CPU Vs GPU

[Alan]

I relearned a valuable lesson tonight. For best performance, the fastest graphics card is more important than the fastest CPU.

In a moment of idle boredom, I set my fsb to half it's normal rate thus giving me a 1.5GHz CPU. I ran 3D Mark 2001 and got the same score with the 9800 Pro as I used to get from a mildly overclocked Radeon 9500 Pro and a CPU running at 2.7GHz.

Running at 1.5GHz made no subjective difference to browsing, Office apps. browsing large picture folders with Paint Shop Pro, - even playing MotoGP2

Is this your experience? Provided your CPU isn't deathly slow, the graphics card is all important?

[J-Pepper]

you sure you meant 3dmark01?

as this version *loves* fsb and cpu power.

3dmark03 on the otherhadn enables you to get roughly the same score with a graphics card whether you run a 3GHz intel HT rig or a duron 800MHz rig

edit: read it wrong... different graphics cards, thought they were the same card!

in that case... sounds about right i reckon

[calnen]

I recently built a cheap gaming rig using an athlon 1.33 Ghz cpu, and it runs games just as well (better because of memory and mobo) as my P4-2ghz when I use the same card at the same speeds.

Graphics cards generally are more important for games than processors, as long as the cpu isnt so bad it bottlenecks your system.

[LANcaster]

UT 2003/4 and Halo are quite CPU intensive (as well as GPU intensive), so you do need a decent CPU to play them.
I would imagine that Half Life 2 and Doom 3 will be the same when they come out.

[RobUK]

Theres no replacement for a really decent GFX card but with games employing more and more physics engines and AI you do need a decent CPU to take care of things there,

Theres no point having a 9800pro or 5950U if you CPU slows it down processing ragdoll physics and the like.

But yep in bechmarks it isnt that important, My bro gets within 100 points when my card is in his comp compared to when its in mine and theres nearly 1.5 GHZ difference and 256mb Ram !!???

[J-Pepper]

3dmark03??

Even if the bench was done on a p166 and a p4 3Ghz, the overall result would be very similar, withen a few hundred marks... because 03 is a gpu benchmark.

3dmark01 on the other hadn shouldn't be that close... could be bandwidth issues, ram timings or more reasonably settings in the windows display properties... or one computer is really crap!

[oweneades]

ok this may be a tupid question but wouldn't the score on 3dmark 03 drop quite alot when a slower processor is involved due the cpu tests. I take it in my case the athlon is trying to draw the game 1 and game 2 scenes, lol just manages 3 frames a sec in that bit with the 2 trolls.

[njg291075]

I've tested 4 different graphics card recently on my Hell machine (see sig) using 3Dmark2k1SE and the result speak for themselves really:

TNT2 32Mb = 874
7200 32Mb = 2790
9600 Pro = 4870
9700 Pro = 6564

I've run the 9700 on my other rig but having removed it ready for selling, I can't get the results but it was well into the tens of thousands of points :)

[bleecher]

Originally posted by J-Pepper
3dmark03??

Even if the bench was done on a p166 and a p4 3Ghz, the overall result would be very similar, withen a few hundred marks... because 03 is a gpu benchmark.



WTF?!?!?!?!?!

u talk utter crap my friend, i understand what you are stating but a P166? for a start 3Dmark03 DOES use FSB and bandwidth in a very similar and if not more intensive way that 3Dmark01! why? because of the ragdoll physics! id LOVE to see a p166 calculate these instructions at a decent rate - and the performance of this is measured because its used in all the tests that count! if u used a p166 you wouldnt even get a score because the damn thing would crash!- well providing u can get a p166 board to actually run 3Dmark03! oh and of course the CPU tests, these initiate the advanced instruction set on ur CPU and get it to execute instructions - so good luck!

u wouldnt see any major difference only if the CPU is of the same genration of the compared machine, and with 1Ghz difference of speed!

[J-Pepper]

okok an extreme example :P

but you get my point?