The Real Deal - If you want a gaming rig, spend 90% of your funds towards a videocard and not the cpu.

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
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Just wanted to shed some more light the subject of "Should I buy a new videocard or a CPU?"

I see many people trying to build gaming systems and continuing to believe the myth that you need to have a fast cpu for gaming. Of course, in theory this is the optimal setup, however many are unable to match the best components together since not everyone can afford A64 3800+ and 6800Ultra videocard.

However, if gaming is of a great importance for your basic computer needs, and you are bound to compromise, then which component should you compromise on. Or rather, do you really need a fast cpu?

Let's look more into the matter...by comparing a P4 3.2ghz and and a lower end P4 2.4 but matched with a much faster videocard.

Call of Duty - 1600x1200 4AA/8AF
9800xt + P4 3.2C = 60.7 frames
x800pro + P4 2.4C = 81.5

LOMAC - 1600x1200 4AA
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 22.5
x800Pro + P4 2.4 = 34.9

IL-2 Sturmovik - 1280x1024 4AA/8AF
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 29.8
X800Pro + P4 2.4 = 37.3

Splinter Cell - 1600x1200
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 44
X800Pro + P4 2.4 = 68.2

Tomb Raider:AOD - 1600x1200 4AA
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 24.1
X800Pro + P4 2.4 = 51.5

UT2004 - 1600x1200 4AA/8AF
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 31.1
X800Pro + P4 2.4 = 52.1

Far Cry - 1280x1024 4AA/8AF
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 30.6
X800Pro + P4 2.4 = 49

Halo - 1600x1200
9800xt + P4 3.2 = 28.1
X800Pro + P4 2.4 = 44.1

It appears that the videocard upgrade is a much better option for you if you are looking to increase your framerates for gaming as your primary objective.

In every single game, increasing the cpu speed from lets say your 2.6C to 3.2C speeds had a minute effect on gaming performance.

Considering that even on AXP 2500+ X800Pro often doubles the performance in Far Cry over a 9800pro (same cpu) solution as seen Here, the videocard upgrade is what you should seek if you are willing to part with $400US right now. Keep in mind that 6800GT is an overall faster card compared to x800pro (even in Far Cry and esp. Doom 3) and overclocks to 6800ultra speeds (while even if you overclock x800pro it will not reach the fillrate of the x800xt due to the 12 pipelines). Therefore, the above benchmarks, will only get better by substituting a 6800Gt in place of the X800Pro.

A lot of people bring about the concern that if they purchase a high end videocard like 6800Gt and pair it with AXP 2500+, their videocard will be cpu-limited. Sure to some extent this is true. However, others try to solve this problem by overclocking the cpu. But considering that even without a cpu overclock, a faster videocard delivers significantly better gaming experience, the cpu should be the least of your worries when it comes to gaming right now. If you can only afford to spend money on one or other as an upgrade, or if you plan on building a new system and can't figure out the compromise betweeen A64 2800+ and 6800GT vs. A64 3400+ and 6800nu, for gaming, go with a faster videocard.

Let's investigate further. It is reasonable to believe that in the future as games become more shader intensive, even after taking into considerations dependency on AI and physics calculations, the videocard will be subject to more and more stress % wise when it comes to providing the playability factor for gaming. Games that will be more demanding than doom will make things even worse. Let's see what kind of things we can learn from Doom 3:

Resolution Scaling - Videocard Dependency Here we see that 6800Ultra achieves around 75 frames @1280x1024 and 60 frames @1600x1200 and 9800Pro gets 48 frames @1024x768 and barely above 30@ 1280x1024. This is simply unacceptable and the CPU is 3.4 Extreme Edition.

Resolution Scaling - CPU Dependency Here we see that CPU speed does indeed contribute to significant performance boost. But wait a second, even P4 2.4C achieves above 60Frames per Second Average, making it sufficient as long as you have 6800Ultra. In fact even with a lowly XP2000+ and 6800Ultra you are getting 46.1 FPS @ 1280x1024 vs. 31 or so FPS with 9800Pro and P4 3.4 Extreme Edition.

