Just a thought

[misanthropy]

I keep hearing people suggest spending more money on the GPU than CPU. Since CPUs retain value longer than GPUs, wouldnt it make sense to spend more on the CPU if you plan on updating the GPU in a year or two anyways?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: misanthropy
I keep hearing people suggest spending more money on the GPU than CPU. Since CPUs retain value longer than GPUs, wouldnt it make sense to spend more on the CPU if you plan on updating the GPU in a year or two anyways?

Not when the games you are playing run like crap.

 

[acegazda]

ATM, games use more of the gpu than the cpu. If you did what you are suggesting, your video card would be a huge bottleneck. Right now, you could run a sempron or celeron processor and an x1900xt and fear and bf2 would run gr8 on any res. 1600x1200 or below. If you got a core2extreme and an x1300 pro, you could probably play solitare.

 

[n7]

GPU is a much bigger factor in games than CPU is.

So no.

It's smarter to be using a crappy Pentium D 805 & X1900XTX than be the one with a C2D X6800 & an X1300.
Extreme example, i know, but it's still accurate.

 

[acegazda]

Originally posted by: n7
GPU is a much bigger factor in games than CPU is.

So no.

It's smarter to be using a crappy Pentium D 805 & X1900XTX than be the one with a C2D X6800 & an X1300.
Extreme example, i know, but it's still accurate.

almost exactly what I said 😉

 

[misanthropy]

It depends on other priorities too. Perhaps you photoshop. Suppose you were building a rig now and you had a choice between say a E6600+7900GT or a X23800+X1900XTX rig, and you planned on updating your GPU anyway for directx10 and vista in six months. In the long run with the former setup you'd get better performance.

Look at it this way: if you went with a single core solution and spent the rest on SLI, presently it'd be fast, but in the long run it'd hurt you.

 

[RallyMaster]

build a balanced system. i aim for midrange most of the time. when time comes that my computer is too old, move on to completely new one.

 

[acegazda]

for the casual gamer, a good rule of thumb is to spend at least as much money on the video card as you put on the cpu. If you buy an e6600, get an x1900xtx.

 

[jiffylube1024]

You can oftentimes overclock a lower priced CPU and obtain triple-the-price performance, much like taking a 3800+ X2 well into the 2.6+ GHz range.

You can't overclock more pipelines or a better architecture into a middle-of-the-pack GPU.