most important? Processor or Graphics Card?

[Wilem27]

Hi there,
I want to upgrade my sons PC, because it gets to old to play modern games like Call of Duty 5, Elder Scrolls 5, etc.
Because our budget is limited, I planned on using an intel i5-processor, and a ATI HD5770 graphics card. And an appropriate, matching motherboard.

I have 2 questions
1) Will it be better to buy the cheaper intel i3-processor, and use that money for a better graphics card.
2) Any suggestions for a good, matching motherboard (no overclocking, or other fancy stuff)??

Thanks
Wilem27

[LiNuX]

It would be better to go for a cheaper processor and get a better graphics card. And if you're budget is low, why not go for AMD instead of Intel? You'd save quite a bit going for an Athlon II or even a Phenom processor.

And if you're upgrading the motherboard, you may have to upgrade RAM as well. You'd have to check what kind of ram you have (e.g. DDR2) and what kind the motherboard supports.

[Synge]

In regards to gaming GPU is more important, and if you're going ATI/AMD I'd suggest a 6000 series card.

Also, are you planning on getting the new Sandy Bridge processor or an older gen chip? If you're going for the latter I'd recommend going AMD, you can get a quad core clocked at > 3 GHz for little more than $100, which would leave you with plenty of cash to grab a top tier GPU.

Edit: Ninja'd by Linux :P

[Wilem27]

Thanks for your quick reactions, LINuX and Synge.
I was thinking about Sandy Bridge, because it is a new generation. Besides that: in the top of processor-benckmarks there are mostly intel-processors and only a few AMD-six-cores. Furthermore: I read that games only use 4 cores. The 4-core AMD-processors were very low in the ranking of the benchmarks.
Are you sure quad-core AMD-processors are oké for gaming??

[LiNuX]

I'm still on my dual core athlon from 4 years ago. Runs current games just fine.

I can't play everything on high settings because my parts are old and are getting worn out but it still runs games with ease with low to mid settings. (I still play games like LoL and L4D2 on high settings just fine, I had to lower my BFBC2 settings to low because CPU is getting old).

So a new quad core should be better than ok.

[Wilem27]

Thanks LINuX,

but what is 'BFBC2'?

[LiNuX]

Battlefield Bad Company 2.

It's on low settings because I play it on full screen. I play most of my games on windowed mode - easier to tab out and uses less resources from the gpu.

[Exentenzed]

Battlefield Bad Company 2.

It's on low settings because I play it on full screen. I play most of my games on windowed mode - easier to tab out and uses less resources from the gpu.

But playing in windowed puts more stress on CPU aswell dosent it? :/

[LiNuX]

No, or maybe it depends. But I've always seen it use less resources overall when playing on windowed mode. Discovered that playing CS years ago when I compared speeds playing in window and full screen modes.

[Synge]

What benchmarks were you looking at? AMD won't perform as well as intel in general but they still produce solid CPUs (and as Linux said, even dual cores run most games with no problem), and at a much better price point for what you're getting.

I have a Phenom II x4 clocked @ 3.4 paired with an HD 6850 and can max all of my games no problem.

However, if you're looking at Sandy Bridge, I won't try to persuade you into going AMD.. Not only will you be getting excellent performance but the pricing of SB is very reasonable as well.

[Exentenzed]

No, or maybe it depends. But I've always seen it use less resources overall when playing on windowed mode. Discovered that playing CS years ago when I compared speeds playing in window and full screen modes.

Damn! Thats good to know since i actually prefer playing in windowed. :)

[Saph]

CPUs are pretty well powered up these days, and even the lesser CPUs can keep up with modern day video games(My 3 years outdated Core 2 Quad Q8200 has no trouble giving decent - good FPS in most games).

GPUs however, are the components that directly process and use the graphics information coming from the games(therefor Graphics Card, lol). If you have an old graphics card, it'll support less graphics engines, and be incapable of showing high resolutions and textures, therefor greatly decreasing the graphics(most games today have a minimum for what the GPU does, since there's the lowest graphics setting possible, and if your GPU is too old to even support that, the game will either not even run at all, or run with VERY low FPS, as in horrible lag)

So my advice to you is deal with a slower CPU, and go get a better GPU.

