System BandWidth...How much really gets used ?!

[Protouringcars]

My question as the "Message Title" reads is straight forward. I want to know where I can know more about this topic through a reputable reader or website suggestion. As we all do just about everyday we boot up our computer and take a look at a website full of stats concerning the latest and greatest computer hardware. But what do all these things mean for a computers performance in specific areas of usages ?! When is enough bandwidth enough when looking for a motherboard with a certain chipset that offers a certain technology? That is my main thing. It would be helpful to know if my CPU is being saturated with too much info from my GPU eventhough it's the top of the line p4 533FSB...with dual RDRAM memoray banks....from a gamers vantage point what hardware is puting out what on the average game of counter strike or dungeon siege? What meaning bandwidth.... Where is bandwidth seriously need....how does my computer hardware talk to each other when i'm gaming.... does the GPU just talk to the CPU or does it talk to the memory bank also... is this at the same time ? or are there steps ? ... I've read anandtech's book for computer gamers which was very informative...but I was still a bit foggy in area of how much my computer works when I'm playing a great 3d game (cs) and what upgrades such as a cpu, memory.... gpu or chipset upgrade really do specifically...not over all for my gaming performance...anyone know...anyone care? Want to be sure to make a wise investment....can you help ... give me websites if you can...cause i can't find one that goes into the nitty gritty on how, when and how much my computer uses it's resources at certain times....in particular gaming...

 

[gennro]

Well with First person shooters you mainly want a good GPU and a good CPU, not so much as ram.

Now with like MMORPGs you want a decent GPU good cpu and High memory bandwidth.

Dugeon seige will like a good GPU, CPU, RAM

Counter Strike is on such an old engine it doesn't matter, but your newer games want memory bandwidth