I saw the exact opposite; my GTX285 was easily saturated by an E6850 even when underclocked to 2 GHz at the settings I played my games at. I even wrote an article to prove it.
I have a library of about 130 games under active and heavy play rotation, a mixture of old and new. In practically every game the GPU makes the biggest performance difference at the settings I use. Even Quake 3 shows meaningful performance gains on a GTX580 over a GTX480 (2560x1600 with 32xS) and that game is 12 years old
You also mention QPI/FSB/cache but these are irrelevant if the GPU is the bottleneck. In the vast majority of games at decent settings, the GPU will be the primary bottleneck so you’ll gain the most by upgrading it.
I too would rather have an E8400 + GTX580 vs the fastest CPU + 6850. A 6850 would absolutely cripple the performance levels I expect at the settings I use. I’d have to massively dial back the settings in almost every game I own. Meanwhile an E8400 will show little to no performance difference over my i7 870 in the same situations.
Again, I never said video card upgrade won't help. The question wasn't "Will i see improvement from 8800SLI to 6950 on E8500." The question was "Will GPU be choked by a older gen CPU?"
FPS on benchmarks are nothing but a test to video cards, which can not be used to represent the actual fluidness during gameplay. Yes, a video card upgrade increases average FPS as well as maximum FPS, but rarely help on minimum FPS. By minimum FPS, I mean user tries to get better FPS over better visual qualities because the game is too laggy to play.
Often enough I need to reduce graphic settings even though I got 120 FPS most of the time. I do it because there are occasions where FPS drops to < 20 FPS during battle, and that is what counts. Me and my wife plays in the same room, playing the same game, in the same raid, doing the same encounter. My wife's PC reminds fluid thoughout the encounter with 8800GTS, while mine stutters with 285GTX. Yes, my average FPS is higher, but mine stutters and her pc doesn't. WTF?
Beg my wife to switch pc, got yelled at, but eventually switched. Started the encounter and her is actually running similar FPS as I do, but I saw stutterness, she doesn't. WTF?
Got a friend over, play the game, start a raid, have them play while I stand behind and watch. Looking at 2 pc running on the same game, same encounter, same group and location. Because I am not playing, I finally saw what bothers me.
On her pc, everything moves independently, as it should be. On mine, things appears to move at the same inteval. I saw the pause in between 2 frames. When the character mouse turn, I can clearly see spells that are flying around appears to be teleporting from one spot to another.
To ensure that I am not having the "I see dead people" moment, I asked my friend to see what I see. He didn't see what I see, because we are talking and the encounter haven't start. I took his seat and ask him to simple observe the difference between the 2 screens, he finally sees what I saw. His comment was "her screen is far fiuld than yours." Remember, the 2 pcs is running at similar FPS during encounters, and mine has better FPS when not in combat.
Once I found what I am looking for, I realized that I don't have to be in raids to see that. Unfortunately, my brain is now picking that up every single time it happens and I start to see it at 50 FPS!
After days of researches, I found that the cause of lag isn't due to either gpu or cpu, but network i/o, memory i/o and storage i/o.
I finally understand why some people claim Xeno Nic helps while it doesn't have an impact on FPS. I tried to OC the RAM (around 20%
and found small improvements. I further OC the CPU and found minimal improvement. I brought SSD and found improvement, yes during game, not loading the game. Went out and brought 2 460 and no improvement. Don't get me wrong, FPS does increase, but the lag is still there.
These findings leads to new understanding. I know that Benchmarks are good when it comes to compare video cards, but it isn't the answer to smoother game play. Benchmarks on WoW shows 60+fps on most video card, while many believed that WoW graphic sucks, actual players know that 20FPS is what you get in major towns regardless of the processing power of the video card. Some say that SLI/crossfire doesn't work at all, without knowing that the cockpit is the architectures and i/o bottlenecks.
Knowing exactly what I am looking for, I lowered all OC as I realized that OC has minimal affects.
And now, with the new CPU, which FPS does not really change, as it was 120FPS before, game experience changed, without changing the video cards.
Now do you need SB@5Ghz+arrays of 580s to play console ports? No, although some console ports do implement better graphics for high-end video cards. However, the CPU load have not increases as changing that means a game. Lots of arguments about PhysX and how it doesn't change the game, which are true. In short, better graphics and more eye candy won't change the game.
Yes, there are visual differences by upgrading video cards, but no matter how you upgrade your video card, it doesn't solve the problem cause people to upgrade, laggy gameplay.
People tries to quantitatively define laggy gameplay via FPS count, and people believe that high FPS count means not laggy gameplay. Since video card contribute alot into FPS count, the illusion of high end video cards fix the lagyy gameplay.
Guess what, 120FPS doesn't mean no lag. I will say this again, looking at the sky will give you max FPS. The FPS you get from standing somewhere without action doesn't have anything to do with the fiuldness of the gameplay. In fact, if FPS changing dynamically once battle begins or when the number of players increases, then upgrading video card doesn't help much.
Again, if you are talking about console ports, then there are no need to upgrade as E8500 + a single 8800GTS > any consoles in the market. Yes, there are still lots of games one can play with E8500 + whatever video cards. That doesn't change the fact that GPU like 6950 will be choked by older gen CPU like E8500.
As to all those personal attacks. Hear this, there are people who tries to find games to utilize their investment, and there are people who tries to invest on hardwares for gaming. Some go 3xmonitors to max out their video card, some go 3xmonitors to max out the viewport. There are no right or wrong, but preference. Sometimes people get better hardwares for more eye candies, sometimes people get better hardwares so that they can headshot others instead of being headshotted.
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