Does CPU make a BIG difference in games these days?

[MrMonkeh]

Hi Guys,

Just posted this on cpu forum too... sorry for double post!

I just installed a EVGA 8800 gts 320 in Vista 32 and Im wondering if I've been a bit naive...

I've always thought that the cpu doesnt make that much difference so I stuck with my socket 939 athlon 64 3700+ - is that a bad idea?

I only ask as im a little dissapointed with performance in game like company of heroes and rainbow six vegas. I was hoping i could just max everything out running at 1280x1024, but its not the case

socket 939 cpus are limited - they only go up to x2/4400 - will this make a big difference? Any recomendations?

3dmark06 score is 5730 on all defaults

Mobo: A8n SLi
Ram: 2gb ddr 400, cas 3

Cheers guys,

Monkeh

 

[SS-89]

3d Mark 06 is a synthetic benchmark and shouldnt be taken as true representation of real world performance, anyway yes cpus do make a difference, they can bottleneck certain components like gfx card if they cant keep up with the speed at which it is processing thus slowing down the performance. Some games are more cpu dependent than gfx like Supcom which brings the lower end core 2's to their knees.

 

[MrMonkeh]

will i see much benefit going from a64 3700 to x2 4400?

 

[tomanders91]

yeah a lot, but your 3700 still isnt too bad.

 

[gt_junkie]

I would say yes. To give you a small example. My system in sig had an e6600 a week or two ago. Sold it on in preparation for the intel price cuts on the horizon and downgraded to the £25 P4 you can see.

Gaming performance at 1680x1050 has suffered a little. Outdoor performance on Oblivion is now quite stuttery compared to the C2D in action.

P4 is a 3.4ghz chip and the e6600 was run at stock (2.4ghz). Having two cores in action seems to make a decent difference.

Incidentally, i upgraded from a 3700+ @ 2.6ghz to an Opteron 165 @ 2.8ghz and the improvement was very noticeable. Smoother performance in game and far better in windows. Could rip a DVD while listening to music and surfing the net for example. My 3700+ never let me do that!

gt

 

[drunkenmaster]

a couple of games use dual cores fairly effectively now but i don't think a single game as of right now "needs" a dual core and has to have stuff disabled to run on a single core. you are very right to think the CPU isn't that important, personally i would grab a 939 dual core if i were you. i don't think its worth going intel at the moment as ddr3 boards and memory is about but very overpriced, it would be better to go for a board/cpu/mem upgrade towards the end of the year with new intel and amd cpu's, ddr3 very likely to become massively available and therefore cheap.

a dual core will be plenty of juice for now and run any game fine, ok, there are a few games that are more cpu limited, like COH, sup com, basically a very limited number of rts's and a few flight sims but there are more rts's and flight sims that aren't cpu limited. the few games that are cpu limited i really couldn't name one that is awful on a single core, especially not a dual core. for instance a single core sup com might get 30fps, 35 on a dual core and 37 ona quad core, but on a very slow game like that 15fps isn't terrible and 20fps + is generally fine.


if you can grab a like £30-40 dual core you'll be fine.

 

[tomanders91]

a couple of games use dual cores fairly effectively now but i don't think a single game as of right now "needs" a dual core and has to have stuff disabled to run on a single core.

Although some might disagree, i personnaly think SupCom needs a dual core for someone to really enjoy it.

 

[nicksource]

CPU defiantly holds the games back, I got the same score on a AMD 3500.

It holds my 8800, stops me maxing out games.

AMD64 3500 (2.2ghz, stock)
1gb DDR (2x 512mb 2700)
BFG 8800GTS OC 320mb

I got on 3dMark06:
5685

 

[fornowagain]

will i see much benefit going from a64 3700 to x2 4400?

The FX60 is the fastest stock 939, but 4800+ are quite cheap now.

Or this should get to an easy 3GHz.

 

[mmacarthur]

Your 8800 card demands a royals royce of a processor, stop abusing it and treat it to something meaty!

The Core2 Duo 6600 is a steal at the moment around £140 I paid almost twice that when I bought mine last August it also o/c's very well on stock.

 

[mmacarthur]

Your 8800 card demands a royals royce of a processor, stop abusing it and treat it to something meaty!

The Core2 Duo 6600 is a steal at the moment around £140 I paid almost twice that when I bought mine last August it also o/c's very well on stock.

My 3DMark06 score is 10600 for whats its worth and Vista 'score' is 5.6, i'm using 8800gtx, 4GB OCZ DDR800, 6600 2.4GHz (2.82GHz), Asus Commando on a Vista x64 OS.

 

[Tute]

I'm sorry to say this and I expect a good flaming but I REALLY don't think the CPU makes as much difference as people say.

I have a friend who runs an X1950 Pro with a 1.4GHz Athlon and he gets a really good gaming experience. He plays Doom 3, Quake 4, and WoW, and he can max out many settings without too much performance hit.