I would like to come back to the constant buzz on the internet with the cpu being not fast enough for the newest videocards. Primarily, there have been a lot of misconception suggesting that you shouldn't invest into the more expensive videocards if you dont have P4 3.0 or equivalent. And furthermore, that today's cpus aren't fast enough for the best videocards.

Let's see
FX 3.0 ghz + X800 PE vs. FX 2.4ghz X800PE

I don't know about the majority of users who ENJOY gaming and intend on spending $300+US on a videocard and will want to play at 640x480 and 800x600 and without AA/AF. In other words, you dont buy a Ferrari Enzo to have it parked in your garage or your driveway unless you are the type of person who cares about your penis size. There is no point in buying high end videocards and not playing them at 1280x1024 with AA/AF enabled. From the review, as you can tell, going with a 3.0ghz FX makes almost no difference for gaming. If you are thinking there are 15-25% increases at low resolutions, I don't think it matters if you are getting 100-400 FPS already. Now last time I checked, FX-53 @ 2.4ghz 1mb cache on Socket 939 beat A64 3800+. So I am just going to assume that on average per clock speed, A64 FX = 1.5 P4. This would place FX3.0 at the very least close to 4.5ghz P4. Not only did going to a much faster CPU prove to be useless for videocard intensive tasks, the cpu also happened to be FX 3.0ghz paired with arguably the fastest videocard right now. This only helps to highlight that users with A64 2.0+ should have no problem taking advantage of future videocards following R420 and NV45, since it seems that today's X800xt and 6800U can be found struggling in some sitations already, and where cpu speed makes no difference towards a performance boost.

So to conclude:

1) Next time you have money to spend towards an upgrade and your primary need revolves around gaming, spend 100% of that money towards a videocard *unless you have P2 233mhz MMX.

2) Dont hesitate to get AXP 2500+ ($70) and 6800GT ($370) because your friend next door with A64 3400+ ($270) and 9800Pro is kicking himself.

3) Disregard my point of view if you never play with AA/AF enabled and gaming isn't your primary concern.

Other ways to save money in order to get a better videocard include buying higher latency ram as opposed to 2-2-2-5 for $150 per stick of 512mb; a motherboard that suits your needs and not XXXXPlatinum Edition that has 8 Usb ports and 8 SATA and RAid 1/0/etc (if you do need those features sure get it, but from my own experience (or lack thereof) when I bought top end motherboards, I found myself not needing half of the features they had. It is important to know that lower priced brands can be equally as good and you don't need to spend $150 or above for a good motherboard).

Now if you are thinking of upgrading your slow videocard, check this review out just to see how slow it has become at low resolutions:
101 Top-End Videocards (1999-2004)

So if you are still not convinced whether or not you want to purchase that new videocard you want so bad, please refer here:
Fastest Cards of Summer 2004

I hope this was helpful. Let me know what your thoughts on this are and feel free to post benchmarks that help to back up or contrast my opinion.
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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Faster videocards give better benchmarks, but the cpu often determians your minimum framerate; the later being most important for a good gameing experience. But obviously, as long as your cpu is good enough you might as well get the best videocard you can.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
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Originally posted by: TheSnowman
Faster videocards give better benchmarks, but the cpu often determians your minimum framerate; the later being most important for a good gameing experience. But obviously, as long as your cpu is good enough you might as well get the best videocard you can.

You mention a very interesting point that I overlooked. Here I found this link that actually helps to show what you are trying to get across:

CPU Dependency - Minimum Framerate in Doom 3
 

acx

Senior member
Jan 26, 2001
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0
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Not everyone plays first person shooters. Frames per second doesn't matter too much to turn based strategy for example. I'd like to see scaling tests done for some RTS and MMORPG's.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
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Originally posted by: acx
Not everyone plays first person shooters. Frames per second doesn't matter too much to turn based strategy for example. I'd like to see scaling tests done for some RTS and MMORPG's.