In the future, maybe you'd also want to update the CPU, can't ever hurt.

But don't think they're the only 2 things important, make sure you have enough RAM too.

I have 8GB of DDR3 RAM, which is plenty for me at the moment, and I think you could do okay with the same or alittle less, like 6, but I think 4 would be too little. And make sure its DDR3 RAM, DDR2 is way outdated. I think there may even be an even newer kind of RAM, but not sure what its called.

[Wilem27]

Thanks Saph!!

[Synge]

I have 8GB of DDR3 RAM, which is plenty for me at the moment, and I think you could do okay with the same or alittle less, like 6, but I think 4 would be too little. And make sure its DDR3 RAM, DDR2 is way outdated. I think there may even be an even newer kind of RAM, but not sure what its called.

4 GBs is plenty of RAM for gaming at this time. RAM is cheap though, and unless you have a really tight budget I'd say try to go for 6.

[Wilem27]

Hi Saph and Synge,
I was wondering: some time ago I read that a 32-bits-Windows PC (our PC's at home all have 32-bit Windows 7) can only 'use' or 'adress' (I don't know the correct word) 3 Gb of RAM. If that is true: why take 6 or even 8 Gb of RAM??
Can you help me out here??

[Synge]

That's correct, 32-bit Windows is limited to a max of 4 GB and only uses 3 GB of it.

You'd need a 64 bit OS if you wanted more.

[Wilem27]

Oké, thanks

[Psychotray]

Both, Graphics Card and Processor are equally important, processor determines the speed of your PC, Laptop, whatever etc. And the graphics card determines the speed, the detail, the graphics, of a game or program which involves graphics in it.

[BobTD]

CPUs are pretty well powered up these days, and even the lesser CPUs can keep up with modern day video games(My 3 years outdated Core 2 Quad Q8200 has no trouble giving decent - good FPS in most games).

GPUs however, are the components that directly process and use the graphics information coming from the games(therefor Graphics Card, lol). If you have an old graphics card, it'll support less graphics engines, and be incapable of showing high resolutions and textures, therefor greatly decreasing the graphics(most games today have a minimum for what the GPU does, since there's the lowest graphics setting possible, and if your GPU is too old to even support that, the game will either not even run at all, or run with VERY low FPS, as in horrible lag)

So my advice to you is deal with a slower CPU, and go get a better GPU.

In the future, maybe you'd also want to update the CPU, can't ever hurt.

But don't think they're the only 2 things important, make sure you have enough RAM too.

I have 8GB of DDR3 RAM, which is plenty for me at the moment, and I think you could do okay with the same or alittle less, like 6, but I think 4 would be too little. And make sure its DDR3 RAM, DDR2 is way outdated. I think there may even be an even newer kind of RAM, but not sure what its called.

I run any of my almost 200 games on max setting just fine on 4GB DDR3. The only game that seems to want more is minecraft. =P

[Exentenzed]

I also agree that having a modern CPU is close to equally important for a gaming PC as the GPU.

While it is true that GPU handles the Graphics engine and as such, everything involved with that (Lighting, Shaders, Rendering), a game isnt only comprised of a graphics engine. There is alot of coding that tells the PC what to do with the graphics engine and the more complex the engine, the more CPU is required to run the game.

Also, unless you are going for Nvidia GPU's which have a internal CPU to calculate physics in games and applications, all physics in games will be handled by a PC's CPU.

P.S: Im not saying that buying Nvidia is the right choice but from benchmarks you can look at it like this

ATI GPU's = Has better GPU's but will require a decent CPU to calculate physics in addition to running the game itself. (Almost all newer games has some form of physics engine.)

Nvidia GPU's = Not quite as good as ATI cards at handling graphics but the cards come with an additional CPU within it to process Physics, leaving you with more affordable options when it comes to CPU's.

1 more thing, remember when you are buying RAM that you should always make sure that you have all pieces of ram containing the same amount.

I.E: If you buy one ram chip with 1024mb Ram, make sure all the others are also 1024mb.