Sure, his framerate is lower than if he was running a Conroe, but some people on this forum make it out like all the new games are going to stutter uncontrollably if you're running a processor less than 12 months old. And it's just plain untrue.

I only upgraded because I wanted to go PCIe anyway. Otherwise my A64 3400+ would be sitting in my Sugo.

 

[drunkenmaster]

CPU defiantly holds the games back, I got the same score on a AMD 3500.

It holds my 8800, stops me maxing out games.

AMD64 3500 (2.2ghz, stock)
1gb DDR (2x 512mb 2700)
BFG 8800GTS OC 320mb

I got on 3dMark06:
5685

see firstly 3dmark isn't agame, also you should only be buying a 8800/2900 series card if you're playing 1680x1050 or above, nothing below, and using high levels of aa/af, and if you run 3dmark at high res with high aa/af then 3dmark isn't cpu limited anymore. but thats still just 3dmark, its got a specific cpu test, games don't. games don't try to render stuff on cpu's thats done better on gpu's.

any game can be run at low res and at a resolution or quality setting well beneath what the card can run at and be shown to be cpu limited. but if you're buying that card you shouldn't be running at low res. its as simple as this, if you run a game say hl2 at 1280x1024 medium quality and no aa/af on a 8800 you'll get like 300fps, thats the level your cpu is capable of working at. even if you go up to 2560x1600 high aa/af and you're running at 30fps, the cpu is STILL capable of running at 300fps, nothing changes for the cpu from low to high res.

 

[JIM_BOB7813]

A better CPU will make a big difference in 3dmark. I can't say anything about fps in games but from my benching:

E4300 @ 1.8GHz
2Gb Ballistix at 667MHz 3-3-3-12
'OcUK' Point of View 8800GTS @ 500/1600 (stock)

3DMark Score 7640 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 3609 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 3627 Marks
CPU Score 1625 Marks


E4300 @ 2.4GHz
2Gb Ballistix at 667MHz 3-3-3-12
'OcUK' Point of View 8800GTS @ 500/1600 (stock)

3DMark Score 8606 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 3945 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 3784 Marks
CPU Score 2127 Marks

It looks like if I took the CPU to near 3GHz then the score would get near 10k.
I couldn't say how much impact the CPU test has on the score but all scores went up when I OC'd my CPU.

EDIT: Just checked and the actual FPS increase in each graphical test ranged from 0.5 - 3.0 fps.

 

[Indy500]

Although some might disagree, i personnaly think SupCom needs a dual core for someone to really enjoy it.

The latest patch has fixed performance issues. It now uses single core CPUs much more effectively.

 

[snowdog]

I'm sorry to say this and I expect a good flaming but I REALLY don't think the CPU makes as much difference as people say.

I have a friend who runs an X1950 Pro with a 1.4GHz Athlon and he gets a really good gaming experience. He plays Doom 3, Quake 4, and WoW, and he can max out many settings without too much performance hit.

Sure, his framerate is lower than if he was running a Conroe, but some people on this forum make it out like all the new games are going to stutter uncontrollably if you're running a processor less than 12 months old. And it's just plain untrue.

I only upgraded because I wanted to go PCIe anyway. Otherwise my A64 3400+ would be sitting in my Sugo.

Lmao say that to supcom players, 1.4 ghz athlon? My mate is complaining in supcom with his 3500+ @ 2.4 ghz, his fps drops to 3 fps with 4 players and a 750 unit limit, he has to limit the game to 250 units per players to make the game playable.
Supcom needs a dualcore to run with a nice ammount of layers (4-6) with a decent unit cap ( 750-1000 ) and needs a quadcore to run 8 players...

Max out almost anything in Doom 3, Quake 4, WoW ?
I max out Everything in them 3 games while I have a gfx card with 50% less juice... ( 6800GS ) .

You don't need a conroe yet for games, you do need a pentium D or X2 though for some games (or any dualcore/dual cpu).

Really if you don't believe me, try supcom on any singlecore (even if you have an uber super overclocked 5 ghz athlon 4000+ or an uber overclocked p4 (with ht disabled ) @ 8 ghz ) with 8 players and 1k unit limit, regardless of your gfx card and gfx settings the game will grind to a halt when every ai will get near 500 units or more, you wont get mroe as 5 fps out of it...

 

[pegasus1]

As the res goes up and you add AA/AF then the GPU takes more of a hit.
Games i have noticed a huge difference in CPU include Lock-On (LOMAC) which saw a bigger performance boost at 1600x1200 when going from a 3700SD to a 6300c2d than when going from a 7800gtx to a 8800gtx.
In MTW2 and COH i noticed a significant performance boost when i put my 7800gtx into the C2D system, it realy flew once i added the 8800gtx.
At lower Res's the GPU has less work to do therefore the CPU becomes the bottleneck (as long as you have enough RAM).
Go over to TOMS hardware and see if they have any CPU performance tables using different processors with 88xx cards.