on the other hand i realy want a second rig. makes some projects alot easier.

as for everything else (office, untilities, apps etc) 1GHz is plenty fast and should be for awhile to come.

Travler

 

[BeauJangles]

<< No, not an e-machine?

!!!



Does it have anything but integrated graphics?

To compare . . . my laptop has a dedicated videocard (ATI 16MB DDR Radeon) and a PIII866-M. My friend has a 1Ghz Duron Notebook with 32MB integrated graphics (configured similarly to mine). I get about 1900 on 3DMark2001 yet he gets less than 500 with his . . . and his other (Sisoft, etc.) benchmarks beat mine.

Yet I can play the latest games . . . he is stuck with NOLF and earlier games . . . (oh, and my battery lasts 2.5 times longer). >>



If your lappy made a good espresso you just might be set

 

[grrl]

<< I don't game, so my 1 gig Tbird is plenty fast. I don't plan on upgrading for a while. >>

same here, except i have a duron 750

I had the same CPU for a short while, then swapped it out for the Tbird when I built my sister's box. I figured I should take advantage of the 133 fsb on my KT7A. The performance difference though was only slight.

 

[JohnnyPC]

<< I don't game, so my 1 gig Tbird is plenty fast. I don't plan on upgrading for a while. >>



I like the feeling of relief you get when you simply know that you have plenty for right now...