I would very much like to provide benchmarks but my videocard isn't functioning properly and for this reason I mentioned that if anyone wants to provide some benchmarks on the matter to either backup or contradict my post, they are more than welcome. It would be nice to see how much cpu speed actually affects different genres of games, since physics and AI do play a role in games other than FPS.
 

nRollo

Banned
Jan 11, 2002
10,460
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This is a very informative and well written post- kudos. Obviously you're better off having both, but this has been my position on this question for a long time.
 

Killrose

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
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This is exactly why you buy a 2.4gig CPU and overclock it to a 3.2gigger , then buy the best video card you can ;)
 

Concillian

Diamond Member
May 26, 2004
3,751
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Originally posted by: Killrose
This is exactly why you buy a 2.4gig CPU and overclock it to a 3.2gigger , then buy the best video card you can ;)

And then overclock the video card too! :D
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
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:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thanks for proving what I've said 100 times:)

Id rather have a $44 Duron and a x800xt, than a FX-53 and mid range card :)

Vote for sticky!!!!

Just one caveat. Having an A64 can make a huge difference sometimes over 25% increased frames in games compared to it's pentium or AXP equivalent.;)


Some of many ex:

UT 2003
-----
P4 3.4 = 89
A64 3400 = 70

FarCry
-----
P4 3.4 = 61
A64 3400 = 72

Doom
------------
P4 3.4 = 82
A64 3400 = 98
 

Renob

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2000
7,596
1
81
If you want a gaming rig, spend 90% of your funds towards a videocard and not the cpu.

I thought this was Common Knowledge.
 

LocutusX

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
3,061
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Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Originally posted by: TheSnowman
Faster videocards give better benchmarks, but the cpu often determians your minimum framerate; the later being most important for a good gameing experience. But obviously, as long as your cpu is good enough you might as well get the best videocard you can.

You mention a very interesting point that I overlooked. Here I found this link that actually helps to show what you are trying to get across:

CPU Dependency - Minimum Framerate in Doom 3


Yup. I first had my Rad9800Pro with an old Palomino AXP 1700+ / KT266A. Although I got 37fps in the timedemo, the game was unplayable with Shadows On due to too much dipping of the min. framerate in the actual game. After upgrading to A64 2.0ghz+, timedemo only went up to 42fps - BUT when i left the Shadows On in the actual game, it was much more playable than before - the framerate "dipping" was no longer present (something which timedemo runs don't seem to demonstrate).

So in my case... i definitely needed that CPU upgrade ;)
It was a Palomino 1700 too, much worse than the Barton 3200 mentioned in that graph you linked to.

Now, the A64 is at 2.5ghz, and the Radeon is flashed to XT and overclocked to wit's end - 450/380... D3 is quite beautiful. 57-58fps timedemo with beta 8.07 drivers which is just silly. ;)

 

CHfan4ever

Diamond Member
Oct 1, 2004
3,290
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:thumbsup:

great post.It made me understand why i didnt get an awesome boost when switching from amd 2500xp, to athlon 64 3200...with my 6800 gt.

stick that thread lol!
 

ponyo

Lifer
Feb 14, 2002
19,688
2,811
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Very well said. Must taken you long time to write this excellent post! Here a drink on me! :beer:
 

videoclone

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2003
1,465
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Great post :thumbsup::D:thumbsup: everything about your post is 100% spot on but for those people who play RST games and only RTS games then the best option is a compromise between CPU, Memory, and Videocard in that order.

I play more RTS based games like Rome Total War and when upgrading from a Radeon 9800Pro to a Gainward Geforce 6800GT GS 400Mhz Core 1100Mhz Ram, i get the same frame rate as i did with the 9800.
 

Avalon

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2001
7,571
178
106
That's why I buy an el-cheapo processor, overclock it to top end-ness, and spend the rest of my money on a video card :)
:thumbsup:
 

Zebo

Elite Member
Jul 29, 2001
39,398
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Originally posted by: Genx87
I agree which is why I purchased a 170 dollar A64 3000+ and a 400 dollar 6800 GT :)

Well.... you have a raptor your value sense is'nt perfect young sensi. :p

300% more money than other 80Gig drives for 10% more performance tops is a very poor utility of cost/benefit analysis ..or lack thereof..